https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-14/coles-woolworths-staff-body-cameras-customer-abuse/102853054
Coles is trialling the use of body-worn cameras to bail workers out of customer abuse.
I work for coles and I always give them a nod of approval then walk off like nothing happend when I see people stealing, fuck coles, they profited over a billion dollars last year off of ripping of customers and workers.
People taking fruit, cereal, milk… sure. But taking premium steaks, beer/wine/spirits, or anything else they can resell - no, that’s just theft.
I feel like you assume they’re reselling for a business. They could be buying baby shoes, or a gift for that nephew for his birthday, to make him forget how bad life is.
I understand your point...but at the same time depending on the shop/company owing the store, if they make millions and pay shitty wages or whatever bad, fuck then
We're all stolen from every day. The difference is that we're told that it's OK when it happens to us but that it's wrong when it happens to the company stealing from us.
True, but if it ain't a mom and pop sized shop then it ain't my business. Go on down the road to the store that came in underpriced in order to drive out ma and pa so they could raise prices once those stores are out of business.
idk for you but in my area the "ma and pa" stores are all like 2x the price of the big names because they all have a weird gimmick like "all we sell is gluten free"
I've seen a lot of those and tend not to go there. Good luck to them, but I hate the gimmicks.
I visit the farmer's market pretty often where it's families selling things they grew or made. I like the tomatoes there and I get to buy better meat that isn't factory farmed. There's a regular independent grocery store where my parents live. The prices are a little higher but the produce tends to be better (mostly fresh and local) and there's actually a butcher in the meat department. Those kinds of places are dying.
Alternate headline : "Supermarkets have jacked the prices so high, making record profits in tough times, that people have resorted to stealing in order to live".
I saw a shitty looking steak at coles the other day, over $60 a KG. It had bloody RFID sensors on it. What a world.
That would be communism. Socialism is (partially) at work in European countries where we have captialism at the base, but using that to feed socialist programs.
Yeah, they've been tearing a lot of it down lately, but still
TBF, one wants to use surveillance to protect the income of the wealthy, the other to allegedly protect the government in its most extreme form.
But protecting the wealthy is cool, right?
Shoplifting isn't happening because of capitalism.
It's happening because the local government won't prosecute the people that do shoplift
Or it's because many grocery chains used COVID as a reason or excuse to raise prices and refuse to lower them despite supply chains healing, during a time where literally everything a modern human needs to survive becomes nearly unreashable expensive.
But sure, it's because cops aren't shooting enough shiplifters.
A lot of it is because of need. The lower rungs of our society have been pushed to the point where the risk of being caught and jailed is less of a driver than hunger. The social fabric is unravelling. I just hired someone and I’m giving them a living wage and I’m getting suspicion in return.
That and, arguably being in prison is better for someone than going hungry. You get clothes, 3 meals a day, and a shower.
Are you suggesting that nobody ever stole anything from a store in a socialist/communist country?
It's the obvious followup to your statement "shoplifting is happening because of capitalism. Period." You were very clear and I think my question is very clear.
Your logic is right, but what he's meaning is that capitalism exacerbates poverty. When homes, food, healthcare become commodities the people that can't afford the new norm HAVE to do what they can to survive.
Yes, some-to-most shoplifters may be shoplifting for less than survival reasons, but in the same way many would argue that capital punishment risks the many at the expense of a few, villifying and prosecuting shoplifters risks the legitimate survival of a lot of people.
Shoplifting is happening because the economy is fucked, and plenty of people see the risk of shoplifting to be worth the reward of access to the things they need.
You can be a compassionate person, and work fix this problem by offering better safety nets and access to human needs to the needy, or you can take the fascist route and demand expansion of the state to punish the poor even further.
How can you say this when our incarceration rate is so insanely high? What kind of denialism is this?
Is the incarceration rate really that high in Australia? I thought it was closer to the global average.
Pay people more so theft goes down? Fucking never!
Give body cameras to staff. Sounds perfect
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)
In Australia Woolies and Coles are artificially jacking prices up, this isn't about wages but about corporate greed using inflation as a disguise to rip off literally everyone. Instead they should be forced to lower prices.
I mean, people should get payed more, but what do you expect a single (relatively) small grocery chain to do? Also this is more about protecting staff as they have to be the ones to turn them on when an incident occurs rather than an always-on thing
In the context of the country this is taking place in, Coles cannot be considered small by any stretch of the imagination
Probably a large reason inflation is so high too, putting prices up "because inflation" and pulling record profits
This is happening in Australia, a country almost universally controlled by the 'left wing' Labor party on both federal and state levels. The sooner you realize that literally no politician gives a shit about their people, the sooner we can move on from this bullshit left vs. right shitshow and start directing our anger at those responsible for the state of the world (hint; it's every politician with any amount of power and any large enough corporation. The cunts are all best mates, left wing or right wing.)
Never forget who the real enemy is. We're playing so fucking effectively into their little game, and they know it. If only we did.
This is not a small grocery chain. This is one of the two largest supermarket chains in Australia.
People can't afford to shop at those small stores. When I was making $100k I exclusively shopped at locally owned stores. But after being laid off, I can only afford to shop at Walmart and Amazon.
Coles is part of a duopoly with Woolies in Australia, so... They aren't small by any means.
