Tesco Introduce slave labour
Unemployee of Tesco | 19.08.2008 01:00 | Globalisation | Social Struggles | Liverpool
Tesco are using customers as unpaid checkout staff in a significant breach of health and safety and employment related legislation.
Tesco Old Swan (Liverpool) has started to introduce compulsory use of staffless checkouts. These machines are primarily designed to turn customers into unpaid staff.
The process is simple enough. You, the customer, scan the barcodes on all of your shopping and the machine calculates the bill it will charge you. This is not self service as the machine calculates the bill. The customer would have been carrying the goods in any case so, the service is to Tesco not the customer.
This service to Tesco involves the correct use of a machine for which the public have never been correctly trained to any certified level of competence. This is a serious breach of the principles of Health and Safety Legislation as the machine apparently contains a laser for scanning the barcodes. Customers are being expected to operate potentially hazardous machinery without training. Tesco does not extend workplace insurance to such customers and so the entire process becomes unpaid labour carried out at your own risk. Since the isles were blocked for a stock take - placing hazards in the path of the public - it seems evident that Health and Safety is not a principal concern at Tesco.
The machine calculates incorrect bills placing items on the printout that were not purchased or scanned through. The automated process charges what the machine determines should be charged. When the machine calculated charge is incorrect this requires a visit to customer services in order to get a refund. Yet, customer services are not available for all of the hours that the machines are in operation. Thus leading to a significant cost being placed onto the customer in being made to pursue trivial billing problems at personal expense. This shift from being a customer to being an unpaid employee is an obvious way for Tesco to reduce staffing overhead but also requires a public subsidy to operate.
If there are no permanent staff around then a bill can not be disputed. This, in principle, would seem to lead, logically, to the situation where Tesco will claim that the machine was correct and the unpaid staff or customer wrong. Should someone be paying by credit card, they may never know that their till roll was incorrect.
While it may be inconvenient to Tesco, the most sensible route for anybody using such machines would be to check the till roll before parting with any cash or credit card details. Currently this is not possible - yet it requires only a small system change to print the till roll out for checking before taking any cash. Financial mistakes might well be trivial on an individual basis but will accumulate to millions over the course of a year and many locations. This will make profits healthier but is a serious and systematic abuse of consumer rights.
The process is simple enough. You, the customer, scan the barcodes on all of your shopping and the machine calculates the bill it will charge you. This is not self service as the machine calculates the bill. The customer would have been carrying the goods in any case so, the service is to Tesco not the customer.
This service to Tesco involves the correct use of a machine for which the public have never been correctly trained to any certified level of competence. This is a serious breach of the principles of Health and Safety Legislation as the machine apparently contains a laser for scanning the barcodes. Customers are being expected to operate potentially hazardous machinery without training. Tesco does not extend workplace insurance to such customers and so the entire process becomes unpaid labour carried out at your own risk. Since the isles were blocked for a stock take - placing hazards in the path of the public - it seems evident that Health and Safety is not a principal concern at Tesco.
The machine calculates incorrect bills placing items on the printout that were not purchased or scanned through. The automated process charges what the machine determines should be charged. When the machine calculated charge is incorrect this requires a visit to customer services in order to get a refund. Yet, customer services are not available for all of the hours that the machines are in operation. Thus leading to a significant cost being placed onto the customer in being made to pursue trivial billing problems at personal expense. This shift from being a customer to being an unpaid employee is an obvious way for Tesco to reduce staffing overhead but also requires a public subsidy to operate.
If there are no permanent staff around then a bill can not be disputed. This, in principle, would seem to lead, logically, to the situation where Tesco will claim that the machine was correct and the unpaid staff or customer wrong. Should someone be paying by credit card, they may never know that their till roll was incorrect.
While it may be inconvenient to Tesco, the most sensible route for anybody using such machines would be to check the till roll before parting with any cash or credit card details. Currently this is not possible - yet it requires only a small system change to print the till roll out for checking before taking any cash. Financial mistakes might well be trivial on an individual basis but will accumulate to millions over the course of a year and many locations. This will make profits healthier but is a serious and systematic abuse of consumer rights.
Unemployee of Tesco
Comments
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Not only Tesco.
19.08.2008 06:02
Mobility scooter user.
