100% it's really for anti-union bullshit because who the fuck is stealing in full view of an employee where the employees having body cams would make a lick of difference?
Or is it meant to deter the employees from stealing? 🤔
100% it's really for anti-union bullshit because who the fuck is stealing in full view of an employee where the employees having body cams would make a lick of difference?
Or is it meant to deter the employees from stealing? 🤔
Most likely it is there to blame the employee for not being busy enough or not doing everything perfectly with a customer.
They have a big issue with internal shrink.
In other words, they have a systemic issue is where the threat of prosecution isn't enough to deter employees from supplementing income with theft.
I wonder what kind of conditions led to that.
Guess they need to be lobbying for a better social safety net and perhaps higher minimum wage laws
You could spend a lot of money on body cameras, or you could reduce your prices to being affordable again. I'd say either one has a decent chance of dissuading shoplifters.
But I suppose you can only write off the former.
It’s probably more due to the lack of staff than price of goods, something else they could’ve addressed with that camera money.
honestly, body cameras are more about liability after the fact. There's really only two reasons to strap a camera on somebody- liability defense (cops, armed security guards, etc,) and being able to monitor what the fuck they're doing. both are important when the individuals in question are armed. Not so much when the expected response is constructive cowardice.
There's absolutely no way a body camera would act as a deterrent when traditional and AI-enhanced security cameras that they're absolutely already using won't. Also, I'm not entirely sure I believe that there's massive waves of organized shoplifters.
There is- as noted in the article- a massive wave of unionization, though. and that would probably hurt their profits far more than any wave of shoplifting ever will.
I haven't been to TJ Max in forever. Aren't they a low cost clothing store?
Nothing is low cost anymore.
I'm pretty sure you can write off shoplifted items as lost assets, so maybe just let them get shoplifted?
reduce your prices to being affordable again
Uh, they don't get much cheaper in the new clothing market. If you want even cheaper than the cheapest, learn to thrift and repair.
I'd hate that as an employee. Imagine knowing that every time you talk to a coworker, it's recorded. Every time you sit for a few minutes to reset, it's recorded. Every time you check your phone, it's on camera.
this is the real reason why they're doing it.
Don't want them to unionize!
Seriously.
Like if you think mass-shoplifting hurts them- that shit's already baked into the price of goods being sold before it ever happened.
Unionizing will hurt their profits far, far more than shoplifters ever will.
(Fuck poverty and those who promote and embrace it)
shoplifting [is] already baked into the price of goods being sold
Tomorrow’s recipe adjusted based on yesterday’s shrink? 👨🍳
Question assumes a greedy entity will refuse to allow reduction of its profit margin.
Tomorrow’s recipe adjusted based on yesterday’s shrink? 👨🍳
Nope. They have fancy overpriced mathnerds (“actuaries”) that build models to predict future shrinkage and price that into today’s prices.
The shrinkage is paid for before it ever goes out the door. Probably, before it ever came in the door in the first place.
These mathnerds that work for these corporations are some of the best in the business of risk modeling. Second only to insurance companies.
Them actuaries 🤓
Just called all my friends and we decided to start a TJX shoplifter training school franchise. If we’re successful this year, do we stand a chance at adding a penny to prices next year?
Most retail stores and restaurants already have cameras everywhere. I had a boss who would sit at home watching the feed and then call the store to yell at us when he thought we were burning sandwiches.
This is part of a growing trend in the retail industry, as stores respond to an increase in organized retail theft(1) and violence against workers(2)."
The first has been proven to be a lie. The second is true, especially since the pandemic began.
It's a sad state of affairs when retail workers need to wear cameras to protect themselves, but that is the only value. Not an alleged increase in organized theft. That is just the line being brought out by big companies like Target to excuse bad behavior on their part.
Don't forget to turn on your body cam before clocking in!
Yeah, I feel like this is more about keeping tabs on the employees instead.
They legally can’t require you to do that. They can only require it to be on your person, as part of uniform, prior to clocking in. Operating the camera is considered a compensated task.
Yet some supervisor or manager will argue that you "have to turn it before you clock in to make sure that it records everything." Wage theft is nothing new.
They can say that. I’m just saying the employees will win a class action suit if they do.
If they want to protect the company against time theft, they can install a camera near the time clock.
No way in hell am I wearing a damn camera and volunteering to have my employer have a live video feed of everything I do at work while making next to nothing in wages. Hey, it's performance review time, sorry, we can't give you a raise because you have been chatting with your friends too much while on the clock. 1984 shit. Fuck that.
Hello, I'm your boss. Saw you on your phone during your break in the video feed.
