Merchandiser points finger at supermarket ID system

Wanganui Chronicle
Sep. 22, 2005

A finger scanning identification system introduced at Wanganui’s Pak ’n Save supermarket has got a thumbs-down from some of the merchandisers working there.

Human rights issues have arisen.

Concerns raised by merchandiser Patricia Avison, alleging Big Brother tactics, were discounted yesterday by manager Gareth Jones.

“Formerly, in Write Price, we used a card swipe system,” he said. “The move to finger scan is simply a system upgrade.”

Mrs Avison has resigned from her job as a merchandiser for a company servicing supermarkets including Pak ’n Save.

She was normally required to be at Pak ’n Save for about two hours a fortnight, updating the company’s products.

“They’re demanding we give our fingerprints,” she said.

“My concern is that it goes into a Foodstuffs database. There’s a box and you scan your finger into it.

“There is no paperwork to go with it – it’s just ‘You do it or you won’t be allowed in the store’.”

Mrs Avison said she was not a Pak ’n Save employee, so she informed a Pak ’n Save representative she would not agree to a fingerprint.

“The police don’t get them unless I commit a crime, so why should Pak ’n Save?” she asked. “I don’t work for them.”

The Pak ’n Save representative told her she would be banned from the store.

“The discussion became quite heated on his behalf when I went to walk away and sign out,” she said.

“He started yelling I would be banned, then threw a trespass notice on me.”

Mrs Avison consulted the Human Rights Commissioner’s office and learned Pak ’n Save had failed to follow a requirement known as “due process”.

The supermarket should have contacted all companies to explain what was required, how the fingerprints would be stored, access to the information and how the information would be removed from the Pak ’n Save system when a merchandiser left.

To threaten merchandisers’ jobs was “below the low”, Mrs Avison said. Most of the women in this predicament were breadwinners.

She understood several women had refused to provide their fingerprints while younger merchandisers were “bullied into it.”

The Human Rights Commissioner’s office advised Mrs Avison suppliers had the right to refuse on their employees’ behalf, depending on their human rights policy.

She accused Pak ’n Save of using intimidation and bully-boy tactics and threatening merchandisers’ jobs if they caused trouble.

Following staff resistance, a Wanganui employer in another industry abandoned plans to introduce a similar scanning system, she said.

Mr Jones said finger scanning as a method of recording attendance hours had been used in New Zealand for many years.

“It is used in our store currently by 270 people without complaint.”

Points raised by the commission were taken on board, he said.

“We will instigate this approach in the case of anyone who has reservations with the system.”