AFL-CIO calls for ban on such labels to protect consumers and workers from surveillance pricing and job cuts
The universal adoption of electronic shelf labels in grocery stores across the US could cost tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in lost wages while further driving up grocery costs, according to a report released on Tuesday.
An analysis by the AFL-CIO Tech Institute of the label manufacturers’ own marketing materials found the universal adoption of electronic shelf labels, which are marketed to retailers as a cost-cutting measure, could cost workers between $1.6bn to $6.9bn in lost wages annually and affect between 44,223 and 191,633 jobs.
The policy brief – Priced Out, Pushed Out: Electronic Shelf Labels Raise Prices and Shrink Paychecks – calls for a ban on electronic labels to protect consumers and workers.
It would really be nice if we had an economic system where replacing a human who manually applies stickers to shelves with a centrally-managed electronic price system was an improvement to society rather than a disaster.
Ain’t that the truth.
We are in this trap now where we can make life easier lest we eliminate a job.
Isn’t that the damn point?
God damn capitalists act as if the whole point of life is work, breed, die.
Meanwhile, we’re all building on the knowledge of hundreds of generations trying to make “work” as easy and efficient as possible.
What’s weird is that me and Musk probably have a common ancestor who like invented the wheel or some shit. It’s more likely than not, really. That dude didn’t care about billions of dollars. He just wanted to get his cart back to his hut so he could commence the breeding.
Likely not entirely accurate, since I doubt carts were invented before wheels, but you never know. We had tin cans for 50 years before we had can openers, so our ancestors did some crazy shit.
Sleds were surely invented before wheels.
Well I guess you’re probably right. We invented the cart first and didn’t even think to put wheels on it till long later.
Ostensibly it still happens. Losing your job to technology frees you up to work at something a machine can’t do, or spend more time doing something fun. But it depends on enough redistribution happening that you can still survive.
In the long run, there is very little a machine can’t do. Though in some cases we have not quite invented that machine yet.
And right now the job replacement is happening at an exponentially higher level than the industrial revolution everyone compares it to.
This isn’t every cobbler going to work in a shoe factory.
Its not like everyone replaced by AI can go become a programmer or a “prompt engineer”, especually when in many cases, the AI also already does that job too.
A world where we no longer need to work is fine, but we as a society are not working towards that, because we allow the hoarding of wealth and power instead of punishing it forciboy, brutally, swiftly. We just let that corruption fester and grow.
I remember a while back when they were getting rid of toll both collectors and going mostly “digital”. There was outcry from the workers saying it will put them out of work so we shouldn’t do it. Even tho it’s infinitely better for everyone to just drive thru and get billed later.