Unidentified item in the bagging area
19.08.2008 08:38
Mile
There are a few of these near me
19.08.2008 09:32
Personally, I'm glad people think that they're complicated and dangerous as it means I don't have to queue.
Steve
Apples and Potatos
19.08.2008 10:19
What a load of bollocks.
madness
Re-Code.com - name your own price
19.08.2008 10:33
every little counts
Complaining over nothing?
19.08.2008 10:41
More seriously though, I can't see any real health hazard, at least nothing more dangerous than crossing the carpark to get to tesco in the first place...? I really don't see this is anything all that concerning and we certainly shouldn't be calling it slave labour- try telling that to the kids that work their fingers to the bone in sweatshops for no money. And here we complain that we have to pass a loaf of bread over a barcode and into a plastic bag and call it slave labor, unpaid work etc? I don't think so...
Happy Shopper
Don't trivialise slave labour
19.08.2008 11:52
The claim that it is "slave labour" for a shopper to swipe a few of their items across a bar-code, is, as others have pointed out deeply tasteless, when real slave labour still exists and workers employed in factories in Bangladesh subcontracted to Tescos are being exploited.
There are questions to be asked about whether the electronic systems are killing off British jobs. But, given how low-paid, mechanistic, low-status and dead-end those jobs, they may not be the best jobs to be fighting for.
Norville B
This is my head this is my sand
19.08.2008 12:12
That is how much Tesco will, nominally, save.
Thats 2215 stores in the UK. Lets say an average of ten checkouts. per store. (280,373 Staff you know). So that would be 2215 x 10 x 8 x 5.52 x 365.25 = £3,572,670.96
How trivial is that?
It also falls outside of Tesco's Corporate Governance Policy. That Tesco itself decided upon.
That money is paid for by consumers. Every penny in Tescos pocket comes from a consumer. So, really, how trivial is that? Do you have getting on for four million to squander?
Complaining about nothing
Just don't use them!
19.08.2008 12:15
Personally I am not too keen on the machines as they are designed to reduce employment. One could say however they generate employment elsewhere - in the technical/knowledge sector. However if we agree that there will always be a need for manual and non-intellectual jobs then the introduction of these machines reduces that kind of employment. On that basis I tend to queue and explain to staff who suggest I use a machine that I am helping them keep their job :o)
I don't get annoyed with them though, even if one or two look at me like I have two green heads. It is worth bearing in mind that they are obliged by Tesco (certainly my one anyway) to encourage customers to use the machines.
Jon
This does not trivialise Slave Labour
19.08.2008 12:29
I agree that Developing World Slave Labour should not be trivialised. A commitment to human dignity is not something you can reserve for "worthy" causes. Dignity is something people deserve regardless of place in the world.
In claiming that Tesco are utilising Slave Labour in the UK it highlights their commitment to zero workers rights and zero pay. It highlights that Tesco are commited to a particular way of behaving. It is hugely offensive but it is not trivialising. To use the word slavery was intentionally provocative: why should customers be compelled to take away jobs from employees? That creates the conditions in which slave labour can flourish. It is not simply about people being enslaved but also about the social and economic conditions that sustain slavery. Perhaps a better word might have been "enslaving" but that simply detracts from the central point.
Others have pointed out that it creates an opportunity for creating discounts. That begs the question of why should people be stealing? Why should I be made responsible for any mistakes that machine makes - and they will make mistakes? Tesco are using machines that fundamentally shift the relationship between buyer and seller. That creates conditions of enslavement.
Just as you might not object to the phrase "wage slave." Now consider using the phrase "consumer slave." It is not about hurt feeling or trivialising. It is about a genuine erosion of cunsumer rights.
Unemployee of Tesco
Complaining about nothing
19.08.2008 12:41
rogue
Boycott the robot tills!
19.08.2008 13:08
Stop using them. And if the queues to get a real operator are too long, demand that they employ more people and put more staff on the tills!
Bj
Rogue might be right.
19.08.2008 13:13
So I was wrong. Tesco would be saving nearer to £14m. Which comes out of consumer pockets.
complaining about nothing
One upon a time ...
19.08.2008 14:03
Then these newfangled supermarkets came along, and people [shock! horror!] had to fetch thinigs for themselves. Slave labour!!
