This paper extends our knowledge of consumer redlining by providing empirical evidence documenting its occurrence at Dollar General stores while also providing an explanation as to why it occurs in the first place. My data was primarily collected during six months of fieldwork working as a low-wage sales associate. It was also supplemented by additional participant observation at the eighteen other Dollar General stores in my fieldsite’s district and fifty in-depth interviews with coworkers and employees. My findings revealed significant disparities in store quality and customer service between the store locations I examined. Of the nineteen stores in the district, three standout stores emerged as the very worst. Conditions there were dirtier and more hazardous than the rest, with under-stocked shelves, slow customer service, and a contentious atmosphere for those who worked and shopped amidst the squalor. Therefore, I identified these stores as consumer redlined. My findings illustrate how the automated management of Dollar General’s labor supply undermined frontline managers’ authority and workers’ ability to resist precarious scheduling, contributing to the degradation of retail work. While algorithmic labor management standardized employer-driven “flexible” scheduling, the system also resulted in an unequal distribution of payroll hours amongst store locations. I argue that this automated scheduling system functioned to minimize labor cost and maximize profit, exacerbating the degradation of labor and instigating the reproduction of inequality—in this case, by generating consumer redlining. Additionally, my research shows how computer technology can intentionally undermine the power of frontline managers by automatic flexible scheduling, making it difficult to remedy the source of complaints at consumer-redlined stores: systemic understaffing.

本文通过提供证明其在Dollar General商店中发生的经验证据，扩展了我们对消费者红化的认识，同时还提供了对它为什么首先出现的解释。我的数据主要是在作为低薪销售助理的六个月的野外工作期间收集的。此外，在我的现场区域的其他18家Dollar General商店中进行了额外的参与者观察，并对同事和员工进行了50次深入采访，对此进行了补充。我的发现表明，在我检查的各个商店之间，商店质量和客户服务存在巨大差异。在该地区的19家商店中，有3家出色的商店表现最差。货架上存货不足，客户服务缓慢，对于那些在肮脏的地方工作和购物的人来说，这是一种有争议的氛围。因此，我将这些商店标识为已重新标记消费者。我的发现表明，Dollar General劳动力供应的自动化管理如何破坏一线经理的权限和工人抵抗不稳定的计划安排的能力，从而导致零售工作的恶化。尽管算法劳动管理规范了雇主驱动的“灵活”计划，但该系统还导致各商店位置之间的工资时数分配不均。我认为，这种自动调度系统的功能是使劳动力成本最小化和利润最大化，从而加剧了劳动力的退化并导致不平等现象的重现，在这种情况下，这是通过引起消费者红线来实现的。另外，