Unions press for staffing limits and machine caps as committee considers self‑checkout bill

Boston — Labor unions and grocery workers urged legislators to adopt Senate Bill 237 to regulate self‑checkout use in Massachusetts grocery stores, proposing limits on machines and minimum staffing ratios.

Kevin Russo, secretary‑treasurer of the Massachusetts AFL‑CIO, said the bill would protect frontline grocery workers whose hours and responsibilities have shifted with self‑checkout deployment. "Stores now schedule fewer workers... while increasingly relying on self checkout to make up the difference," Russo testified.

S 237 would limit the number of self‑checkout machines to eight per store, require a 2:1 ratio of self‑checkout to manual lanes and set a maximum of two self‑checkout stations per monitoring employee, witnesses said. Jack Kentslow of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1445 described instances where a single employee was required to monitor many machines and said understaffing can lead to assaults on workers and increased theft.

Several store employees described stressful shifts, frequent machine errors, customers' frustration and occasional threats to staff. "My experience with self checkout has been very stressful... there was one customer ... she said she was going to shoot me," Stop & Shop employee Kathy Oliveira testified.

Retail trade groups later testified in the hearing and argued for clarity and predictable rules for businesses, but the oral record at this hearing focused on worker safety and staffing. No formal committee vote or final action was recorded on S 237 during the session.