This is why you shouldn't pay burger flippers 15 an hour

[Andylusion]

I'll tell you "people" something. I don't work in fast food, but people who do, do a lot more then "flip burgers". That's a term used by those who are clueless

That's true. Most people that think of them that way could not do their job.

I've done their job. I worked at both Wendy, and McDonalds, and a Subway. I have done their job, and quite frankly anyone a notch above a trained monkey, could do their job.

It's actually easier now, than it was before. When I was there, I had to actually pick the correct cup size, and fill it with the correct drink, and amount of ice. Now the computer drops the cup, fills the ice, and adds the correct drink.



When I was there I had to actually flip the burgers over, and check to see they were done right. Now you slap a frozen patty on the grill and hit a button, and it pops up when it's ready.

View attachment 72588

When I was there I had to memorize a keyboard with little keys with the words of each meal, each option, and every extra thing, and how to enter coupons and so on. Now the cash registers are all pictures, and look like something Fisher Price made up, that a 4-year-old could operate. For example, when someone said "can you add onion" you had to find a normal sized key on a keyboard, that had "add onion" on it, in tiny letters because it fit on a normal keyboard key. It didn't come up with a giant picture of an onion on the screen that you tapped.

View attachment 72589

Honestly, the burger flipper job of old, was easy as cutting butter. If the "burger flipper" colloquialism is no longer valid, it would only be because that makes the job sound harder than what it is now.

In fact, this post is hilarious to me, because I now feel like the old man "when I was your age..." accept instead of walking up hill both ways to school, it was "I had to flip burgers with my bare hands, and mix soft drinks with raw ingredients from coke-a-cola!"

But it's true. I actually flipped burgers over. Now they just hit a button, and walk away.

. Everything is going automated anyways, so using that as a threat is typical and ridiculous. The fact that automation is going to happen (saving corporations millions more), is all the more reason for the positions to become more quality, secure, long term if desired, and lucrative for teens or for who ever finds themselves on the climbing ladder rungs in their jobs they are appointed too or choose in their lives... Listen, there are people who end up in all different situations in life, and just because they might find themselves somewhere they are over qualified for, doesn't mean they should be abused in the situation. No matter what, there should be a structural ladder type pay system in every company that considers themselves a company. Now if someone decides to be a janitor all their life at a company, school or etc. then there is no excuse that they shouldn't have an entrance pay, then after that to become a part of a structural pay system that recognizes many factors in which meets the expectations of the job position, and then a participation in a profit sharing program. This was the case for many years in America, until greed started raging like a wid fire burning everything in it's path.

That is not inherently true. Everything will be automated, only if the cost of labor, makes automation a requirement.

If you intend to drive up labor costs with health care mandates, minimum wage laws, pension costs, Union contracts, taxes for medicare, and social security, and on and on and on..... Then you are correct. Everything will be automated, and people will be replaced with machines.

But if you don't do those things, and actually reverse the costly regulations and controls, and contracts, and taxes.... then no, it is not inherent at all.

Automation is horribly expensive. The machines are expensive. The maintenance is expensive. Retooling is expensive. Yearly shut downs, are expensive. Lost production when the machines fail, is expensive.

Even something as simple as fixing a mistake is horribly expensive with automation. When Apple redesigned screens for their Iphones, and sent the new screens to China, where literally hundreds of thousands of Iphones with bad screens had already been made.... the workers simply started pulling out the phones, removing the screens, and replacing them. That would be impossible for an assembly line of machines.

This is the reality.

My uncle worked for a company that sold automated glassware machines. Cups, and plates, and other glass objects, made by automation. They sent him to China to sell their products. He came back with zero sales. Every company he talked to was eager until they got all the numbers crunched, and found that even the best most productive machine, was still more expensive than just hiring people, when you factored in that you could say "ok make glass cups now", and the men would stop, and switch jobs. A machine, would have to be shut down, retooled, and reconfigured, and you would have to pay an engineer with programming experience, to do this.

Every company, would prefer to use human labor. Every company would.

There are a ton of things, people never grasp about automation. An employee... generally, not always, but generally will become more valuable, and more capable over the duration of his employment, and his employment can last 20, 30, 40... even 50 years.

Machines? Machines work best the first year you have them. Then they go down hill. Every year they get slower, have more problems, cost more money to fix, and if you get 10 years out of one, that's actually pretty good.

So why do companies replace people with machines?

Union Contracts. Health Care mandates. Taxes. Unemployment comp. and on... and on... and on... Going on strike, complaining about wages, crying about benefits..... after a while, there's a break even point, where human labor because unprofitable, and machines are.

