Three employees of the Pam supermarket chain were fired after failing to pass the so-called “fake customer test” or “cart test”a surprise audit conducted by company inspectors who pretend to be normal customers by deliberately hiding goods in the cart to simulate a theft.
If the checkout clerk does not notice the hidden products, disciplinary charges will be triggered. In the latter cases, the measure was extreme: “dismissal for just cause”.
A practice which – although already widespread in the large-scale retail and restaurant sectors – is now raising a wave of trade union and political indignation, bringing to light the pressure to which many commercial workers are subjected.
What is the “cart test” and why is it controversial
A practice whereby internal inspectors pose as customers and intentionally hide products among other items.
When passing through the cash register, they check whether the employee notices the irregularity. If the error is not detected, the sanction is triggered. In recent cases: dismissal.
On paper the aim would be to improve attention and prevent losses. In practice, it becomes a punitive method that places complex responsibilities on the individual person, ignoring working conditions often characterized by high pace, stress, staff shortages and precarious contracts.
The cases of Siena and Livorno
The first dismissal involved a 62-year-old employee in the shopping center store Porta Siena and also union delegate. He would have been tested twice and during the second test, he would not have identified some items hidden among some cases of beer.
Subsequently, two other workers in Livorno suffered the same fate, fueling protests and calls for an urgent review of these control methods.
A story that cannot fail to open up a broader reflection: is it acceptable to evaluate a worker’s performance by testing him with a fake theft and punishing him with dismissal (the checks, among other things, had not been announced)?
According to many organizations and employee representatives, the test does not take into account the objective conditions in which sales workers operate, nor the psychological impact of these checks. Furthermore, it would foster a climate of suspicion and tension, rather than collaboration and training.
Which is why unions and associations are calling for an immediate stop to the use of mock customer test as a disciplinary tool, greater training, evaluations based on the real context, not on constructed tests, and the recognition of the human value in work, not just the economic result.
In an era in which we increasingly talk about social sustainability and workplace well-being, this case highlights a clear contradiction: you cannot ask for attention, empathy and quality from workers if you subject them to punitive control methods. The risk is to transform prevention into “error hunting”, with heavy repercussions on people.
Pam’s location
According to the unions, the company is taking refuge behind a training module that would have been provided at the beginning of the year, to justify what is happening.
Pam Panorama was unable to respond when asked what the incidence of thefts is at the much-loved automatic checkouts, where a single cashier must supervise up to eight stations, making real control impossible. In that case, the shortfalls appear to be offset simply by savings on the cost of cashiers and cashiers, unions say.
The company’s desire to target a specific group of employees is now evident: workers with significant seniority, high chronological age, holders of law 104 or with limitations on health and safety. In short, those who do not meet the productivity levels desired by the company.
Pam Panorama also went so far as to define what was reported by the trade unions as “defamatory”.
The national and territorial structures of Filcams Cgil, Fisascat Cisl and Uiltucs – we read in the notes – will continue their actions to denounce what is happening within Pam Panorama, “protecting workers in all appropriate places and defining further trade union initiatives in the next few hours“.
