Predatory Pricing Impacting Workers Now
Unions Lead The Fight Back Against AI Price Gouging
Crystal Weise, Policy & Programs Director at the AFL-CIO Tech Institute, spoke on the predatory practice of dynamic pricing and the negative impact it is having on working families’ paycheck. With sky-high grocery and gas prices, corporations are using technology – specifically Electronic Shelf Labels (ESLs) – that replace workers and increase prices. ESLs connect pricing systems to AI, enabling stores to change prices and replace workers who would traditionally be manually changing price labels. This results in less hours worked and lost wages.
You may have seen these digital labels at PickNSave, MetroMart, and Kroger locally. ESLs are predatory to all customers as the prices are targeting customers based on algorithms to change the price of a product on individual customers. For example, coffee can be more expensive in the morning and allergy medication can become more expensive when pollen levels are high.
Weise acknowledged the great work the UFCW union is doing nationally to tackle the issue of predatory pricing. The UFCW campaign has to date introduced dozens of bills across the country to combat predatory practices in pricing of our basic everyday goods and necessities.