And I remember when a little man at the petrol station came and filled your tank for you. Now you have to do it yourself. SLAVE LABOUR, that's what I say.
Grocer
Erm....
19.08.2008 14:27
Dobbs
Consumers' pockets?
19.08.2008 14:36
Slavery requires that you are forced to do something. You don't have to shop at Tescos if you feel you're so malcoordinated you might zap your eye out with a barcode scanner. Calling it slavery is not a clever bit of attention grabbing, it's just crass. If you want to read about modern slavery linked to Tesco's, I'd recommend the reports by War on Want on the textiles industry.
As for the "it's all going to come out of consumers' pockets" claim - you seem to have your economics backwards.
If Tesco's can pay fewer people and lower their overheads it is going to mean they can compete more with other supermarkets and sell their products at a lower price. Which means consumers spending *less* money.
It's the same reason Amazon sells DVDs cheaper than HMV, or Lovefilm is cheaper than Blockbuster. The organisations with fewer staff to pay, and more mechanised processes, can afford to provide stuff to consumers more cheaply.
The consumers will benefit. The taxpayers, on the other hand, may lose out if they have to pay to support those made redundant by Tescos. It may affect you as a taxpayer, but it may make things better for you as a consumer.
Norville B
If Slavery is nonconsensual labour
19.08.2008 16:28
I am malcoordinated and make no excuse for that. As are a large number of elderly people and people attempting to manage small children at the same time as using a machine who are equally malcoordinated.
I make no apology for crass attentiong grabbing. You seem to miss the point: slavery does not stop at the Bangladeshi Textile workers (or the Chinese Cockle Pickers for that matter) it becomes a fundamental business strategy. Stop concentrating on the word "Slavery" and start concentrating on what is being described. The non-consensual activities Tesco obliges customers to do are all forms of slavery. As such, expecting me to tug my forelock and apologise for not being as praiseworthy a slave as some other slave (regardless of who or where) is equally crass. You suggest that being crass somehow detracts from the point yet give no explanation as to why. If you want to concentrate on the single issue of Bangladeshi Textile workers, please do. They, and I, will thank you for it.
Tesco is a retailer. it makes money from consumers. If they both reduce costs (by introducing these machines) and increase profits, there is only one place the money has come from: customers. The economic description is not wrong. It does not mean that prices will fall. It means that prices can fall. If Tesco were to reduce proftits to zero they could reduce prices to cost. To suggest they might do that is as much mistaken as suggesting I consented to operate the scanner. There is a huge myth about lowering staff costs. It is an easy target because it comes out of the current quarters accounts. So it looks good. Invariably it will require casual staff to fill in from agencies. These people appear on the accounts as a service purchased in. So, there is no genuine reduction. And the Consumer gets tricked into working for nothing. paying for the privilege. At the same time, the service bought in can be used to reduce the corporate tax bill.
The consumer is the taxpayer. Tesco might well be guilty of causing tax rises by this strategy - which chimes into the claims I made about it being a business model that is increasingly reliant on enslavement. The tax burden being transferred to the Public from Tesco is, in effect, a systematic application of the same strategy as they apply in dealing with Bangladeshi Textile workers, English Dairy Farmers and anybody else they come into contact with.
The economics of it are simple: Tesco gets paid to casualise staff; Tesco gets free checkout staff and, if anything goes wrong with the process Tesco can prosecute their free labour for theft.
It is not the technology I object to, it is the use of the technology.
Tesco Unemployee
outsourced labour
19.08.2008 17:28
bobby
just a thought
19.08.2008 17:43
I agree but for different reasons which I'll outline briefly in the hope that we can all agree that Tesco is bad, slavery is real & we are so insensate to its reality and universality that we hide it behind shock headlines like "chinese periwinkle collectors".
If you walk down the aisles and naves of the largest retail corporations' cathedrals of consumerism, be they Walmart, Tesco, Carrefour or LIDL you will not only see refined social engineering which every shelf's product display & sellection needs to justify its inclusion - you will surely observe the paucity of fair trade options. Perhaps because the "fair trade" products have been placed just where your pricked conscience might best be expected to choose them & "afford" their extra expense.
