Item pricing bill was up for debate in the Michigan House on Tuesday
HARVEY -- You may have noticed those little price tags on individual items while you're out shopping. Well, those may be gone soon.
Michigan is one of only two states in the entire country to have a law requiring that all items be individually tagged. Now, Governor Rick Snyder is working to repeal what's formally known as the Item Pricing Act because of the cost it imposes on stores like Jack's Super Value in Harvey.
Take Sherry Shaw, for example. She's been working at Jack's for nearly 20 years. She spends the majority of her days manually tagging and retagging marked down items in the store as required by Michigan State Law.
"The cereals today (Tuesday)...now it took me two hours just to do about 20 price changes on those because there were so many boxes that needed to be remarked," says Shaw.
The time intensive nature of the law is why so many grocers are for its repeal.
"I think it limits our productivity, takes up unnecessary time," says Adam Hanley, Assistant Manager at Jack's.
With the law as it stands now, employees are required to make sure each and every item is accurately tagged. If they're not correctly labeled, the store can face fines. And, if the items are accidentally tagged as being less than they ring up for, stores must honor the labeled price, which means they can lose money at the checkout.
But, what do shoppers think? Are the small tags helpful?
"Well, it doesn't bother me to not have signs on everything. I don't look at prices all that much when I'm shopping anyway," says Jack Van Alstine, a Jack's shopper.
"I've always looked for the labels whenever I purchase anything. When I go to the store and I don't see any labels; I like to know specifically what the item costs," says Larry Heimburger, also a Jack's shopper.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union is concerned that jobs will be lost if the law is repealed. But Jack's managers told me Sherry and the other employees at their store need not worry, their jobs are safe.
"Our employees would concentrate more on other areas of the store instead of the time used to be pricing," Hanley says.
The House Commerce Committee did debate the repeal in Lansing Tuesday, and it will likely be voted on at a later date.
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forWLUC