Self-checkout machines charge you extra to support employee benefits. When did the machines become an employee? And when did we have to pay mandatory surcharges when we buy meals at the airport from one on the way to our flight?
Mandatory tipping of people is bad enough, mandatory tipping of machines seems to be where we’re headed. You’ll face a surcharge to cover… their health care costs? I guess that’s what they’re calling maintenance these days.
I was in Newark airport last week and bought dinner at the Shore Points markets.
It was a self-service checkout, but I was charged a 3% employee benefit and retention fee.
- Employee benefit surcharges are being added while employees are being replaced by self-checkout
- Customers pay extra for the benefits of employees who aren’t serving them. This is like airport self-checkout machines imposing mandatory tipping as part of the checkout process.
I’m at Newark Airport being asked to tip on a self checkout transaction- how much should I tip? pic.twitter.com/hoIXIIOVRv
— Anna Tong (@annatonger) May 23, 2023
- And prices are fraudulent – all prices are posted for 2.9% less than items really cost.
I first ran into restaurant surcharges at the San Francisco airport years ago. Businesses with more than 20 employees have to either provide employee health benefits or pay into a fund for uninsured residents that do not qualify for Medicare or Medi-Cal. It’s a cost of doing business that’s required in the jurisdiction so it should be part of the price and it comes across as sneaky, almost fraudulent when imposed as a surcharge.
Philadelphia airport last year decided to allow all concessions to charge passengers more than posted prices. The 3% surcharge is because the airport has price caps (15% above street pricing), so vendors can’ raise prices. The airport didn’t want to relax that. So they pretend the surcharge isn’t a price increase. By the way, the 3% ’employee wage and benefit offset’ doesn’t go to employees, it goes straight to concessionaires.
In Washington, DC the voter-approved Initiative 82 eliminated the ‘tip credit’ that allowed restaurants to pay $5.35 an hour. Restaurants have responded by adding surcharges. One way I’ve heard restaurant owners and managers there explain why they are doing this is that they want customers to see that amount as a surcharge and have the opportunity to offset with lower tips (!).
Remember that wages are part of costs, not price. The Department of Transportation spent years on a rulemaking over what they viewed as insufficient disclosure of optional fees charged by airlines. Where are they on mandatory fees charged with purchases at airports?
Newark Airport
Note that I enhanced the quality of the original Newark airport receipt.
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