And back to your automatic pay.... You must not have ever run anything in your life. Or you ran a company, where the profit margins were so high, that you could make that choice.

Fact is, not all companies can do what you say. You simply can't pay someone a "living wage" when the work they do isn't worth that much money. I can demand my customers pay me $100 to mow their lawn so I can have a living wage, but they are not going to pay that much. If they don't pay that much, I can't pay an employee that much.

Did you read about the stores that are closing because of minimum wage hikes?

San Francisco Bookstore Closing Due to Minimum Wage Increase

Many. And it's not hard to figure out. I can point to my own experience. In the 2000s, I used to eat at Chipotle every day. Huge burrito for $4.25. Now they are $6.50. The price changed from 2007 to 2009 when the minimum wage went up.

I no longer go to Chipotle. Too expensive. Just because you think someone should be paid more, doesn't mean the customer is going to pay for it. And ultimately the customer is always the one who pays for wages. If the customer refuses to pay $16 for a cheap fast food burger, then you can't pay a burger flipper $15 an hour.

 

[Andylusion]

Business cannot base their budget on emotional factors... If they have 40% available for labor costs than that is all they have, regardless of how long the janitor has been working for them.

. Agree if that's all they have, but how do you know what they have, and if they did what I said, then would you disagree with them for doing so ? Hmmm, is it that you like calaboration on the issue at or near the top or in certain circles, otherwise to say that if the employee's being treated badly at XYZ company can't run to ABC company in order to do better, and/or get a better situation going, then somehow that is a good thing in your opinion ?

That's our point. You seem to be automatically assuming they do have money to pay more. You don't know that.

I know the company has more money to pay employees more, when they do in fact pay their employees more.
Most businesses that have more money, do in fact pay their employees higher wages.

And I have in fact worked with companies that simply didn't have anymore money. They couldn't offer you a pay raise, if they wanted to.

When I was in high school, I worked at McDonalds. I think I was paid 25¢ over minimum wage, which was $4.50 an hour. They never gave anyone a raise. Why? Because they were broke. And as if to prove it, the year after I left their employment, they closed the store. "McDonald has billions! They can pay $15/hour!".... you don't know that. Each store, is a self contained business. Most are franchises, that are not even connected to McDonald's corporate. The store someone is working at, could be on the brink of bankruptcy. You don't know.

The stores that make more money, routinely pay higher wages. Again, all the way back in the 1990s, if I worked at the fast food joint downtown, I was paid $4/hour more. Why? Because it was way downtown, and you were hopping with people all day long, and thus obviously the store made more money, and thus they could pay higher wages.

Like I said, employers that can pay their workers more.... routinely do. By the way, that's at all pay ranges, not just entry level. If you doubt that, just ask how much a mechanic makes at the Chevy dealer, verses the Cadillac Dealer. Or look at how much airline pilots made in the 1970s, when plane tickets were 4 times higher in price. Airline pilots made a ton more than they do today.

This shouldn't be surprising. When the company makes more money, they are routinely willing to pay out higher wages.

When they don't.... they don't.

 

[beagle9]

I'll tell you "people" something. I don't work in fast food, but people who do, do a lot more then "flip burgers". That's a term used by those who are clueless

That's true. Most people that think of them that way could not do their job.

I've done their job. I worked at both Wendy, and McDonalds, and a Subway. I have done their job, and quite frankly anyone a notch above a trained monkey, could do their job.

It's actually easier now, than it was before. When I was there, I had to actually pick the correct cup size, and fill it with the correct drink, and amount of ice. Now the computer drops the cup, fills the ice, and adds the correct drink.



When I was there I had to actually flip the burgers over, and check to see they were done right. Now you slap a frozen patty on the grill and hit a button, and it pops up when it's ready.

View attachment 72588

When I was there I had to memorize a keyboard with little keys with the words of each meal, each option, and every extra thing, and how to enter coupons and so on. Now the cash registers are all pictures, and look like something Fisher Price made up, that a 4-year-old could operate. For example, when someone said "can you add onion" you had to find a normal sized key on a keyboard, that had "add onion" on it, in tiny letters because it fit on a normal keyboard key. It didn't come up with a giant picture of an onion on the screen that you tapped.

View attachment 72589

Honestly, the burger flipper job of old, was easy as cutting butter. If the "burger flipper" colloquialism is no longer valid, it would only be because that makes the job sound harder than what it is now.

In fact, this post is hilarious to me, because I now feel like the old man "when I was your age..." accept instead of walking up hill both ways to school, it was "I had to flip burgers with my bare hands, and mix soft drinks with raw ingredients from coke-a-cola!"

