Bagger jobs’ loss blow to disabled
Advocates, shoppers blast move
Stop & Shop’s move to ax baggers from some checkout lanes has advocates and shoppers worried the grocery giant could be chasing dollars and cents at the expense of disabled workers who depend on those jobs.
Two Stop & Shop stores in Revere have recently converted more than half of their checkout lanes from a traditional system with a bagger to a Walmart-style carousel system that has the cashier bagging groceries. It’s a hint of what’s to come as the Quincy-based company says it’ll soon convert some registers at all of its 419 stores to run without a second set of hands.
Stop & Shop said in a statement that it has begun adding the carousel bagging systems to “provide customers with an even faster checkout experience.” The company said the move is not cost-related, and emphasized that no one would lose their job because of the change.
“It will be all stores,” said Phil Tracey, a Stop & Shop spokesman. The company said it is adding more of the systems at “select store registers over the next year,” although it will keep some traditional registers with baggers as well as electronic self-checkout lanes.
The baggers are represented by the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 1445, which says the grocery stores are required to give a minimum number of hours to the baggers at other positions in the company.
Advocates who help handicapped people find jobs say they are worried that the wave of checkout changes soon to sweep across New England could spread across the industry as a whole.
Debbie Muldoon, director of career and employment services at Triangle Inc., a Malden disability employment organization, told the Herald two of her clients already have lost their positions as baggers at the Squire Road Stop & Shop in Revere and are undergoing retraining for other jobs at the store.
“It doesn’t send the message of having an inclusive work environment when you eliminate jobs that are the only work these people can do,” Muldoon said. “This is probably going to be the trend.”
Muldoon sees the move as a cost-cutting measure, and she said the loss of bagger positions could have a “huge impact” on her organization’s ability to find jobs for disabled people, because 20 percent of the placements are groceryjobs.
“We have people bagging groceries at Market Basket, at Stop & Shop,” Muldoon said, “As stores eliminate these types of jobs, it’s a huge impact on us.”
Shoppers loading bags of groceries into their cars in Revere yesterday bristled at the company’s move to cut baggers out of their shopping experience.
“It’s a good job. It’s job security,” said Andrea Vitale of Malden. She added that she’d rather “stand in line for an hour” than use one of the electronic self-checkouts also competing for space in many grocery stores. “You see it everywhere.”
Liseth Tabares of Revere said having someone bag her groceries is a big help, and she likes to see people with limited job skills employed.
“It’s easier and it’s faster,” she said. “They need to work, and they feel special when they do it.”