Sacramento, CA – Today, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Western States Council applauded the Senate Labor Committee for passing SB 442 (Smallwood-Cuevas). SB 442 protects workers, the public, and improves the customer experience by ensuring safer staffing levels in grocery retail stores that utilize self- checkout. This bill ensures that at least one manual option remains available to customers, while establishing guardrails to provide a safe shopping experience when these technologies are deployed. The following quote can be attributed to Andrea Zinder, president, UFCW Local 324:
“We’re sick of seeing the grocery companies where we represent members implement technology designed to eliminate workers’ jobs while creating a range of problems for retailers, workers, and the public alike. It’s clear companies want to use self-checkout to drastically cut staffing and reduce labor costs, but now our members oversee as many as 12 self-checkout stations while also having to ring up customers at a full-service lane or clean up spills. This impacts customers’ shopping experience. Self-checkout SB 442 will protect good jobs and keep workers safe by ensuring there are safe staffing levels for cashiers and regulating self-checkout, and UFCW is proud to sponsor this bill.”
# # #
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 26, 2025
Contact: Jenna Thompson, [email protected], 949.246.1620