But it's true. I actually flipped burgers over. Now they just hit a button, and walk away.

. Everything is going automated anyways, so using that as a threat is typical and ridiculous. The fact that automation is going to happen (saving corporations millions more), is all the more reason for the positions to become more quality, secure, long term if desired, and lucrative for teens or for who ever finds themselves on the climbing ladder rungs in their jobs they are appointed too or choose in their lives... Listen, there are people who end up in all different situations in life, and just because they might find themselves somewhere they are over qualified for, doesn't mean they should be abused in the situation. No matter what, there should be a structural ladder type pay system in every company that considers themselves a company. Now if someone decides to be a janitor all their life at a company, school or etc. then there is no excuse that they shouldn't have an entrance pay, then after that to become a part of a structural pay system that recognizes many factors in which meets the expectations of the job position, and then a participation in a profit sharing program. This was the case for many years in America, until greed started raging like a wid fire burning everything in it's path.

That is not inherently true. Everything will be automated, only if the cost of labor, makes automation a requirement.

If you intend to drive up labor costs with health care mandates, minimum wage laws, pension costs, Union contracts, taxes for medicare, and social security, and on and on and on..... Then you are correct. Everything will be automated, and people will be replaced with machines.

But if you don't do those things, and actually reverse the costly regulations and controls, and contracts, and taxes.... then no, it is not inherent at all.

Automation is horribly expensive. The machines are expensive. The maintenance is expensive. Retooling is expensive. Yearly shut downs, are expensive. Lost production when the machines fail, is expensive.

Even something as simple as fixing a mistake is horribly expensive with automation. When Apple redesigned screens for their Iphones, and sent the new screens to China, where literally hundreds of thousands of Iphones with bad screens had already been made.... the workers simply started pulling out the phones, removing the screens, and replacing them. That would be impossible for an assembly line of machines.

This is the reality.

My uncle worked for a company that sold automated glassware machines. Cups, and plates, and other glass objects, made by automation. They sent him to China to sell their products. He came back with zero sales. Every company he talked to was eager until they got all the numbers crunched, and found that even the best most productive machine, was still more expensive than just hiring people, when you factored in that you could say "ok make glass cups now", and the men would stop, and switch jobs. A machine, would have to be shut down, retooled, and reconfigured, and you would have to pay an engineer with programming experience, to do this.

Every company, would prefer to use human labor. Every company would.

There are a ton of things, people never grasp about automation. An employee... generally, not always, but generally will become more valuable, and more capable over the duration of his employment, and his employment can last 20, 30, 40... even 50 years.

Machines? Machines work best the first year you have them. Then they go down hill. Every year they get slower, have more problems, cost more money to fix, and if you get 10 years out of one, that's actually pretty good.

So why do companies replace people with machines?

Union Contracts. Health Care mandates. Taxes. Unemployment comp. and on... and on... and on... Going on strike, complaining about wages, crying about benefits..... after a while, there's a break even point, where human labor because unprofitable, and machines are.

And back to your automatic pay.... You must not have ever run anything in your life. Or you ran a company, where the profit margins were so high, that you could make that choice.

Fact is, not all companies can do what you say. You simply can't pay someone a "living wage" when the work they do isn't worth that much money. I can demand my customers pay me $100 to mow their lawn so I can have a living wage, but they are not going to pay that much. If they don't pay that much, I can't pay an employee that much.

Did you read about the stores that are closing because of minimum wage hikes?

San Francisco Bookstore Closing Due to Minimum Wage Increase

Many. And it's not hard to figure out. I can point to my own experience. In the 2000s, I used to eat at Chipotle every day. Huge burrito for $4.25. Now they are $6.50. The price changed from 2007 to 2009 when the minimum wage went up.

I no longer go to Chipotle. Too expensive. Just because you think someone should be paid more, doesn't mean the customer is going to pay for it. And ultimately the customer is always the one who pays for wages. If the customer refuses to pay $16 for a cheap fast food burger, then you can't pay a burger flipper $15 an hour.

.
Automation is horribly expensive. The machines are expensive. The maintenance is expensive. Retooling is expensive. Yearly shut downs, are expensive. Lost production when the machines fail, is expensive.

So it's a threat with no substance eh ? Sounds like by just doing right by your employee's is the best solution then. Some things are just found out the hard way in life I guess....


Ever seen the situation when you choose the cheapest path in life, and what happens because of that ? I paid $900.00 dollars for a set of tires for my pickup. They lasted 10 years until I needed another set.. Then I only needed two. The two cost me $500.00, and hopefully they will last as long as the other ones did. My mom likes hitting those used tire stores... I say yes if you don't mind tires that could be your death trap or changing them every other 3 months.

