SAN DIEGO — Self-checkout kiosks can make going in and out of stores easy, but the Retail Theft Prevention and Safe Staffing Act states more staffing would help protect employees from harassment and reduce theft at self-checkout kiosks.
"We've seen how customers get mad or they get violently, like a few days ago, I had a customer that got violent, she pepper sprayed me," said a Food for Less worker during a press conference for SB 1446.
The bill was introduced by Los Angeles Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas to offer protection to workers who get harassed or bullied by customers due to understaffing.
"Self-checkout has rapidly spread in retail grocery and drug stores to drastically cut and reduce labor costs and staffing, and this has led to chronic understaffing at the grocery and retail stores overall, this bill is trying to address that," Smallwood-Cuevas said.
The bill would require stores that choose to have self-checkout kiosks to have a one-employee to two-kiosk ratio, have one traditional checkout lane remain open and give workers a 60-day notice when new technology is implemented that could impact their jobs.
"This is a win-win situation. You want to reduce crime, you want to reduce theft in stores, you want to make sure that there aren't workplace related crimes where customers are going after checkers, well, making sure it's fully staffed is the best way to do that," Lorena Gonzalez with the California Labor Federation said.
Supporters of the bill said having more staff in self-checkout areas will help deter customers from stealing and reduce worker harassment by having more help available.
"Self-checkout is associated with understaffing, understaffing is strongly associated with disrespect and bullying in customer-worker interactions, and self-checkout itself is directly associated with that kind of disrespectful and bullying treatment," Harvard Professor Daniel Schneider said.
Since introduced in February, amendments have been made to address concerns raised by employers and opposers to the bill. This includes allowing items with anti-theft devices to go through self-checkout, not requiring self-checkout machines to be considered a potential workplace hazard for employees and allowing self-checkout workers to do other tasks as long as one person is dedicated at all times to helping customers.
The bill hasn't been approved yet, but if enacted a store could be fined $100 a day for a violation.
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