How about you fix the real problem, yeah?
Shoplifting up driven by rising cost of living - Coles responding with employee body cams
Submitted 1 year ago by cyu@sh.itjust.works to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-14/coles-woolworths-staff-body-cameras-customer-abuse/102853054
Comments
orphiebaby@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Gyrolemmy@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Bodycams dont make sense if you work in a building. Just place cameras in the building.
The only value i could see is making an offender calm down by making them stare at a camera that is recording them… even though they were already being recorded.
Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Body Cams probably have microphones, allowing corporations to not also monitor the customers more closely but also their employees and make sure they say the correct things to customers.
sturmblast@lemmy.world 1 year ago
this kills two birds with one stone, they can spy and monitor their employees and it also makes them look like they made an effort to deter shoplifting
TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
The thing is that many of the employees at these kind of places shoplift too. I worked in grocery and department stores for years. Some places were worse than others. It turns out the places that pay fairer wages have less employee theft. What a concept.
The majority of employees just take nearly expired items, and defective boxes, etc. There is so much waste and so much goes into the trash at these places. It’s hard to not be tempted, because it’s mostly just recycling at that point.
sagrotan@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I watched a young supermarket employee as he clearly sees a young mother stealing food, he looks at me, shrugs his shoulders, a short thumbs up 👍 from me, and we ignored it together. There you go. Still humans out there.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Yeah the general rule of thumb for most is “if you see someone stealing food; no you didn’t.”
virtualbriefcase@lemm.ee 1 year ago
The Australian Retailers Association said one in every four of these shoplifting incidents involved “abuse or assault” against workers.
In an ongoing trial, staff at 30 Coles stores across Australia are being fitted with cameras to only be turned on in “threatening situations”.
The title sounds misleading, from the text of the article it’s more of a panic button to alert emergency services than it is passive monitoring of employees or customers.
MostlyMute@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Not a panic button. As far as I’ve heard it’s just a camera that only has a short recording time. If someone is benign abusive, you press the button to make it start recording. Either the abusive person will back down at the obvious camera recording them, or they’ll get more aggressive, but at least then you’ve got footage of them. The overhead store cameras are really crap quality.
skymtf@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
Shoplifting is actually really based and as an employee your employer shouldn’t expect you to do anything about it. Fuck the capitalist bullshit.
foggy@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Literally every corporate policy on theft is to let them steal and call the police.
Getting involved Ed physically in any way is a losing battle in court.
0110010001100010@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Let’s see here, I’m 37 so 20ish years ago I worked for OfficeMax. We were literally trained that if someone was shoplifting to try and note any relevant details then call the cops. Even if that wasn’t told to us none of us were paid enough to do anything about it. Our one older manager tried to stop a shoplifter once and got knocked unconscious for his efforts.
Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
They are going to fire 10 cashiers and buy 10 self checkouts then hire 10 security guards.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
They were going to do that anyway.
TwoGems@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s just the right of grocery stores to price gouge you for basic biological needs, you see!
ultratiem@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Turning people into autonomous drones. Nice.
/s
Root@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
Which is what happens in Charles Stross’ “Quantum of Nightmares”. Except it involves a good deal of Blood Magic, meatgrinders, zentai suits and abuse of the workfare system. It seems the author was very angry when he wrote it.
Sanctus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Lets just let this problems boil until we’re competing with the birds and beasts again. Fuck society I guess, they got theirs.
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 1 year ago
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!
magnetosphere@kbin.social 1 year ago
“You might get attacked while on the job, so here, wear this camera.”
“If what I’m doing is so dangerous, don’t I deserve a raise, too?”
“Very funny. Now get back to work.”
snooggums@kbin.social 1 year ago
"The camera is your raise and you have to claim it on your taxes."
chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
“We both know the real reason you’re wearing that camera. One of you assholes is pilfering inventory again”
“All the more reason for a raise, sir?”
“No, that’s what the 10% non-transferable employee discount is for”
“Of course, sir”
all of the cameras were stolen within a week
MostlyMute@lemmy.world 1 year ago
10%??? It’s 5% unless there’s a special bribe going on for us for a few weeks, like around Christmas.