Okay first my apologies to Bob Marley or at least his spirit.
I've just returned from five weeks in Europe having spent time in Spain, France, Italy and the UK. It's nice to be returning at a time when winter is over and that meter high pile of snow in front of the house has pretty much melted away.
My hosts in the wonderful city of Bologna, Italy (more on that later!) were my old friends Judy and Larry Haiven and their son Omri. Inevitably, we ended up in the supermarket at the local shopping mall around the corner from their residence.
In Toronto, I work across the street from a "Great Canadian Superstore", one of those supermarkets that sells not only groceries, but also kitchenware, furniture, clothing, household items, has a pharmacy and an electronics store. So consequently I spend alot of time there. Also they're unionized by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) which allows me to shop there with a clear conscience.
In Bologna, the supermarket was of a similar size and carried pretty much the same types of items. It's also unionized.
But, there were two big differences! First of all, the supermarket in Bologna is a cooperative and I understand part of a chain of cooperative supermarkets that operates throughout northern Italy.
Secondly, unlike the folks who work across the street from me here in Toronto, the folks working the checkout counter in Bologna were all sitting down instead of standing. Their work stations were especially designed so that they could do their jobs seated and facing the customer. No standing, twisting and turning required as is the practice in this part of the world.
So is this "seated" checkout counter staff just a leftwing nuts and berries thing?
Not at all.
Later I spent a couple of weeks in London, England with my good friend Eric Lee, editor of the "Labourstart" global labour rights web portal.
We made quite a few visits to the local "Tesco" supermarket chain. Tesco is also unionized, but I understand is just as combative an employer as Walmart is here in North America. But again, the folks working the checkout counters were seated instead of having to stand. And my understanding is that this is the practice throughout Europe. Cashiers sit down on the job.
I'm sure some bean counting time and motion study person will come up with some bizarre rationale about why cashiers in North America have to stand. I'm also sure that the display on my handy-dandy "bs-o-meter" will be showing full scale! (By the way my "bs-o-meter" runs on free software!).
In any case Judy was much quicker on the draw and you'll find her blogpost on this issue here
Cashiers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your sore feet, legs and aching backs!
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As a former cashier (many teenage girls started out as cashiers in grocery stores and the like in the 80s), I can definately support a movement to give cashiers the option to have a seat. Even if you have to stand while serving a customer, at my various cashier jobs we weren't even allowed to sit down if nobody was in the store. I worked a part-time shift (4 to 5 hours) of straight standing (if you were lucky, you got to go to the bathroom and sit on the toilet!). It seems like such a small thing but I hear so many people complaining about "crabby cashiers." We would be a lot less crabby without the sore feet and backs that come as part of "doing our jobs."
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