Dear god. There's a guy with clear, serious mental disability working in one of these positions at our local wal-mart. He's always so happy to greet people. The thought of him losing his job makes me so fucking mad.
The greeters always seemed kind of pointless to me. I know they're mainly for loss prevention, but they only check stuff that isn't bagged. So if I wanted to steal anything, I'd just go through self-checkout, throw it into a bag alongside some cheap thing I'm buying, and walk right past without batting an eye. Yet they'll stop me for a $10 box of soda cans that wouldn't even fit in a bag anyways. Waste of their time and money IMO.
The disability thing doesn't seem malicious. They're merging the duties of a near-pointless job into a general customer-support position which some people currently filling those duties aren't qualified for. Not to be ultra-capitalist or anything but Wal-Mart is not a jobs program, they aren't responsible for employing as many people as possible. The situation sucks but the suck originates with "the low-level economy is so bad that every position is flooded with applicants and people who through no fault of their own are near the bottom end of the qualifications have the hardest time finding any employment", not "Wal-Mart merges some positions, making some people redundant". (Plus, after working at Goodwill I'm extremely wary of any place specifically trying to employ handicapped people - they get a big tax break and can pay below minimum wage, at least in my state. I really doubt Wal-Mart was hiring disabled people out of the kindness of their cold corporate hearts.)
As much as I feel terrible for those with disabilities losing their jobs, I personally don't think I've ever encountered a "greeter" in any store that didn't have responsibilities beyond welcoming me to a store.
I'd love for there to be an alternative for those with disabilities to stay employed, but this seems to be basically charity. From what I can tell they only say hello to those who enter the store. Maybe at best they can direct customers to specific areas of need, but most (if not all) stores have had the entire retail team already fulfill both of those obligations.
It would probably cost Wal-mart less money to just give them their salaries and have them not come in as LITERAL charity and write it off on taxes. I can see that they've been in trouble in the past for thinking about making every job have some sort of physicality to it to kind of prohibit those with disabilities from even applying, and I suppose that's a form of discrimination, but is every company required to have a position that's available for those who can't do physical labor or move around at all?
I've said it before and I'll say it again: they need a fucking shopping cart maintenance division.
the worst part about it is walmart's culture of no accountability and no training means that these thousands of workers will almost all only find out their ultimate fate when walmart rolls out some 1 page memo and nobody at the store level or immediately above will have any fucking clue what they're doing so they'll give these people absolutely awful advice.
Greeters have always been something I enjoy about Walmart. It just feels nice to see people being able to get employment, even with disabilities.
Really? The greeters at our local Wal-Mart only check potential returned items that enter the store, they don't check anything that exits the store and never have as long as the store has been open. I always assumed they were just there to greet people and give out stickers to people who wish to return items.
I rated agree but I wanted to specifically say this was really well written and I agree entirely. The economic conditions that make people need to be greeters are the larger issue, even if some people are hurt by the removal of greeters. In a perfect world there are no greeters in Wal-Mart.
Its sad because the idea of them having a job they can do is great, but on the flip side I'd rather them have that almost anywhere other than Walmart. There is no aspect of working for Walmart that is good, not even the part where they pay you. So honestly I just hope a place that is less horrible will start hiring them.
I don't really see the point in the greeters.
I don't want to be greeted when I enter a store. This is not a social affair.
How can a company simultaneously understand the value in self-checkouts and still think greeters are a good idea
There's a factory in my town that manufactures simple toys (the kind that are sold in those gum-ball machine things) and primarily employs disabled people. We need more stuff like that, imo. I think that's a big part of why I've never seen a disabled person working as a greeter in our local Wal-Mart.
I don't know why we keep counting on megacorporations to take care of vulnerable people, obviously sooner or later they'll fuck them over.
The big issue is Wal-Mart not finding them other equivalent positions in the store or assisting with finding new employment. It's transparent that they're changing the position to cut costs but ultimately they are not responsible for keeping these people employed; however, they are responsible for treating them fairly and helping them transition elsewhere.
