Day After Employees Vote to Unionize, Target Announces Fleet of Robot Workers

[Ichingcarpenter]

Just a day after pharmacy workers from a Brooklyn Target store formed a union, the company announced plans to replace employees with robot workers in the near future.

Last week it was reported that the pharmacists had submitted their initial “microunion” filing with the National Labor Relations Board after an initial ballot vote was passed 7 -2. The filing was noteworthy as the workers become the first union at any Target store since the retailer opened in 1902.

Yet, less than a week later, in a seemingly unrelated press release, Casey Carl, the Chief Technology and Strategy Officer at Target announced the company’s plan to develop automation systems and replace workers with robots in their retail locations as part of a new program with Techstars, an industry leader with a reputation for accelerating startups.

http://usuncut.com/class-war/target-union-robot-workers/


Target is planning to test robot workers

The retailer has teamed up with startup Techstars to improve the shopper experience, according to Fortune

Most notably, Target is working on a "concept store" that will open within in one to two years. This store might include robots.

Hardware store chain Lowe's has already been testing robots that can find and retrieve items.

“We know that technology will continue to revolutionize retail, and that Target’s future will be built on innovation,” Casey Carl, Target’s chief strategy and innovation officer, said in a press release.

Target is experiencing massive growth in its online sales, which rose 30% last quarter.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/target-planning-test-robot-workers-153859756.html

[NBachers]

1. Robots? 1. Magnet 2. Sign that says "I destroy jobs"

[coyote]

2. Maybe they can create Robot Consumers

because they are going to need them

[SusanaMontana41]

3. I don't consume robots. Not anymore. Thanks, though.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

10. They're a good source of iron, ...

... copper, magnesium, all essential for healthy living.

They are hard to chew, however.

[SusanaMontana41]

16. LOL!

Hard to chew? Not only do they get caught in my teeth, they've broken off a few.

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. Rent A Robot Security Guard for $6.25 an Hour

After a multimillion-dollar investment round, robotics firm Knightscope has announced its plans to deploy autonomous guards for hire in Silicon Valley

http://www.psfk.com/2014/12/rent-a-silicon-valley-security-bot-for-6-25-per-hour.html


China restaurant introduces robot waiters

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30460737


ROBOT NANNY TO BE SOLD IN JAPANESE STORES FROM 2015

http://factor-tech.com/robotics/4301-robot-nanny-to-be-sold-in-japanese-stores-from-2015/


And finally Robot Politician by Muppet Labs
It will end political corruption forever

[Sherman A1]

5. Thanks for Posting!

The world of Retail continues to evolve and as usual it is not a good evolution for the workers.

[LuvNewcastle]

6. If they do that, I'll never step in a

Target again. That's pretty low to tell your employees that. Ultimately, though, the average employee is far more useful than the average dickhead in upper management.

[Vinca]

7. Don't shop there.

What they sell isn't unique and hard to find. It's just the same old crap from China everyone else sells.

[nationalize the fed]

8. A portent

of things to come...

Robot Department Store Receptionist Starts Work in Tokyo

Droids- the next big thing

Robot staffed hotel opens in Japan

No job is safe. And instead of figuring out what to do with another hundred million unemployed, DC is trying to pass "free trade" agreements, bombing Syria and provoking Russia. Yet the people do nothing...



No "breaks", no unemployment $, no insurance, no vacation, no bonus, no nothing. Get ready for the assault. The Government doesn't care.

[Alkene]

9. Customer Service GSTL interaction:

Target: Expect more, pay less = labor relations motto;
WalMart with better P.R.

[Orrex]

11. Wait a minute! When I've criticized Target in the past...

I've been told that they're not so bad, and that they're much better than Walmart.

Surely it can't be true that Target is just as aggressively anti-union as its bigger counterpart?!?

[Recursion]

12. Automation isn't going away

Anybody got any ideas?

[Taitertots]

18. Keynesian spending to employ displaced workers

Funded by progressive marginal rate income taxation.

[Recursion]

20. Why "employ"? why not just give people money? (nt)

[One_Life_To_Give]

13. High wage would speed up the process, not change the inevitable.

The more labor intensive ($$) the job the fatter the target on it's back for automation. But there really are no Sacred Cows when it comes to replacing people with automation.

