Self-Checking Out Workers

On this May Day – the day recognized around the world except in the US as the International Workingman's Day (or Woman's, or fill in your gender here) – I realized that we, the workers, in the interest of saving ourselves some time are helping the 1% outsource jobs in the local stores that we use.

I noticed this at the local Tops where there are numerous check out lanes and then there is the self-check out section.

In the regular lanes you will see one cashier checking/cashing out one customer.

In the self check-out lane you will see one cashier checking out four (or more) customers simultaneously. And it is the customer doing the bulk of the work for the cashier. They are just monitoring us to make sure that we are doing their job for them properly and not stealing anything.

Think about that for a minute – When we use the self checkout lane, we are taking jobs away from the cashiers. And at Tops – they are unionized. Granted, I hear complaints about the union and how weak it is. But it is a union and the union is as strong as its members make it.

So we are taking jobs away from unionized workers. I'm not sure about other stores that use self check out. I know Wal-Mart has self check-out and is fighting unionization.

In manufacturing (like General Motors, Ford, Caterpillar, etc) it was machines replacing the workers. Sometimes under the guise of making the work easier to do. Using a lift or pneumatic tool to do what used to be done by hand by several people.

In Tops and other stores – it's us replacing them and we aren't even being paid for it or given a discount.

Remember – the goal of the capitalists is to make as much of a profit as possible in any way possible. So they want to get the workers to do more work for less money. They will use mechanization and outsourcing to achieve this goal.

In stores with self check out they are in-sourcing the work force and not even paying them – that is us, the customer.

So we can go around with our $15 NOW signs, protest and sign petitions all we want, and then watch the 1% introduce self check-out in order to get around the $15 NOW demands.

It's sort of defeating the purpose of $15 NOW because now they can cut the number of workers needed down and reduce the cashiers down to part time status, which will make their wages what it was before $15 NOW and cut their benefits. So if they received health insurance before, they might not be eligible for it. Or they could get the insurance but wind up paying more for it and watching their pay checks get shrunk even more.

So, in honor of our fellow workers – Do NOT use self check out.

It's time we stopped supporting the1%s drive to outsource us all.