The moment you enter Tesco as any largescale retailer (who are also amongst the largest employers in the Western World) you are introduced to slave labour, bonded labour, thralldom, serf farming, indentured production which is the largest employment system of the Third world whose farms and mines produce the fruit, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar and chemicals which wash our clothes so white. We are so desensitized to the realities of food and consumer good arw material production that we forget how we were introduced to such slavery in the first place. If you can't remember squirming in a supermarket trolley toddler's seat as an infant and pointing spellbound as your mind learnt to recognise brandlogos and the semiotics of capitalism before you could even tell right from wrong or do long division sums - then maybe what you need to do is find yourself a thirdworlder fresh over the border of fortress Europe and bring them to their first supermarket.
Nobody likes remembering their first introduction to slavery.
iosaf
Hmmmm
19.08.2008 18:50
First, you have a job, if your a general assistant your getting paid more than the meat packer and the trolley people, so get over it.
Second, there are loads of jobs that people do without getting recompensed, so what. dosn't Tesco do a home delivery service? Loads of people employed in that one so it all evens out. Do you get mad at banks for not being open at 0230 when you want £10, or do you go to the ATM. same thing!
I wont go on as the other contributers have said a lot, but please remember that the use of the word SLAVERY is a slur on those who are living with slavery, useing the word in such a poor and inconsiderate way only lowers its true impact, take "genocide" which is now being banded about like confettie.
Harry Purvis
Unethical Tesco
19.08.2008 19:10
> The Alliance for Animal Rights (AFAR) supports Care for the Wilds campaign
> opposing Tescos turtle sales.
> We urge our supporters to Boycott Tesco shops..
> CWI investigators who visited 32 Chinese Tesco stores in April and May
> discovered that staff do not adhere to Tesco's new slaughter policies. In
> 12 stores where CWI witnessed slaughter firsthand, staff continued to kill
> turtles by decapitation alone or by evisceration. CWI also found large
> numbers of disembowelled turtles with intact heads for sale.
>
> In a Tesco store in China's Guangdong Province, CWI observed how staff
> caught a turtle and started to cut its head. "The turtle pulled back into
> the shell," says Dr Maas, "so staff cut the shell along the edge. The
> turtle broke loose and was caught again after about a minute. Staff then
> sliced the still living turtle in half, separating the upper and lower
> part of its shell. In another scene, Tesco staff cut the turtle's abdomen
> from tail to neck with a pair of scissors. The turtle extended its long
> neck and its extremities struggled. Tesco staff then added a traverse
> incision and pulled out the entrails." CWI also saw Tesco staff skinning
> bullfrogs alive. "This unacceptable and can not be considered humane under
> any circumstances."
>
> Bound up tightly in plastic netting, live turtles are mostly displayed on
> ice, which is inappropriate and causes pain. CWI says that although Tesco
> acknowledged this fact a year ago, the practice continues.
>
> Please highlight this issue and Boycott Tesco stores until these
> cruel practises are ended.
>
This is Tesco's reply:
. While we are committed to upholding the very important issue of animal welfare, we also need to balance different cultural attitudes, in this case respecting the different traditions, expectations and values on this issue that exists in China.
Turtles are a popular and traditional part of the Chinese diet and having addressed some important animal welfare concerns, we currently continue to sell live turtles in our stores in China.
So culture and diet, aTesco excuse for barbarity!!
-------------------Warning------------------------
Kathy
Live turtles? o gods of decency! Meat ought be as Coffee: in bloodless packets
19.08.2008 20:59
-
yawn
20.08.2008 07:55
There are problems with the introduction of these machines - in particular that it is a transparent attempt to lower employee costs by replacing labour with machinery (see also: the industrial revolution and a number of advancements thereafter.) But to call it "slavery" is utterly pathetic. It isn't. At all.
for fuck's sake, do you think having to push your own trolley is slave labour too?
There are real concerns here and the kind of frothing hysteria shown in this post is counterproductive to say the least.
Grow up.
rasputin
Precedents
20.08.2008 09:02
into, although we have been here before. The advance of automation and self-service into
banking (ATM's from the 70's onwards) springs to mind. As does self-connected, rather than operator connected telephony (circa 1930 onwards?)
There are obvious parallels here between the Luddites recognition
that the machinary being introduced to make things better were
really there to serve the capitalists and the capitalist system,
and would ultimately put them out of a job.