[Rex]

14. So what will they do when the robots find out they are working for free?

I for one, welcome our new Skynet overlords and remind them; it was Target that decided to make them work for free, not I.

[workinclasszero]

15. News for Target corp

I ain't ever gonna shop in a damn sterile robotic store and I will do everything in my power to get everyone i know, not to shop in those humanity hating stores as well!

So in conclusion, dear target store corp...FU!

[HughBeaumont]

17. If Automation isn't going away, Capitalism sure will.

You know, unless the wealthy have some fantasyland way of making a buck without that pesky "consumption", which no one can do now they've been displaced and have no job prospects and no hope because they can't afford the mortgaged education Dumberica thinks its citizens have to get.

"Oh, but automation's a blessing in disguise, because they'll HAVE to give America a guaranteed minimum income!"

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTT.

Corporate purchased Washington doesn't have to do shit and isn't GOING to do shit in that regard. It's not happening. Conservatives exist in both parties in 2015 and they all think this is a meritocracy. Democrats are now low-grade Republicans and Republicans are now George Dubya on Steroids. Get that notion out of your heads, it is never going to happen.

By some lottery miracle the political will exists to enact it; how, exactly, would it get paid for with scant revenue coming in because no one can work? Are we going to all of a sudden disproportionately tax wealthy and corporations like we should have been doing all along? We've seen the ugly result of giving these motherfuckers free money . . . they perform stock buybacks and lay off their workers.

Oh, and if you think the millions upon millions of unemployed in retail, manufacturing, medical, warehouses, industry, automotive, etc, etc, etc doesn't affect YOU, white collar worker, THINK AGAIN.

If no one has a paycheck coming in, guess what:they aren't buying your services or your funds or seeing you for loans/mortgages . . . forget about them buying stocks, doing taxes, forget about the investments in R & D, forget about all of that. Demand's going to dry up faster than an ice cube in the Sahara and you might as well take a goddamned lighter to that MBA or PhD, because it's a-gonna be worthless.

But hey, just ignore me. LAUGH AWAY. "Ha ha ha ha, Luddite! Because America has invented everything they need already, right? HA HA HA HA HA!" What, you think Joe Sixpack's going to invent his way out of this mess? It doesn't work that way anymore - most invention is performed in corporate laboratories with mean-ass patent attorneys in 2015. You know, unless Joe Sixpack is somehow rich with lots of 3-D printers at his disposal. Oh wait, who's going to buy his product?

Any light bulbs going off in your heads yet?

Laugh gleefully while some of you think that this is the event that's going to finally lead to the Democratic Socialism we all want. They couldn't be more incorrect on this. This is going to lead to a dystopia that will make the Great Depression seem like a two-car accident. It's going to be horrific, there's going to be a shit-ton of pain, there's going to be starvation, there's going to be unneeded deaths and it's going to be biblical.

[Octafish]

19. You've connected the dots as to where ''all this'' is leading.

Chris Hedges tried bringing it to the nation's attention:

[font color="green"]The goal of wholesale surveillance, as Arendt wrote in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” is not, in the end, to discover crimes, “but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a certain category of the population.” And because Americans’ emails, phone conversations, Web searches and geographical movements are recorded and stored in perpetuity in government databases, there will be more than enough “evidence” to seize us should the state deem it necessary. This information waits like a deadly virus inside government vaults to be turned against us. It does not matter how trivial or innocent that information is. In totalitarian states, justice, like truth, is irrelevant. [/font green]

The object of efficient totalitarian states, as George Orwell understood, is to create a climate in which people do not think of rebelling, a climate in which government killing and torture are used against only a handful of unmanageable renegades. The totalitarian state achieves this control, Arendt wrote, by systematically crushing human spontaneity, and by extension human freedom. It ceaselessly peddles fear to keep a population traumatized and immobilized. It turns the courts, along with legislative bodies, into mechanisms to legalize the crimes of state.

CONTINUED...

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_last_gasp_of_american_democracy_20140105

Weird, seeing it coming. And most people on the couch, watching commercials...