You've been asking for a raise for years. Unfortunately, you're a really good performer, always on time, good worker, and I've never heard anything negative that I could base my decision to deny your raise on. So I watched the video feed to find the most minuscule thing that I can pinpoint as a "problem". I was about to tell you that drinking water on the job significantly decreases your performance, but that post you made on your break is now going to be my reason. Screw you. I love money!
Sincerely, your favorite boss
Hey boss,
Not sure what got into you. Given that we have literally hung out after work playing tabletop games and getting wasted, and I was planning to go to your wedding in September. Thought we were buds.
Anyway guy down the street offered me more money. So going to be working there now. Best of luck without the millions of dollars I made you last year and finding someone with my skillset.
I have this great idea to stop an increase in organized retail theft and violence against workers. STOP PRICE GOUGING GROCERIES AND PEOPLE WILL STOP STEALING THEM!
Whats that? increase prices further, while cutting the ~~slaves~~ employee wages by 30%? What a grand idea!
We had these where I worked, what a lot of people miss is these don't actually record until the person wearing it presses a button, it doesn't have the battery life to record, encode, then broadcast video for 8+ hours. No doubt when that becomes feasible they'll give it a go though.
In the UK we have to announce to everyone it's recording. The gangs and thieves know this and don't care. They were happy to attack and rob us when we already had store wide CCTV.
The only deterrent that worked was a security guard we had for a short while, but the company withdrew them because we weren't losing over 5% of our daily take to theft, ignoring that we got the guard because two people had been sent to hospital after being attacked by a gang of youths.
Businesses shouldn't be run by people who never have to even step foot on the premises. The people making the decisions (and proceeds!) should be the ones that actually have to live with those decisions and implement them.
CCTV already exists. What is this even
Security theatre.
I hope eventually theres a document of like flagged words and phrases like that one online document of words and phrases that'll get you on a watch list from that.was going around very online circles a long time back. That way as a shopper I can say things or hold up pictures to the camera to create lots of false flags making their little AI throw the results to someone they gotta pay to review it.
Talk about meetings to get the union started and how it looks like we've already got enough committed votes in favour to get it going without worrying about what kind of propaganda they'll try to throw at the staff once they realize it's happening and that the other stores also seem to be on track and if they get the timing right, they won't be able to just shut that many down to quell it. Then think aloud about how we shouldn't be talking about this there because who knows what those fucking cameras are picking up and sending back to corporate.
The primary responsibilities of one job at a Marshalls in Miami Beach, Florida, are to maintain a “proper and professional stance” at the front of the store, act as a “visual deterrent to prevent potential loss/dishonesty” and wear a company-issued body camera. The description says that the camera is to record “specific events involving critical incidents for legal, safety, and training purposes.”
These employees, who wear a company-approved black vest, black pants and black shoes, are instructed not to stop or chase after shoplifting suspects.
It's the same reason I made sure the security cameras on my house are visible from the street. People with bad intentions just move on to easier targets.
They may have seen the studies down on police forces who adopted cameras. They saw a drop in complaints against officers, as well as fewer escalations by the public against officers. Likewise, they're hoping this translates to retail.
Stores are already full of security cameras. Shoplifters are generally aware of this. I'm not sure what this adds to that. I suppose it keeps someone employed.
It's not for stopping theft, it's for intimidating workers
I'd imagine the biggest difference is that these employees could actually get fired if they turn theirs off.
I have a proposal for the next iteration of Tik Tok challenges, or whatever medium we're using to flaunt our bad decisions now-a-days: steal the cameras right off the employees.
I noticed in my local supermarket in the UK they started wearing cameras too it's really weird. I'm really not sure what their goal is - it will never help shoplifting as much as static cameras, and seems a lot of effort to safeguard against abusive customers.
I just want to say that I appreciate how your comment has made me understand that writing run-on sentences without punctuation isn't a strictly American English language thing.
This sounds mean-spirited of me, but I actually mean it. Everybody always makes fun of the Americans for it. And I'm not saying I'm perfect, either. Poor grammar can bring us all together.
I am wondering when teachers will get these. Little Timmy literally took a bite out of another students neck? No, you can't say it was someone else, I have it on video!
Hey! Who want's to shop at a retailer where someone follows you around with a camera and the merchandise is overpriced? Raise your hand now! [crickets] Consumers will shop elsewhere. Making your business like the DPRK is not a winning strategy.
Worked for London.
They think price gouging is going to increase theft and they wanna be ready. They'd rather waste money on this (and on advocating the govt for harsher penalties) than lower them.
Friendly reminder: if you see someone stealing from target? No you didn't. That goes for target employees too. Here's hoping your bodycams up with as much "lost" footage as the cop's.
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