Considering how much shit I see retail workers go through, this... honestly seems like a rational response. I'm sure it will immediately turn into middle managers using it to abuse employees of course though.
Yeah, that’s about where our society is pushing people. I hope you find better work - I know that sound like a platitude, but try reaching out to people you know and hope for luck. You deserve a living wage and respect.
That sounds like a horrible situation you're in and I hope your life picks up soon. You should have a look at your local council website for food rescue/food bank initiatives in the area as they are definitely a safer avenue for you than theft. I have a relative who volunteers for one of these services who spends a few hours each week driving around to the local Colesworths/Bakers Delights etc. picking up food (ie. bakery/deli/produce goods etc. - not sure about actual packaged stock) that is near its use-by/best before date (and would have been thrown out otherwise) and brings it to a market where absolutely anyone can go and take it. All for free.
Don't like the increasing surveillance but this seems like a pro worker move actually. You don't have to turn them on to be a snitch, you just have to turn them on if you're being harassed. I got fired after being harassed by a customer and my employer took their side. If I had footage of it and audio then things might have been different
What are you talking about?
I only buy bananas at self checkout, it's the reason I go to self checkout.
50lbs of bananas and nothing else.
Avocados and all sorts of other pricey things look really yellow and oblong when there's no manned registers open. I've never been confronted about the 4-6 bananas I buy when I used the self check. I really wonder if they can even prosecute you. You just did a bad job, guess they should fire you from your unpaid employment.
I'm not aware of any court precedent about self checkouts. I'd imagine no court would let you off on something like that. I could see missing scanning an item, but willfully miss registering produce so you get a cheaper price, especially if they catch you doing it on multiple occasions is not going to be allowed.
Mushroom bags are your best friend, can't see inside and unless you got a weirdo worker who cares way too much in the self service, no one's gonna check if you have mushrooms or whatnot, those cameras on the checkout are just to scare people into thinking they're being watched.
They are being warched but what's re they going to do when people are poor and need to eat?
They get watched after the fact if they suspect something, if you're just acting normal and doing your shopping, no one's gonna know, fresh Produce counts are always off, so they'll just think someone's messed up counting and fix it..
I wouldn't have to abuse the self checkouts if they just shut the fuck up and let me do the job they're not paying me to do.
I’m 99% sure we’re gonna start seeing an uptick in employees “accidentally” obscuring and/or destroying these body cams
The cameras aren't on at all times. Employees are supposed to turn on the cameras to record abusive behavior by scumbags because the company found that people who were stealing were also abusive towards staff in 1 in 4 incidents. It's so employees have a record of the interaction. This also means when the thieving piece of shit makes fake complaints its even easier to ignore because the employee has proof.
Most people are able to get assistance with food which is why most people don't actually steal food they steal stuff to sell to buy drugs.
If you're gonna steal food, go steal from walmart or some big retailer that can handle the losses. The little stores like this don't deserve the theft.
Coles isn't even a small store! It's basically the Target of Australia, with Woolies being Walmart.
In the USA shoplifting is up because most states no longer prosecute. Which is also the reason a lot of retailers have or are in the process of closing stores in big cities. Had a friend that worked at Riteaid, once a week several women would come in with trash bags and empty the makeup section. Even with them on video nothing came on it.
Well, the police have to do work and find the people. You can't expect the police to actually do anything. That's asking way to much. Ask anyone who's ever needed the police to do their jobs (aside from beating or shooting folks who don't pass the patented brown paper bag text of course).
I’m sorry, but that is just not accurate (they also shoot your dog, when they try to enter the wrong house)
Shoplifting is up by a very, very inconsequential amount, stores aren't closing from it
He is right when it comes to the UK though: Article today: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66819837 Earlier this week, referencing violence towards shop keepers too. Coop having a very rough time with it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66784250
Watch the video then. It's from an anarchist. He says essentially the same things as the article but doesn't dance around the issue or it's implications. As long as you're aware of the biases of corporate media, you can still glean useful information from it.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The supermarket recently announced a $1.1 billion annual profit, but it also reported a spike in shoplifting and attacks directed at staff.
Theft is costing Australian grocery giants hundreds of millions of dollars annually, with Coles reporting a 20 per cent jump in stock loss.
"The use of these cameras has seen a substantial reduction in the amount of abuse and physical incidents our teams have faced," a Woolworths spokesperson said.
Retail theft is up across the board, driven by the rising cost of living, according to the Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees' Association.
Mr Peak says while the association welcomes the use of cameras, it believes they should only be used for deterring or filming threats towards staff, rather than "asset protection" for supermarkets.
"We don't want any suggestion that workers are some kind of mobile security camera – that's where we can absolutely see this actually [causing] violence and abuse."
The original article contains 333 words, the summary contains 151 words. Saved 55%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
They shouldn't have to switch on the cameras - there should be signage posted at the entrances explaining body camera filming is taking place and that by entering the establishment the customer agrees to being filmed.
There is no reason for the employee to have to on/off the device - which may lead to further confrontation.
Imagine I sell a product that everyone needs to buy in order to live, but I'm a massive creep and like to take photos of people without their consent. But I put a sign up so now it's ok. Cool and normal.
Or you know, maybe just don't profiteer during inflation.