I don't know why Wal Mart doesn't eliminate the greeter position altogether. They'd save a lot of money. It's kind of weird in this day and age. But keeping it and tossing out disabled people is even more weird
It's what happens, I guess. Once WalMart becomes the only store to get your groceries it's going to get really ugly
walmart kills stores in the surrounding vicinity of them, and everyone discriminates against disabled folks to begin with so combine the two and you're looking at incredibly screwed workers out of a job, potentially for a long time
sure, discriminating against disabled workers is illegal, but it's only illegal if they outright say "yeah we're refusing you work because you're disabled"
if they just say "it didn't work out", "lay offs", or the time tested "just never reply to the job application", they're just fine
I have never even heard of this concept.
Is it an American thing mostly?
Always hated the position. When I worked in retail I'd always be massively understaffed for my team and my store manager would be jerking off about how, "you just have to think outside the box and make sure front end for example is helping out when it's not busy" but we'd always cop shit if we actually got the "customer champion" to do anything but just stand there. 99% of them never bothered to do any actual greeting and their impact on loss prevention is pretty much nil.
there's got to be some portion of the ADA that calls out this practice of reclassifying a job and not accommodating disabled workers.
Greeters exist as secondary loss prevention merely by greeting you. Studies show that being greeted upon entering a store is a catastrophically significant deterrent to shoplifters, as it means their presence in store is known and they have been recognized by a member of staff.
I'm an introvert but this is just kind of whiny. Half the time the greeters don't even speak to you, just nod and smile. At most you will get a "Good evening!" or "Have a good day!" It's not like they rope you into conversations. The position has historically provided the elderly and mentally challenged with an actual job, that's worth what I can barely call a mild inconvenience.
I mean can you really call this “fucking people over”? Not that I disagree with your general sentiment, though.
The value of self checkouts is more for less labor aspect, not the customer interaction. Greeters are a method of loss prevention as customer service is one deterrent to stopping shop lifting. I know when I worked in sales retail, our LP asked us to continue to customer service someone if they were suspect of theft. I guess greeters can do that to an extent, we're talking about Wal-Mart here. There are some staff that do their above and beyond, but most people are only there for a paycheck and not much else.
"Walmart is the largest private employer in the U.S. and has a large workforce of workers with disabilities. And the job of greeter has been a particularly attractive fit, as it isn't physically strenuous and is easy to learn."
But Walmart has been eliminating greeters and replacing them with "customer hosts," who have expanded responsibilities, such as taking care of security or assisting shoppers. The change is going into effect at the end of April. It is the latest wave in a policy that Walmart started in 2016. It has already affected about 1,000 stores.
In response to NPR's inquiry, Walmart acknowledged the effect on workers with disabilities. Spokesman Kory Lundberg said on Monday that the company will now give greeters with disabilities more time beyond April 25 to find new accommodations:
"Walmart gross profit for the quarter ending January 31, 2019 was $33.886B, a 0.77% increase year-over-year."
Walmart Gross Profit 2006
Company making yearly record profits and receiving huge tax breaks lays off workers and consolidates responsibilities with no pay compensation. That's a pretty common theme for the last few years. Wal-Mart is a scum company in general but this feels pretty low.
This is a significant loss for the american workforce. Even if you don't give a shit about the people personally, this will put a bigger strain on social services that will be needed to help the elderly and disabled that will be losing jobs.
We shouldn't be requiring that disabled people do jobs that even the company doesn't want them to be doing.
Walmart shouldn't be our social safety net...
I mostly agree, but I don't quite follow here. Self-checkout is massively slower than a cashier in my experience (and that's with delays from e.g. me being unable to bag fast enough to keep up with them).
Depends on if you're buying a lot of things I'd say. Self checkout almost always saves me time when Walmart is busy if I'm just getting a few things.
This new Wal-mart in a "higher end" area of my hometown started doing this scan-as-you-go system of checkout. You basically grab a scanner (or your phone) when you walk in and just scan items as you pick them off the shelf. You're totaled up at the end of your trip and charged to the card on file with your Wal-mart account. I guess similar to Amazon physical stores but with less automation.
My local Kroger has begun doing that as well
We've had that in the UK for the better part of a decade now, sort of surprised the States didn't have that already.
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