In a viral video, a Target employee said she got scheduled for fewer hours because Target was trying to balance out the revenue loss from their Pride section backlash.
In the clip, TikToker Kaitlin Sondae (@kaitlinsondae) is filming herself in what appears to be Target’s skin care aisle. She looks left to right and into the camera before breaking into a smile as she lip-syncs the “haha nice” audio she used to accompany the video.
“When you get scheduled 17 hrs cuz Target last 9 billion dollars for having a Pride section,” she wrote in a text overlay.
Kaitlin is referring to the fact that Target is pulling some of its pride merchandise after facing backlash from conservatives and extremists who have also made threats against workers’ safety.
“People need [to] calm down and just live their lives and not care about what others do,” she said in the caption.
@kaitlinsondae People need calm down and just live their lives and not care about what others do #targetpride #targetpridecollection #targetemployee #targetworker ♬ Haha nice – Jack
Pride Month is a yearly celebration throughout June that celebrates the history, joy, and pride of the LGBTQIA+ community. Many major cities in the United States hold pride parades and other programming.
“Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior,” the retailer announced in a statement in late May.
The company also said they’d continue their “more than a decade” support of the LGBTQIA+ community.
However, the company’s approach to “standing with them” has been criticized.
“If [Target is] going to wade in on this, and they’re going to put support out there for the LGBTQ+ population, I think once they enter that fray they have a responsibility to stand by that community,” Michael Edison Hayden, a senior investigative reporter and spokesperson for the Southern Poverty Law Center, told NPR.
“As soon as you back down like this, you send a message that intimidation works, and that makes it much scarier than if you had never started to begin with.”
While Kaitlin mentioned that the company lost $9 billion, that figure is representative of the company’s stock value loss (a figure that fluctuates), according to Fox News.
Her video has nearly 345,000 views and 1,000 comments after just one day on the platform. In the comments section, several Target workers said they’ve also gotten fewer hours recently.
“Is that why i only got 10?!?? omg….” one person wrote.
“I work at the target warehouse n we actually lost hours,” another commented.
The Daily Dot contacted Kaitlin and Target for comment via email.
