There's Only One Sherwin

Ranked by economic impact wage theft is the costliest crime in the United States totaling more than $50 billion in 2019, the most recent year for which data exists.  That same year the value of all property stolen totaled just $13 billion according to the FBI, making it more likely an American will be robbed by their employer than by an immigrant here illegally.

According to the National Employment Law Project (NELP), an advocacy group working to protect worker’s rights wage theft costs the average employee $51 each week or almost $3,000 a year.  Stolen from the pockets of hourly workers while the aggregated billions line the pockets of criminal corporations.

In 2009 the NELP audited the time sheets of thousands of workers and found that 26% had been victims of wage theft with studies since then suggesting the problem may be much worse than that, impacting as many as 39% of all American workers.

Like most crimes wage theft is devious, a heist so well-orchestrated it leaves victims little recourse beyond go along or quit. And if they choose to stay they better shut up about it or face consequences of a vindictive system such as reduced or less favorable hours or other retaliations victims of wage theft often complain about.

In 2020 Sherwin-Williams settled a lawsuit with their employees in California who claimed the company failed to pay overtime, offer meal breaks and demanded off the clock work alleging three of the seven wage thefts.  Store managers would force employees to punch out and on the way home but make deliveries on the way without paying them for that time.

Or for the expenses they incurred delivering Sherwin’s paint, practices which continue to this day at Sherwin-Williams according to my sources.

Trolling the sub-Reddit for Sherwin-Williams employees I’m having no trouble finding those willing to participate in my investigation, often after a conversation about the first amendment and their fears of retribution.

My posts there incited responses from a low triple digit number of Sherwin-Williams employees over the last two weeks, including employees from their stores, distribution centers, manufacturing facilities, laboratories and the corporate HQ in Cleveland, Ohio. 

Where readership last week was particularly high.

It was CEO Heidi Petz’s greed which conspired with her inexperience and lack of empathy to allow this perversion of judgement.  Petz saved a mere $165 million when she cut the 401(k) match, less than a nickel from each gallon of Pro-Mar.

An act which felt petty to her staff of 60,000.

Among those who have reached out there’s been no support for Petz, who garnered little confidence from her employees even before this disastrous action. An action which looks more like executive malpractice than the outcome of any thoughtful process.

On the sub Reddit Sherwin employees openly express their disdain for Ms. Petz including one poster who promises a meme a day until she’s gone.  Judging from Petz’s performance they won’t have to keep it up long.

And it was not just her employees questioning Petz’s acumen last week, the finance bros I was in touch with called the move “desperate,” “perplexing” and “mystifying.” 

They believed that because just one month ago on a webcast with these same analysts Petz reported second quarter earnings for Sherwin-Williams approaching $1 billion net.  Spreading her own misinformation Petz used a presentation slide entitled “Strong Financial Position” to further emphasize her point. Just one month later that stregnth had succumbed to “economic pressures which remain significant.” 

A reality bending reminder of Gassenheimer’s orderly wind-down. 

Petz called the move a temporary making it all the more vexing.  Her willingness to cause such harm and withstand its effects just to borrow a few pennies from her employee’s 401(k) seems worse than desperate, perplexing or mystifying to me. Rather the move seems more an incompetent endeavor to maintain the price of her stock.

In an email to employees announcing the cut Petz admits she mislead the finance bros a month earlier before invoking “One Sherwin” to get through this time together. Like Buckeye Nation and Yankees Universe One Sherwin is a call to coalesce around a common bond, one Petz does not share with most members of her team.

Trespassing since the Valspar acquisition Petz is seen by most as an outsider at Sherwin, so her use of that phrase can elicit a vitriolic response. A get my wife’s name out your fucking mouth level of hostility towards Petz which makes me think she should take Will Smith’s advice and drop that phrase from her vernacular.

THE Influencer

Last week a poster on Reddit implored his coworkers not to fall for my entreaties convinced that my motivation was not support of Sherwin employees but rather to drive volume to my former employer Benjamin Moore.

Influencing paint’s macroeconomics would be no small feat and were that skill within my realm I would brag it here, though I appreciated the compliment.