 

[EverCurious]

Define "horribly expensive"

Annual cost for 50 employees @ $15/h MW - $2,307,962.50

Math** - $1,560,000 wages + $96,720 Social Security Tax + $22,620 Medicare Tax + $571,475 Health Insurance + $57,147.50 Workers Comp​

Annual cost for 2 Robotics Engineers (2016 median $81,267) - $224,889.25

Math - $162,534 wages + $10,077.11 Social Security Tax + $2,356.74 Medicare Tax + $33,668 Health Insurance + $16,253.40 Workers Comp​

Annual savings for automation of MW jobs - $2,083,073.25

"Typical stand-alone robot arms with welding packages cost between $28,000 and $40,000. A pre-engineered workcell with safety equipment starts at $50,000." ~ How much does robot automation cost?

"San Francisco-based Momentum Machines claim that using Alpha will save a restaurant enough money that it pays for itself in a year, and it enables the restaurant to spend about twice as much on ingredients as they normally would – so they can buy the gourmet stuff. Saving money with Alpha is pretty easy to imagine. You don’t even need cashiers or servers. Customers could just punch in their order, pay, and wait at a dispensing window." ~ Robot Serves Up 360 Hamburgers Per Hour

"The burger-bot was designed to displace two to three full-time kitchen workers, which would save a franchise up to $90,000 per year." ~ Super Efficient Burger-Flipping Robots Might Steal Your Fast Food Job


** Annual cost of a single full time $15/h MW worker = $46,161.75/y
Compensation for Hours - $31,200
Employer's portion of Employee's Social Security Tax (6.2% up to $118,500 - 2016 rates) - $1,934.40
Employer's portion of Employee's Medicare Tax (1.45% - 1/2 of 2016's 2.9% rate) - $452.40
Employer's costs ACA (conglomerate average) - $11,429/y

NOTE A) Going with 50 employees at a 50/50 split of single and family workers since the presumption is now that MW is not a temp job for teens, but rather a bottom rung job that should both support a family and foster employee growth with the company (aka no fast food joint ever, but the argument presented is that /all/ jobs are upwardly mobile yes?) employer totals $150,625 for singles + $420,850 for families = $571,475/y
NOTE B) 2016 average annual health care costs to employer $6,025 single worker / $16,834 family plan (18% single / 29% family)
NOTE C) Tax Fine for failure to provide health insurance (2016 rate) - $36,500/y per employee would cost employer $1,825,000/y​

Average cost of workers comp insurance (varies by job type/risk - generic average is 10% of entire payroll so $57,147.50/y) - $1,145.95

 

[miketx]

Define "horribly expensive"

Annual cost for 50 employees @ $15/h MW - $2,307,962.50

Math** - $1,560,000 wages + $96,720 Social Security Tax + $22,620 Medicare Tax + $571,475 Health Insurance + $57,147.50 Workers Comp​

Annual cost for 2 Robotics Engineers (2016 median $81,267) - $224,889.25

Math - $162,534 wages + $10,077.11 Social Security Tax + $2,356.74 Medicare Tax + $33,668 Health Insurance + $16,253.40 Workers Comp​

Annual savings for automation of MW jobs - $2,083,073.25

"Typical stand-alone robot arms with welding packages cost between $28,000 and $40,000. A pre-engineered workcell with safety equipment starts at $50,000." ~ How much does robot automation cost?

"San Francisco-based Momentum Machines claim that using Alpha will save a restaurant enough money that it pays for itself in a year, and it enables the restaurant to spend about twice as much on ingredients as they normally would – so they can buy the gourmet stuff. Saving money with Alpha is pretty easy to imagine. You don’t even need cashiers or servers. Customers could just punch in their order, pay, and wait at a dispensing window." ~ Robot Serves Up 360 Hamburgers Per Hour

"The burger-bot was designed to displace two to three full-time kitchen workers, which would save a franchise up to $90,000 per year." ~ Super Efficient Burger-Flipping Robots Might Steal Your Fast Food Job


** Annual cost of a single full time $15/h MW worker = $46,161.75/y
Compensation for Hours - $31,200
Employer's portion of Employee's Social Security Tax (6.2% up to $118,500 - 2016 rates) - $1,934.40
Employer's portion of Employee's Medicare Tax (1.45% - 1/2 of 2016's 2.9% rate) - $452.40
Employer's costs ACA (conglomerate average) - $11,429/y

