Good morning dear friend

Firstly, I want to thank all of those of you who have sent me an email on the Stop Replacing People by Machines petition and campaign developed through Change.org

Secondly, I promise I will reply to you, although it might take a little while as I have had quite a number of responses.

If you would like to send me a 'confidential' email, I would be pleased to hear from you.

We seem to be moving more and more over to a 'cashless' society - where using a credit or debit card becomes the 'norm' and using self-service-card-only-tills or using Apps on a smartphone to download, shop and pay through the bank  becomes the new 'shopping experience'. What about the millions of us who haven't got access to new technologies of internet banking, or being able to download Apps. China is a cashless society in towns and cities. Cashless societies have been rejected by many though. 

Over 5 million adults rely on cash in their day-to-day lives - according to  Wholesale Cash Distribution in 2021 - cash is the preferred payment method for 2l% of the population. So why the rush to move to a self-service-card-only-tills or shop on App service? 

I haven't been brave enough to leave my shopping behind in a trolley rather than use a self-service-card-only-till when there haven't been any customer service assistant operated tills open.  Well, some of you have. 

I have been enthused and am grateful to all of those of you who have written to me about machines replacing people in our everyday shopping experiences.  There appear to be many variations of how machines and technology are taking over our shopping experiences and how workers (mainly part-time women - although that is not exclusive) are being displaced or redirected to work elsewhere other than on customer service assistant operated tills.  I have been told about precarious, zero-hours, part-time or atypical employment becoming the norm not the exception.  I have also been told about the redundancy of full-time workers and taking on of zero-hours staff in their place.  

I say people first - let's see more customer service assistant operators working on tills.

I believe Tesco's have announced their first dramatic profit loss in years - it's not surprising given the cost of the implementation of the self-service-card-only-tills and the new pilots in London of App, shop and cashless shopping systems.  The changeover from people to machines must have cost £billions. I'd love to know how much!   

We should develop a people and profits policy not a profits before people policy. Tesco's and other supermarkets beware. Your customers are pretty fed up of using machines.

We are almost up to l million views of the petition and campaign - with almost 240,000 of you having signed the petition. That's amazing and the campaign only started online just over 6-months ago. 

If you are a person with disabilities, I particularly want to know about the barriers you personally face when you are given no alternative than to use a cashless payment through a self-service-card-only-till? I know I find them difficult as lifting and carrying is quite hard for me.  There should be an opportunity to use customer service assistant operated tills as a means of paying for your goods. 

My email address is pmccarthy940@gmail.com. Let me know of your experiences when shopping and faced with new technology, some of which is becoming more intrusive than hitherto. 

With the kindest of regards

Pat