McDonald's prepares to fight back

[Gromdor]

I asked some employees at the local Target about the self check machines. They said people generally didn't like them but by closing a few cashiers and manipulating line sizes, people would use them. And of course once they were familiar with them they liked them more.

[aztek]

well, may be the solution is to improve yourself and find a job that pays more than min wage? this way you do not have to complain you can't support a family on min wage (no sht) , and leave min wage low skill jobs who they were intended for in a first place, students and summer job for kids. even managers at mcd do not get more than 55k i posted a payroll table from mcd before. it is next to imposible to live alone on 55k, not to metion support family, at least here in nyc.

Edited May 29, 2014 by aztek

[aztek]

yes HOW DARE governments force corporations to pay their employees a wage that they could actually live on!

min wage is not designed to live on. if you have to support a family and can't get anything above min wage, there is something you are doing wrong, not gvmnt or mcd. imo.

[rashore]

Soooooo..... This story is from 2011, FT article here: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:BKPXi_o-gMgJ:www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e28f6864-7f1e-11e0-b239-00144feabdc0.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari#axzz2qR4F6JxT

Here's another article from the time, talking about how McD's was not planning on losing staff due to the kiosks. Interestingly, it also speaks of how Jack in the Box already had kiosks opening in the US, and that McD's had no plans to open ones in the US-when they tested them, it didn't test well. http://www.selfservi...-increase-jobs/

According to this article from last September, McD's seems to be a bit behind the times in the US when it comes to automated ordering- http://www.chicagobu...-the-kiosk-race

Just figured it would be nice to share more information about the subject

Edited May 29, 2014 by rashore

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

min wage is not designed to live on. if you have to support a family and can't get anything above min wage, there is something you are doing wrong, not gvmnt or mcd. imo.

Are you sure?

I thought the "minimum" in "minimum wage" was "the minimum needed to survive" ie pay bills, eat, looking for a better job.

[aztek]

Are you sure?

I thought the "minimum" in "minimum wage" was "the minimum needed to survive" ie pay bills, eat, looking for a better job.

cost of living differ greatly between cities, not to mention even if it was design to survive, it sure was not design to support entire family.

[Bama13]

Are you sure?

I thought the "minimum" in "minimum wage" was "the minimum needed to survive" ie pay bills, eat, looking for a better job.

The "minimum" in "minimum wage" is the least amount you can legally pay an employee per hour. Nothing to do with paying bills, eating, etc.

[_Only]

Nothing to do with paying bills, eating, etc.

Cost of living has everything to do with how a minimum wage is decided.

[MiskatonicGrad]

Cost of living has everything to do with how a minimum wage is decided.

but the minimum wage needs to be decided by the market (supply and demand) not the government (trying to increase tax revenue).

[MissMelsWell]

Soooooo..... This story is from 2011, FT article here: http://webcache.goog...i#axzz2qR4F6JxT

Here's another article from the time, talking about how McD's was not planning on losing staff due to the kiosks. Interestingly, it also speaks of how Jack in the Box already had kiosks opening in the US, and that McD's had no plans to open ones in the US-when they tested them, it didn't test well. http://www.selfservi...-increase-jobs/

According to this article from last September, McD's seems to be a bit behind the times in the US when it comes to automated ordering- http://www.chicagobu...-the-kiosk-race

Just figured it would be nice to share more information about the subject

There was a McD's by my old house in Redmond Washington with a drive-thru... I was with friends who used the drive thu a few times. I was a little flabberghasted when I realized that the disembodied voice at the order speaker didn't actually work in that store! It was a person in a call center! If I had to guess, a call center in Texas possibly... to put it delicately... there was no one working in the store that could have possibly matched the voice who talked to my friends through that speaker. Because I don't ever eat at McD's... does anyone know if that's a normal practice for McDs to take orders in the drive-thru via call center??

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

but the minimum wage needs to be decided by the market (supply and demand) not the government (trying to increase tax revenue).

