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They eliminated cashiers and keep the profits. NY Democrats are fighting back. (thelemmy.club)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/workreform@lemmy.world
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[–] 50 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (5 children)

It also doesn't really make sense to do it as a percentage. A cashier's wage is typically hourly, and the labor market has settled on a particular wage for cashiers in this area - say $15/hr.

If I have a $150 grocery bill, a 10% discount would be $15. For maybe 5 minutes of work. Working out to an hourly wage of $180/hr (60/5 = 12, 12 * 15 = 180).

So if they're saying "we should be compensating customers for being made to do labor", they'd be compensating them at roughly 12x the going rate for cashiers in this example.

Now if it's just meant to be punitive, OK. But then why not actually address the real issue: displacement of workers by technology and passing the labor burden on to unpaid consumers - either make that illegal or tax the company to help mitigate the harm it's causing by eliminating jobs.

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  • [–] 34 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    For the last point, it is easier to tax unfavored behavior into the ground than it is to outright forbid it. That's why sin taxes exist after all.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 weeks ago* (3 children)

    I don't think it would be difficult to outright forbid self-checkout at all, actually.

    There's a difference between enforcing laws on individuals and enforcing laws on businesses. Businesses can't exactly run and hide, if they're using self-checkout they're going to get found out. That's distinct from something like the drug trade, which is all underground and hidden.

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  • [–] 13 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    Some people fucking love self checkout. If you ban it, you'll have disability advocacy groups up your arse on behalf of autistic people and others with social anxiety.

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  • [–] 10 points 3 weeks ago

    ADA compliance will kill the entire thing. You can't charge someone for accommodation of a disability that prevents them from using the self checkout. All the human-staffed registers will be posted as handicap accessible, and they will default to the "discounted" self-checkout price.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago

    when I recently went back to using a staffed lane, I told the folks I had anxiety about being in the lane, and the cashiers comforted me.

    I have social anxiety, practicing in the staff lane, has helped me with this. At least, in this small area of life.

    I get the point, but if a person doesnt ever push themselves, they wont grow.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    Sure, I'm just saying, this wouldn't be a hard law to enforce.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    It would be a very dumb law that has zero chance of passing. It would be like banning cars to keep horses employed.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    My concern here is less about enforcement and more about getting the law passed and through the court system in the first place.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    If I have a $150 grocery bill, a 10% discount would be $15.

    If you have a $150 grocery bill, it's being hiked to ~$166.66 before you get to the checkout. Then the 10% discount is bringing it back down to the $150 you were paying before. The net discount is zero: you're paying exactly what you're paying now.

    If you keep going to the cashier after this, you're paying the company the hiked price, which gives them an extra $16.66 for maybe 5 minutes of cashier labor. The company turns around and pays the cashier $1.66, netting an extra $15 from you for their shareholders.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago

    Cost of labor, overhead, and profit are already accounted for in that $150 price of the goods. That's why the store charges $150 for them - because that's what covers the wages, overhead, and includes the maximum markup they can get away with (~3% margin for grocery stores afaik).

    All I'm saying is, they do have to be able to cover costs. So because of that and their thin margins, they'd just hike prices (probably more than they'd need to take advantage of the situation).

    So it makes more sense to either tax them for avoiding using human labor and passing that labor on to customers (to help pay for the drain they're placing on the economy by not hiring people), or just ban the practice outright. Couple that with price controls to ensure they can't unfairly inflate prices. Things they can't avoid rather than a fee they can hike prices to avoid.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    or tax the company to help mitigate the harm it’s causing by eliminating jobs.

    Well. Discounting items in self-checkout is actually a tax on the company for using self-checkout.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    But not one that relates to the thing that we're trying to stop them from doing. Cashiers aren't paid per item scanned, they don't get commission. They are paid an hourly wage.

    If you wanted to pay customers a rebate for their labor at the market rate for a cashier, or one set by the state, that'd make sense to eliminate the gains the company receives from automation.

    So 5 minutes of work at $15/hr = $1.25. So not much, but it mitigates the benefit of not hiring people.

    Though, it's still a benefit because you pay a person whether they're actively working or not and you have to pay tax on human labor (contributing to social security, etc) so maybe hiking it higher than whatever the typical wage is for cashiers would make sense.

    But either way, 10% doesn't make sense.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 weeks ago

    The problem with your logic is that I can scan the items slower and make the compensation more fair, if I scan the items 12x slower then I'm being paid a fair wage for that 150$ purchase.

    So am I being punished for being fast?

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