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this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
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Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
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- Better and fewer working hours.
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And, the cashiers can sit down. Which makes sense.
cashiers aren't allowed to sit in usa?
Not in any stores I have seen in my city.
In California, companies are required by law to provide them seating and let them sit down, but most everywhere else they are expected to stand.
Corporations make that decision. And our country allows (if not encourages) it.
Yes, seriously. Same goes with drinking water behind the counter.
It’s this bizarre thing. Management want them to “look busy” or some bullshit. Aldi looks busy.
You’ll see this on some factory floors too. No chairs even for the management or QA logging numbers on computers. Chairs are for break time or some such.
Depends on the company and plant. Not to brag on my Corporate overloads as they've gaslit employees and poisoned the global water supply, but they do a good job of making production's life tolerable enough (above average pay for the area, regular Kaizens for them to voice their opinions, good safety culture, keeping up 5s) that people want to work for them.
Aldi is the only place I've seen. However, Aldi recently started installing self checkout, which I despise.
I love good self checkouts. I hate bad self checkouts.
Bad self checkouts are those that alert the sole employee running around between twenty terminals of some discrepancy for every fucking thing. Weight discrepancy! Remove duplicate item! They didn't select number of bags! Check their receit!
Just leave me be and let me scan my flatbread and leave already. Or open another cashier. Or just don't implement self-checkout if it's not really self-checkout.
Yeah, a good self-checkout is amazing and a competely different category from the garbage you see elsewhere.
In the Netherlands at Albert Heijn the only verification consists pretty much of occasional random checks and in the one closes to me they replaced two of the manual counters with eight self-checkouts, meaning that the queues are pretty much gone. You can also self-scan while shopping, if you want with your own phone in which case payment is 90% of the time just scanning a barcode and paying at a debit-card terminal.
And while you are not supposed to, nobody ever cares if you use your own backpack instead of a shopping basket/car, in which case you don’t even have to pack up your stuff. If you do get a random check with it, you just open it up wide and let the employee pick a few random items to scan and they won’t even say a word.
The only other delay is age-verification if you buy alcohol, which in my case means that an employee looks over from across the room and sadly decides that I’m an old enough fuck to not need my ID inspected. (Then again, being trans without legal stuff having happened yet (soon though!), it does make things easier.)
Could you steal? Of course, but you can do the same with regular counters!
We don't have it in Australia either apart from Aldi.
Other than Aldi, pretty much no.
No, and even worse "if you have time to lean, you have time to clean"
(to manager in response) "then why the fuck aren't you cleaning all the time, then?"
Well, turns out I do have PTSD from a decade of working retail and food service. So thanks for that lol
Cashier stations with chairs are VERY rare, yes. The general trope is that managers/owners think it makes workers appear lazy.
Only office workers and managers are allowed to sit. If you're in a customer-facing position with a chair, you're supposed to stand up when helping a customer.
When I worked retail, at one of the stores you weren't allowed to drink water where customers could see you. I chose to ignore that rule and only got chewed out when the store owner happened to be nearby
And as we all know, middle management does so much work and therefore deserve that right over everyone else.
(sorry I vomited in my mouth a little bit)
Cashier stations with chairs are VERY rare, yes. The general trope is that managers/owners think it makes workers appear lazy.
Not at most places. At some point, someone told all the MBAs that it makes the customers mad if the employees look lazy or some shit.
They also tend to make them stand at the beginning of their lane when they don't have customers. Apparently a light signaling that they are available just isn't enough.
Edit: My bad. I've never seen this at Aldi or Lidl. Just other US chains like Food Lion.
Hereabouts*, the lanes each have a sign with their number. Glows red = closed, glows green = open. Super convenient, and I've seen it across multiple store chains, so it's not like it's only one store doing it.
*Southern Germany, observed across different cities, though I can't vouch that it is universal
I have never seen that. Where I am at they will pull every idle cashier to do work before the line becomes idle.
Cashier stations with chairs are VERY rare, yes. The general trope is that managers/owners think it makes workers appear lazy.