Our nearby Aldi’s grocery store (opened about 3 months ago) pays $11.50 to $21.50 an hour with benefits and rent around/cost-of-living here is a mere fraction of that in New York City.
Unionized, I assume. How much are the items for sale there?
And Aldi’s has fewer workers than a normal grocery store of course.
We have a couple of the big expensive grocery stores here in my area; Jewel Foods and Dominicks Foods. Both are union, and their prices are ridiculously high. They have way too many people standing around, especially baggers who will put your canned goods on your bread.
They push you into the self-check out, but offer no discount for this.
In any event, the stores are becoming ghost towns during the weekdays when it comes to customers. The veggies and fruit are not-so-fresh anymore.
Most of the people in line are Latino, and it is not uncommon to wait behind one of these folks who will produce 3+ “debit” cards, on which to pay for their groceries. I’m guessing they are welfare debit cards of some kind.
Anyways, we also have an Aldi. You bag your own, food is half the price of the other grocery stores, and the people are super polite. Oh, they are also non-union and pay their people $3-$8 MORE than the union stores, WHILE keeping their cost down. The turn-around is very low.
A manager I spoke to at ours “Tom” said they can do this because no one has a specific job. If the shelves need stocking, they get stocked, by whoever. If they need an extra cashier, one goes over and works cashier. Everyone mops floors and they all (including himself) cleans the bathrooms. He said it cuts down on the number of employees, they can get rid of the loafers if need be, and everyone gets paid more to work a bit harder. Imagine that!