Yep, this is totally, absolutely, 100% normal:
A bill intended to increase retail worker safety and prevent workplace violence, which was heartily opposed by a major retailer earlier this year, was signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul Wednesday.
The Retail Worker Safety Act would require the adoption of a violence prevention plan, workers to be trained in de-escalation and the installation of panic buttons throughout corporate retail stores. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), who spearheaded the act, touted its passage Wednesday.
That's right: The crime crisis in New York is still so high that major stores need to have a button you can mash to call the police ASAP:
The "panic button" in this case, according to the law, would "either be a physical button installed throughout the workplace or a wearable or mobile phone-based button installed on employee equipment."
When pressed, the button "would immediately contact local emergency services, provide the employee's location information and dispatch local law enforcement to the store."
Pro tip: If you've got a crime problem so bad that you need to require stores to install LifeAlert buttons everywhere, you're probably not managing your crime problem very well, if at all.
Grocery stores are excluded from the legislation, for some reason. Meanwhile, Walmart is not at all happy about the measure:
Walmart, the Arkansas-based retail giant, opposed the panic button element of the legislation because the company believes there's likely to be too many false alarms, according to Reuters' conversation with Walmart executive vice president of corporate affairs, Dan Bartlett in June.
Not sure New York needs to be making itself even more hostile to business than it already is, but there you go.
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