Please, if the market could pay $2 a day they damn well would.

"people will go elsewhere", sod all good that'll do if everyone pays $2 and you have no funds to move with.

[CrimsonKing]

but the minimum wage needs to be decided by the market (supply and demand) not the government (trying to increase tax revenue).

I agree in a sense,but the "market" is a mirage....

[Agent0range]

but the minimum wage needs to be decided by the market (supply and demand) not the government (trying to increase tax revenue).

Ohh..you mean like the mid to late 1800s when the age of manufacturing was in its infancy and demand was at an all time high? Pick up a history book and you will see how that worked out for the employees.

[aztek]

^^^ that is exactly why unions came to be,

[MiskatonicGrad]

Ohh..you mean like the mid to late 1800s when the age of manufacturing was in its infancy and demand was at an all time high? Pick up a history book and you will see how that worked out for the employees.

And thankfully the "market" fixed those problems sure it took awhile, but then you have to figure since manufacturing was in its infancy nobody knew what those problems were or were going to be.

this doesn't go along with your example we know what the problem is I'm just not sure this is the right fix. Are we moving some people above the poverty line or moving more people down towards it?

none of the people making $15 an hour now are going to get a raise so they went from making better than minimum wage to making minimum? way to go government!

Seattle will see a reduction in small businesses a small spike in unemployment but at least the ones that manage to keep their jobs won't have to choose between eating or keeping their cellphone.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

The market did not "fix" the problems at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. People did, if "the market" was left unmolested it'd have lept on paying pittance and sacking people who due to their own lack of training lost limbs. Why? Because training cuts into profit.

[Agent0range]

And thankfully the "market" fixed those problems sure it took awhile, but then you have to figure since manufacturing was in its infancy nobody knew what those problems were or were going to be.

this doesn't go along with your example we know what the problem is I'm just not sure this is the right fix. Are we moving some people above the poverty line or moving more people down towards it?

none of the people making $15 an hour now are going to get a raise so they went from making better than minimum wage to making minimum? way to go government!

Seattle will see a reduction in small businesses a small spike in unemployment but at least the ones that manage to keep their jobs won't have to choose between eating or keeping their cellphone.

I never said I supported raising the minimum wage, but your faith in the corporations to do the right thing is absolutely naive. If a company could get away with paying workers $3 an hour, they most certainly would. Why do you think they hire illegal aliens when they have the opportunity.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

I never said I supported raising the minimum wage, but your faith in the corporations to do the right thing is absolutely naive. If a company could get away with paying workers $3 an hour, they most certainly would. Why do you think they hire illegal aliens when they have the opportunity.

two of the biggest names in Australian business Gerry Harvey and Gina Rhinehart (also the richest woman in the world) have said outright and point blank that that'd off shore all their business to places where they can pay $2 a day if they could and that people asking for more then a minimum wage decided by the employer are asking too much.

There's the "free market" speaking. Rhinehart is a Jabba the Hutt impersonator mining magnate and Harvey is a homegoods and electronics bellend retailer. They employ hundreds of thousands of Australians and in effect are the voice of the "Free Market" in Australia. Wow, such trustworthy people.

[MiskatonicGrad]

I never said the companies fixed the problem I said the market which we are all apart of. we effect change in the market. if you don't want to flip burgers for $3 dollars an hour you don't now either the company has to find someone who will or adjust the pay or work conditions to get you to do it. If you don't want to buy that jacket for $50 the company has to find someone who will or sweeten the deal so you will. why people think they are separate from the market is beyond me. unless you are living in a cave in the middle of nowhere eating mushrooms grown on your own feces you are part of the market. and no AgentOrange I have no faith in the corporations run by a bunch of shareholders that meet in wood paneled rooms in New York or some other financial center once a month to do anything close to the right thing.