The advance of these machines isn't limited to Tesco.
Boots are introducing them now too. They have been in Asda now for the past year
or so.
If their introduction goes unchallenged, more and more normal check-outs will be converted to the robot ones. And supermarket staff numbers will steadily reduced to shelf-stackers and a small team of supervisors there to 'help' with "incorrect item detected" errors.
Question is will the buying public and those whose jobs are at rest, have the gumption to do anything about it?
Bj
Tescos? They'll have your eye out
20.08.2008 11:50
Mr Patel
I admit I was wrong to question Tesco
20.08.2008 16:09
That might well be true, I might well exaggerate the misery of the world. But that does not make my complaint fundamentally untrue.
Checkout Jobs currently exist. Tesco see fit to pay people to do those jobs. At the time I was compelled to use these machines there were no human operated checkouts. So the labout was non consensual. The labour was unpaid.
Had that not happened I might well have ignored them.
Since it did happen, it became very clear to me that I was being used as unpaid labour. I even have a job that I can compare my activities to. Because that job still exists for the vast majority of supermarkets. The point that the job still exists but that it will, in future, be unpaid and non consensual seems to be something that is being missed. I am aware of the ideological arguments. The point of the post was not on any grand scale of theory but of the practicality of a situation. There is blatant misappropriation of my labour and I object.
First, the labour is not consensual; second there are genuine concerns about health and safety that Tesco are not informing the Public about. These are points that some people have chosen to consider as serious and others to consider as pointless whining.
There is a third factor. Reliablity. The machines make mistakes frequently. Manufacturers figures show that they are five times slower than a trained operator: five seconds per item according to IBM as opposed to one second per item for a trained operator on a conventional till. The machines are sensitive to location and correct use of the weight mechanism to give correct pricings.The imperfections of engineering translate into obligations for the public. As they are precision weighing machines they require expert calibration in order to operate correctly - again a fault that is passed on to the consumer who will be told "caveat emptor" for every problem they raise regarding these machines.
The obligation for the transaction being correct is with a member of the public. This makes consumers responsible for machines they do not own, are obliged to operate and have no control over the decisions it makes. Even if you object to the term "slavery" - for whatever reason - that is a fundamentally unfair situation. Tesco are obliging you to enter into an unpaid contract of work in order to purchase from them.
Fundamentally, this is different to an ATM or a Cafeteria line. An ATM is very tightly controlled, requiring you to give a password (PIN Number) prior to the transaction. If you get the password correct and have the correct card for that account the bank gives you your money. Those systems are not without problems but those problems are tiny compared to the variety of problems these machines create.
These checkout machines wait until the end for a password. That makes the whole process fundamentally different. The user is obliged to correctly clerk through goods - if they are incorrectly priced or misscan then they are obliged to correct that problem. You are obliged to give them money without any guarantee that they will complete the transaction correctly. You are not permitted to reverse a transaction if you decide not to purchase an item.
Banks have known for years about phantom withdrawals. Tesco now have a machine for phantom deposits. The entire process is a good deal different to self service of any previous kind. What is being done is the unpaid outsourcing of checkout activities to untrained people.
And, yes that is a matter for frothing hysteria. If I went and took items from the shelves of Tescos, walked out saying, I will pay for these some other time, I would find myself in court accused of theft - no matter how sincere my pledge to pay later.
My final question is: how much do you value your time at? Do you actually value your own labour enough to say to Tesco, I refuse to do this work?
Since I shall never be shopping at Tesco again it has ceased to be an immediate practical issue for me. However, it is only a matter of time before it becomes the same issue at some other shop. That remains a fundamental concern.
Unemployee of Tesco
well done Tesco unemployee!
20.08.2008 21:06
I studied checkout operation and cashier operation at Cambridge for two years before finally deciding my university career was misdirected and really quite luckily being accepted at the woodwork and metal welding faculty. I never looked back. But my point is, I've known many people who have continued in the sector who are indeed quite rucking radge that Tesco is usurping their skills.
tinkerbell
response
20.08.2008 23:01
Chucking a few groceries in a bag is a "blatant misappropriation of your labour"? Oh, you poor dear.
