Hartford Business Journal

16 Hartford Business Journal • April 29, 2019 • www.HartfordBusiness.com By Matt Pilon mpilon@hartfordbusiness.com W hile health and retirement ben- efits were the top reasons more than 30,000 Stop & Shop workers across Connecticut, Mas- sachusetts and Rhode Island went on an 11-day strike this month, another concern lingered in the background for picketing employees. In the hypercompetitive, low-margin grocery retail industry, Stop & Shop and rivals like Walmart and Amazon (which now owns Whole Foods and has also opened a handful of its own "Ama- zon Go" high-tech grocery stores) con- tinue to tinker with new and evolving technologies that carry the potential to replace human workers. It's a concern that's played out over the decades in agriculture, manufac- turing and other industries, and it's one that continues to evolve as technolo- gies like artificial intelligence advance. From self-checkout kiosks that have become commonplace over the past two decades to more recent develop- ments like cashierless stores, clean- ing robots and self-driving delivery vehicles, supermarkets may be the lat- est ground zero for the age-old clash between automation and relatively low-skilled labor, experts say. "The pressure on these stores is insanely intense," said Christopher Andrews, an assistant professor of soci- ology at Drew University in New Jersey who studies technology's impact on the grocery business. "I think the industry is going to always look for ways to in- crease efficiency, maximize produc- tivity and reduce labor costs." Interestingly, despite the rise in grocery-store technology, the number of ca- shiers and overall workers employed by supermarkets has risen over the past two decades. Even still, the technology threat looms. A 2017 report from New York-based management consulting firm McKin- sey & Co. concluded that automation, including AI, could eliminate up to 73 million U.S. jobs by 2030. Up to 44 percent of current work activity hours could be automated this decade, the report said, adding that automation is expected to displace the greatest number of work hours in jobs that involve processing and collecting data, and predictable physical activities. "The changes in net occupational growth or decline imply that a very large number of people may need to shift occupational categories and learn new skills in the years ahead," McKin- sey said. "The shift could be on a scale not seen since the transition of the la- bor force out of agriculture in the early 1900s in the United States and Europe, and more recently in China." Worker perspective Picketing with her fellow employees and members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International (UFCW) on day seven of the strike this month, Wanda Jablonecki said she's witnessed firsthand the rise of the machines at Stop & Shop, where she's worked for the past 22 years. That's included the advent of self- checkout lanes and deli-ordering touchscreen kiosks, as well as this year's debut of a roving robot named "Marty" that patrols the aisles and alerts employees of spills. In her current role as front-end man- ager at the New Britain supermarket, Jablonecki oversees cashiers as well as five self-checkout lanes, where custom- ers scan and bag their own groceries. She said Stop & Shop installed ad- ditional self-checkout kiosks in a few other area stores last year, including Wethersfield, and she expects the same to happen at her store. "They want to add more self-scans, which means less cashiers," Jablonecki said. She said technology wasn't a main factor in the strike or contract nego- tiations, but it did creep its way into the conversation. For example, as the strike got under- way on April 11, Hamden Stop & Shop employees chanted "Marty in every store, pay your humans more!" accord- Man vs. Machine Stop & Shop strike reveals concerns about job-killing technology Employment at U.S. supermarkets Christopher Andrews, an assistant professor of sociology at Drew University, included this chart in his recent book exploring technology's impact on supermarkets. Despite the spread of self-checkout lanes, stores have not reduced the ranks of cashiers. 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500 4,000 In thousands of workers Cashier employment Overall supermarket employment 2,342,900 3,564,920 800,100 916,540 2,342,900 3,564,920 800,100 916,540 Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics Christopher Andrews, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Drew University Stop & Shop's roving robot "Marty" patrols the aisles looking for spills. He isn't perceived as a job killer, but competitors like Walmart have introduced robots that clean and scan inventory. PHOTO | JIM MICHAUD, JOURNAL INQUIRER

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