Kroger's Plan to Use Facial Recognition Raises Concerns About Surge Pricing

I hear you. I agree that union busting is bad. I support trader joes employees unionizing. I don't want their stores to close and those employees to be out of a job.

They're also one of the companies trying to destroy the NLRB.

Traitor Joe's is more like it

Curious as to what the union’s demands are. It’s my impression that Trader Joe’s treats their employees relatively well. I have multiple friends who work for them and are paid a living wage (in the Bay Area of all places) for working reasonable hours.

That Burnt Caramel Sea Salt though. The best!

Those chocolate peanut butter cups are crack. I'm sad that people at my location have realized that, because they are sold out a third of the time.

That's so dirty and unethical. I hope their conscience tortures them for years, but I realize that's wishful thinking since there is a good chance they've so completely repressed any concept of ethics or morality that they would sell their own mother into slavery for an extra tenth of a penny.

I will be surprised if it isn't an established thing by then.

Soda in general has increased across the board, but 12 for $8 is ridiculous since that's basically vending machine levels (I can find local vending machines for $0.75/can).

At Costco, I can get a 35-pack for about $18, less if it's on sale, which is still pretty expensive, but way less than the grocery store (basically ~$6/12-pack). Just a few years ago it was around $0.25/can, and now it's $0.50 in bulk, which is a huge shift.

2-liter prices are still pretty reasonable, so it seems the price increase is mostly for the packaging, not the product.

If Walmart isn't trying to implement similar technology, I will be very surprised. They just haven't had to be public about it yet.

Most are unionized but not all. Kroger's union is also just not very good. I never met a union rep that wasn't friends with management. They do very little to actually represent workers. Also, Kroger has such a high turnover rate that newer employees will usually vote to approve any contract that gives them a raise, no matter how small.

These contracts last for a few years, so as other retailers raise wages to compete with each other, Kroger workers are stuck in their old contract until it expires. If anything, Kroger's union results in lower wages for the workers compared to other grocery retailers.

UFCW is further weakened by "right-to-work" laws that give union benefits to non-union employees. In my experience, many of the people who opt out of union membership are brainwashed by conservatism and are anti-union. They are also often the people who stay at Kroger the longest.

In addition, Kroger has dozens of "districts", each with their own contract. These contracts are all negotiated at different times so that if there is a strike, Kroger can send managers from other districts and hire scabs until the strike is over. This prevents strikes from ever really hurting Kroger's bottom line.

So, to answer your question, Kroger is technically unionized but it's union is pretty ineffective. Kroger basically operates the same as Walmart or Meijer but with a handful of union policies that they have to follow or they might get fined for a union violation.

With that being said, I am still very pro union. The above is just based on my own experience, having worked there for too many years.

I think there stands a case to have discount surge pricing on cheque days for example to ease the burden of poverty framing the "surge" as increased store volume opposed to prices but yea now that I type it out a different term is needed lol

Appreciate the info and link, but $168 for what is essentially a few dollars of SOLAS tape and a pair of IR laser safety glasses? Bruh.

Hm. I wonder if I could get those lenses in my prescription. That would be neat.

But I already wear glasses. What about a ball cap?

As an asshole that deserves the highest price hahahaha

That's my point!

Indeed.

60 years ago we were supposed to having to work very little by now thanks to automation, then automation came and instead of the productivity gains of it ending up spread across society, what happenned instead was that the extra productivity went just pushed up dividend and CxO pay higher and due to the reduced need for workers due to automation the purchasing power of salaries actually went down (for example, in the US the percentage of corporate revenues that went to pay salaries fell from 23% in the 70s down to 7% by 2014).

Expecting that, under the exact system that's been moving us more and more towards Dystopia with each wave of automation, AI would somehow end up making things better for most people rather than better just for the Owner Class and worse for part or most of the rest, is pretty ill-informed and naive.

Today I dumped some ancient Windows CE source code into it and asked it to generate a picture of what the screens would have looked like in the app, and it showed me.

an unbiased mediator and administrator of resources that makes logical decisions to benefit all of humanity, able to find patterns that most humans cannot, process data in ways humans cannot, and not driven by petty human emotion? yeah, why would something like that give me hope?

all those things still have the potential to create a better world, and the problem is still the same: the owner class is using them to benefit themselves only. we have to destroy this dystopia by any means necessary. every day we don't is another day we doom billions to suffer for the benefit of a few.

They will choose to stop if it doesn't make them money. 😀

But yes, not allowing them to do this in the first place would be a very reasonable thing to fight for.

If someone hasn't made a 3D printable model for IR glasses I think I may make one this weekend.

With a model file, 20 cents of filament, a few LEDs, some wire, and a watch battery these could be made DIY for a few dollars after the printer cost. You can get a decent 3D printer for 200 bucks these days.

They won't be as stylish, but they'd do the job just fine.

I'm lucky enough to have a WinCo nearby, but I'm not sure how widespread they are