Former employees of Livraria Cultura recount an internal war against their bosses.

247 - A text published on the Passa Palavra blog reveals the dispute that took place at Livraria Cultura between employees and owners. Through interviews, several unidentified employees recount a series of conflicts, persecutions, and retaliations from both sides in one of the largest bookstore chains in the country, which is feeling the effects of Brazil's economic crisis. 

Read an excerpt from the text below:

The underground war at the flagship store.

Colleague 2: The story really began on Christmas 2015. On December 23rd, 2015, they fired half the team again. They fired a lot of people from the sales team on Christmas Eve because they weren't needed anymore. Christmas was already here… they'd already sold what they had to sell, they didn't need them anymore… they let them go. But, when the New Year passed, the "Back to School" season began. The "Back to School" season starts with an absurdly large workflow, you start receiving a lot of books, a lot of products, a lot of school supply lists, customers calling, customers in the store… and we didn't have the staff to handle all of that. To give you an idea, in the department where I work, on the floor where I work, there are about seven phone lines and there were only two of us on that floor. Two people to answer seven phone lines. Besides the customers who came in person… We couldn't keep up. So, what happened? We started prioritizing phone calls first, in-person service second, and finally, organizing the store… there was almost never enough time. But the products kept arriving.

Colleague 1: It got to a point – this was at the end of January, I don't know, mid-February… – where the stacks of books were almost reaching the ceiling. Because they kept arriving and piling up, you'd just throw them overboard, they'd keep piling up, and the stacks would reach the ceiling! We couldn't serve customers in the store because we couldn't find the book, because it was in the middle of the piles… we were practically swimming in the piles, but there was nothing we could do!

Colleague 2: So, on February 21st, 2016, an administrative employee passed by the store, saw its state, took a picture, and sent it to the president. A few hours later, the entire administrative building – everyone, HR, cleaning staff, security, everyone you can imagine – was forced to go down to the store and start cleaning. They did a massive cleaning effort that lasted from about 16 or 17 pm until 9 am the next day. They worked straight through the night. And then we get to the fateful day, if I'm not mistaken, it's February 22nd. When I arrived at work, all those people from administration who had worked all night were still there…

Interviewer: Even the outsourced companies?

Colleague 1: My, outsourced, company employee, everyone stayed! I think it went into a time bank. (They never paid overtime to anyone...)

Colleague 2: Well, when I got there in the morning, the company owner was giving a speech. He was the one holding the meeting. The morning meeting is usually held by the manager, right? It's like a warm-up meeting, they have it every day. That day, the owner was holding the meeting. And that's when the shit hit the fan: he humiliated a lot of people, he praised the administrative staff a lot for working all night, and he really humiliated the people on the sales floor – the salespeople, the sales assistants, the store managers… he humiliated them a lot. He said he didn't know what we were doing there, that we didn't know what we were doing there either, and that since we didn't know, he could choose for us… He said the store was a pigsty and that we were pigs and that, since we weren't making a decision, he was going to make a decision for us: “Anyone who doesn't agree with what I'm saying can go to HR right now, I'll pay all their entitlements, I'll make sure to fire them!” He repeated that three times. But it was a bluff, and he hadn't counted on almost the entire company going to HR.

Colleague 3: He'd done this in other stores before, this bluff wasn't new, but people are too afraid of him… nobody's going to stand up and say, “Okay, I'll go to HR.” Nobody does that.

Colleague 1: But this time he fell off his horse… The whole store went down with him.

(…)

Read the full article on Word of mouth.