[sam12six]

The part I find frightening about the whole minimum wage debate is that minimum wage jobs have (historically) been work for students or those willing to do them just to pick up a little extra somthin'-somthin'

When the economy nosedived, lots of people found themselves desperate and forced to work these after school burger flipping jobs to try and keep a family afloat. Now, a handful of years later, there's this big push to raise the minimum wage because you just can't support your family on them. What scares me about this is that you almost never hear people talking about how we can develop more grownup jobs, just how to keep people who took bottom of the barrel jobs in them indefinitely.

I've always (and still) believed the economy, any economy really, is bound to collapse eventually. The idea that "economic recovery" means trying to find a way for people to raise families with minimum wage jobs instead of trying to replace the actual career-type jobs they had before the mini depression seems to me to be a sign that such a collapse is pretty near.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

Does America have a "work for the dole" scheme (or even a dole for that matter). Here in Oz, Work for the Dole basically says "you want a government stipend, you do X or you lose the dole", it's jobs that people don't want to do but need to be done like picking up trash off the side of the road, working in Op shops, meals-on-wheels etc.

[sam12six]

Does America have a "work for the dole" scheme (or even a dole for that matter). Here in Oz, Work for the Dole basically says "you want a government stipend, you do X or you lose the dole", it's jobs that people don't want to do but need to be done like picking up trash off the side of the road, working in Op shops, meals-on-wheels etc.

I don't think there's one American system. I believe it's all handled at the state level, so the terms vary. I have spoken to a couple of people living on government assistance who both claimed that all their benefits would disappear if they got a job, resulting in a pretty big net loss if it wasn't a pretty good job. Whether or not they were telling the truth, it's one of the big problems with indefinite assistance. If you're going to make just a little more from a job (much less make less), there's really no reason to get up and go to work every day.

[Ashotep]

More and more stuff is going automated. I'm wondering who they are going to sell their products to when most people don't have a job.

[MiskatonicGrad]

The part I find frightening about the whole minimum wage debate is that minimum wage jobs have (historically) been work for students or those willing to do them just to pick up a little extra somthin'-somthin'

When the economy nosedived, lots of people found themselves desperate and forced to work these after school burger flipping jobs to try and keep a family afloat. Now, a handful of years later, there's this big push to raise the minimum wage because you just can't support your family on them. What scares me about this is that you almost never hear people talking about how we can develop more grownup jobs, just how to keep people who took bottom of the barrel jobs in them indefinitely.

I've always (and still) believed the economy, any economy really, is bound to collapse eventually. The idea that "economic recovery" means trying to find a way for people to raise families with minimum wage jobs instead of trying to replace the actual career-type jobs they had before the mini depression seems to me to be a sign that such a collapse is pretty near.

I agree 100% and why the media doesn't seem(even the right leaning) to be hounding the WH on this is beyond me. I'm no economic professor, but I can tell this doesn't bode well for the future.

the current administration is way in over it's head. it's like an ER doc who has multiple gun shot wounds coming in screaming for more band-aids.

[Taun]

Does America have a "work for the dole" scheme (or even a dole for that matter). Here in Oz, Work for the Dole basically says "you want a government stipend, you do X or you lose the dole", it's jobs that people don't want to do but need to be done like picking up trash off the side of the road, working in Op shops, meals-on-wheels etc.

I've been a proponent of "Work-fare" for many years... Occasionally, someone in government will propose something like this, but it always shot down in the hysteria of being "mean" to

people "who can't work"... There is no such thing as a person who "can't work"... Jobs can be found that a person can do no-matter what their physical or mental impariments might be (assuming

they are not in a true vegitative state of course)... The problem is, the "powers that be" don't spend a lot of time creating or promoting those jobs...

And while there are no people who "can't work"... there are many who "won't work".... I have no sympathy for them...

I have no problem with giving someone a helping hand - financially or otherwise - until they can get back on their feet, but I do believe that there

comes a time when the training wheels have to come off and the person has to either pedal hard, or fall off on their own...