Grocery workers know the self checkout machine means less jobs. So what can we do about it?

I was in my local Safeway store the other day and I noticed that these damn self-checkout machines are being used more and more by customers. When I reached my checker I noticed that another checker I know was manning the self-check station, I think they have to sign off on it or something. There were a number of people using the machines so I called over to the woman I knew,

“They’ve got you manning the job killing machine I see”, I said to her, loud enough for the customers to hear as well.

She looked my way and gave me a smile of approval. The woman checking out my stuff , a worker perhaps 45 years old, got pretty animated herself.

“You’re right about that” she says

“yeah," I add, “We shouldn’t use them. They’ll never hire anybody if we keep using these machines, they’re job destroyers.”

The clerk agreed, “Pretty soon it’ll be just robots” she said sliding a package across the screen that has increased the productivity of Labor in her workplace for the benefit of the boss and to the detriment of the worker.

“They don’t care though” the woman added, referring to the boss.

“Well the Union should do something about it” I said, seeing what she might think about her Union. “I think I might come down here and leaflet the customers, after all they’re working people with sons and daughters who will need a job.”

“They don’t care about it either “she replied, meaning the Union officials, “so you better get down here and help.” she tells me.

The opportunity for further conversation wasn’t there so I made one more comment to the folks using the machines to think about what it means and headed out. I since saw a couple of other workers as they were outside eating their lunch and talked about it with them. They all hated those things; it doesn’t take a university degree to know that these machines are there for the benefit of the bosses and the investors, not the workers.

Not if the bosses have their way

These two were African American women and we had a real laugh having a go at the boss, I am a bit known in that Safeway as I was on the picket lines every day during the strike in 2003. As we were talking, a young man with a Safeway apron and a white shirt on came out perhaps for a smoke.

“Here comes the boss” I said  to the women.

They laughed as they nodded in agreement and the three of us shifted the conversation to something harmless. It was one of those moments that I love when our class instincts come out in to the open. The three of us and the young manager or whatever he was were as different as chalk and cheese. We knew what he represented and that we couldn’t talk openly, couldn’t express our real views in his company. I could have, of course, as I didn’t work there, but would not have done that without being sure it was OK with the other two.

It was a nice feeling, connecting with these folks that day. Being retired is great  but I genuinely miss the workplace and particularly the class struggle as it occurs every minute of every day.

The incident reminded me of the many times I heard from top Labor officials or full time staff how when it comes to organizing we have to help "them take baby steps” or that “We need to educate the members”. All sorts of excuses blaming the rank and file or ordinary working people come out of the mouths of the vast majority of Labor officials as an explanation for why there is no serious mass mobilization of resistance to the bosses' assaults on us.

But the main reason for the absence of a serious independent mass movement is the role these officials play in suppressing it. They always talk of what we can’t do. We can’t strike, we can’t go slow, we can’t build a party of our own, we can’t win, we can’t we can’t we can’t. They never talk of what we can do with one exception; we can vote Democrat and get involved by walking precincts for them or manning phone banks and we can take concessions in order to do our fair share to help the economy back on its feet.

The average rank and file Union member hates the leadership; they don't even know who they are in the main. They assume they are simply corrupt, meaning taking money or kickbacks from the boss. And while corruption exists, it is not the main problem. The heads of organized Labor are corrupt ideologically; they worship the market and the bosses’ rights as sacrosanct like the right to make profit or own the factory/workplace and move it when it suits them. They see themselves as Labor brokers and the Unions as employment agencies. They see their job as to provide Labor power to the boss at reasonable prices. The capitalist owns the workplace and the process of production so all they can do is help them out when they say they're in trouble, the alternative would lead to chaos.

The scanner and the automatic check out machine like any addition that increases the productivity of Labor is a good thing were it not for the fact that the benefits of Labor saving devices go to the boss. For workers, they mean job losses and increased exploitation.

The stifling control the bureaucracy has over the rank and file in the Unions and years of defeats and setbacks has undoubtedly led to a feeling among many workers that there is nothing they can do. A powerful combination of the employer and our own Union officials is a significant force to be reckoned with. And the tradition of struggle and Union politics has been suppressed. The clerks comment to me that “I should come down there” is an example of a powerful mood among workers that someone else will do it for us.

But this doesn’t excuse the fact that where we are in Unions we have no choice but to struggle against the catastrophic policies of our own leaders. That we have to build militant opposition caucuses rooted in the rank and file that reject the Team Concept of the present leadership, that reaches out to build links in the communities and non-Union workplaces and takes up all the social issues that matter to us, including education, renters rights and housing and jobs; these issues. We must reject the bosses arguments and demand what society needs and not what the bosses claim is realistic.

In the struggle to build an offensive of our own we inevitably come up against this issue of who owns and controls the workplace. Discussions on tactics and strategy will include the question of devices like the scanner and the checkout machines and how we must liberate the process of work from the clutches of the investors, hedge fund managers and other capitalists that presently own it and that includes the ownership of the Labor saving devices.

Only through workers control and management of the Labor process can the benefits of such a Labor saving device accrue to us as workers in the form of a shorter workweek with no loss in pay for example as opposed to accruing to the boss in the form of more profits as they throw workers on to the dole line.

It will be the new, younger workers both inside the Unions and out that will be the force that drives the building of a new movement in the future.  This will energize many of those of us that are older, and even those who had given up hope; a fightback of this nature is inevitable at some point.

Despite the setbacks and weakening of working class history and struggle in the consciousness of many workers today, class consciousness will always exist, in the last analysis, ideas have a material base. The ideology of the capitalist class is very strong here in the US brought in to the working  class through the media, the middle class and the heads of Organized Labor. The education system and particularly the universities are other institutions where the ideology of the bourgeois is very prominent, after all, these are the institutions designed to churn out the future managers of capitalism.

But the workplace, all workplaces, are where the rubber meets the road.  The workplace is the best training ground for the class struggle.