‘Forgotten by the management’ is the title of a background article that is dedicated to the working conditions in large retail chains. Several cited experts note that the work organisation with cash decks, based on a Taylorian model, has hardly evolved since the invention of the supermarkets. Workers are disciplined through double control mechanisms, filmed by cameras and under surveillance of their store management. Cashiers have benefited little from technological innovations, apart from automatic scanning. Depending on the flow of products, cashiers can neither be absent from their positions, nor stretch their legs, let alone decide their breaks, programmed by the hierarchy according to peaks of affluence. The trade unions try to improve the situation by promoting more all-round tasks and other methods to break monotony.
French: http://business.lesechos.fr/directions-ressources-humaines ...
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Willy De Backer wdebacker@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. Since June 2013 readers can consult our archive and search through all articles in our database at www.cbnarchive.eu. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.
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