If your bus route closes down are you being forced into slavery by being made to walk everywhere?
There are people - home shopping assistants, for example - who are paid to walk around supermarkets with a trolley. Do you feel you are being exploited when "forced" to push your own trolley?
There are people - waiters, for example - who are paid to bring food to your table. Do you feel your labour is being grossly misappropriated if a cafe needs you to carry your own tray?
The self-service machines can be annoying, and the concerns over the inevitable layoffs are legitimate, but your post comes across as little more than frothing hysteria over what is, to the consumer, a trivial inconvenience.
I find it quite telling that you have little concern for the people who are out of a job due to these machines, caring only for the poor, violated, exploiter consumer who - OH NOES - is being forced to scan stuff for themselves.
rasputin
Slaughter trivia?
22.08.2008 11:30
KM
The Economics of The Self Servile machines.
23.08.2008 14:35
Currently Tesco pay people to clerk items at checkouts. Thererfore a legitimate paid task exists. By transferring that task to a consumer - even a whining frothing hysteric like me - that job ceases to exist.
Except the job does not exist. I am doing it. The consumer is being made complicit in the transfer of other people's jobs - not the destruction of them. These machines are not automatic, they require human labour to operate. If Tesco transfer that work to the consumer without compensation they have not destroyed a job.
So, the economics of it is that the consumer has their labour misappropriated - because the physical labour has not disappeared. Where exactly has the labour been misapropriated from? Quite obviously from the Tesco Employee and the Consumer. Tough luck. I have to defend my rights to not have my labour misappropriated if Tesco Employees are to have their rights defended. Its fine to say I should support the Tesco employee - and I should. But the interests of the Tesco Employee are served by the consumer refusing to use these machines.
They are not automated and so, given that effort is not being destroyed by their introduction, it is the common interest that is served by consumer and employee objecting to these machines. Even if it takes frothing hysterics to articulate that.
It is far more telling that you have not mentioned that the Tesco Employees are currently in the process of losing overtime and bonuses because these machines are available after 10pm. If you were really making a reasoned argument about my mendacity then you might actually point out such things.
You might also point out that the machines, as operated by the public, fail to scan 20% of tems correctly. That they have a service cycle of five seconds per item rather than the one second per item achieved by check out staff. That they are weighing machines and so are sensitive to location, passing trucks and a whole range of other environmental factors for accurate operation.
You also fail to mention that Tesco Staff also shop at Tesco. Employees that are consumers might actually be a new idea, but I doubt it. The interests of the consumer and the employee are the same. It makes the ex employees into frothing hysterics.
Why is my attitude "telling"? Because I complain in an articulate and reasonably lucid manner? I am "Hysterical" because I object to being used without my permission? Because I do not spring to the defence of others as a reflex?
Your attitude is telling because it insists that it is wrong to value manual labour. As I pointed out earlier, it is not the machine but the use of the machine that I object to. It is not your argument that I am a selfish git (I am) but the use that argument is being put to. It marginalises both the Tesco Employee and the Tesco Consumer. That kind of reflex divide and rule argument is exactly why these machines are in place in the first place: not enough frothing hysterics.
Tesco Unemployee
OMG
07.09.2008 20:49
Two, If I remember the heady days when I worked in tescos (fish dept) then as a meat packer, the Tills were the most hated job in the store.
If your job is made redundent (and with the technology as it is, there is NO CHANCE of that) then you will be transfered to shelf stacking or a counter.
Tescos will not do away with till staff entirely as the oppotunity for fraud is too large. As for not paying people for doing there own scanning.....the loss leaders, 2fors and value items are at giveaway prices and therefor the consumer is getting paid in kind, item for effort.
Oh as an asside I want to publicly thank TESCO's for taking on the disabled employee scheme and giving my cousin (has a severe condition that is simelar to downs and creates an OCD like syndrome) a job when NOONE ELSE WOULD, Ok they have faults, and I don't shop there, but they gave him a job which he loves and a future which he wouldn't have, he gets up every day, works and dosn't whinge, he said to me that if he didn't like something he stops doing it......wise words I feel.
Unemployee.....unless you feel that your lifes ambition is to work tills, I think that you should think about changing jobs.
Harry Purvis
Underweight ?
29.04.2011 06:16
OnlyMe
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