NOTE A) Going with 50 employees at a 50/50 split of single and family workers since the presumption is now that MW is not a temp job for teens, but rather a bottom rung job that should both support a family and foster employee growth with the company (aka no fast food joint ever, but the argument presented is that /all/ jobs are upwardly mobile yes?) employer totals $150,625 for singles + $420,850 for families = $571,475/y
NOTE B) 2016 average annual health care costs to employer $6,025 single worker / $16,834 family plan (18% single / 29% family)
NOTE C) Tax Fine for failure to provide health insurance (2016 rate) - $36,500/y per employee would cost employer $1,825,000/y​

Average cost of workers comp insurance (varies by job type/risk - generic average is 10% of entire payroll so $57,147.50/y) - $1,145.95

Libtards and their bullshit. I have never, ever, seen a "burger flipper" store with 50 employees. LMAO at you.

 

[dannyboys]

I have first hand intimate knowledge of the reality of owning FF franchises.
The vast majority are privately owned.
The vast majority average about 3% net profit yearly. And that's considered a pretty successful outlet.
The vast majority only make money seasonally. Some months the outlet loses money for months at a time. Staff can be a fucking nightmare!
Today FF outlets are looking for employees over fifty five with some other source of income if possible.
People who come to work clean and sober. Have clean personal habits. Work easily with others. Keep their fucking 'issues' and politics to themselves. 'Head down tail up' as the saying goes. They intend to stay at the job like 'forever'. The work for them is relatively easy.
A couple of friends own local FF franchises. Over the last few years they have replaced their fulltime and part time employees with the aforementioned and got rid of the fuck-wit teenagers and shit disturbers.
One of these outlets employees four full time staff and about twenty part timers in the 'pool'.
Not one of these employees is under forty years old. Most are in their mid-fifties with some sort of pension from somewhere.
The next time you go into a ff outlet notice the age of the staff.

 

[beagle9]

Define "horribly expensive"

Annual cost for 50 employees @ $15/h MW - $2,307,962.50

Math** - $1,560,000 wages + $96,720 Social Security Tax + $22,620 Medicare Tax + $571,475 Health Insurance + $57,147.50 Workers Comp​

Annual cost for 2 Robotics Engineers (2016 median $81,267) - $224,889.25

Math - $162,534 wages + $10,077.11 Social Security Tax + $2,356.74 Medicare Tax + $33,668 Health Insurance + $16,253.40 Workers Comp​

Annual savings for automation of MW jobs - $2,083,073.25

"Typical stand-alone robot arms with welding packages cost between $28,000 and $40,000. A pre-engineered workcell with safety equipment starts at $50,000." ~ How much does robot automation cost?

"San Francisco-based Momentum Machines claim that using Alpha will save a restaurant enough money that it pays for itself in a year, and it enables the restaurant to spend about twice as much on ingredients as they normally would – so they can buy the gourmet stuff. Saving money with Alpha is pretty easy to imagine. You don’t even need cashiers or servers. Customers could just punch in their order, pay, and wait at a dispensing window." ~ Robot Serves Up 360 Hamburgers Per Hour

"The burger-bot was designed to displace two to three full-time kitchen workers, which would save a franchise up to $90,000 per year." ~ Super Efficient Burger-Flipping Robots Might Steal Your Fast Food Job


** Annual cost of a single full time $15/h MW worker = $46,161.75/y
Compensation for Hours - $31,200
Employer's portion of Employee's Social Security Tax (6.2% up to $118,500 - 2016 rates) - $1,934.40
Employer's portion of Employee's Medicare Tax (1.45% - 1/2 of 2016's 2.9% rate) - $452.40
Employer's costs ACA (conglomerate average) - $11,429/y

NOTE A) Going with 50 employees at a 50/50 split of single and family workers since the presumption is now that MW is not a temp job for teens, but rather a bottom rung job that should both support a family and foster employee growth with the company (aka no fast food joint ever, but the argument presented is that /all/ jobs are upwardly mobile yes?) employer totals $150,625 for singles + $420,850 for families = $571,475/y
NOTE B) 2016 average annual health care costs to employer $6,025 single worker / $16,834 family plan (18% single / 29% family)
NOTE C) Tax Fine for failure to provide health insurance (2016 rate) - $36,500/y per employee would cost employer $1,825,000/y​

Average cost of workers comp insurance (varies by job type/risk - generic average is 10% of entire payroll so $57,147.50/y) - $1,145.95

. Hope this was directed towards Andylusion, because he was the one talking about "horribly expensive".

 

[beagle9]

I have first hand intimate knowledge of the reality of owning FF franchises.
The vast majority are privately owned.
The vast majority average about 3% net profit yearly. And that's considered a pretty successful outlet.
The vast majority only make money seasonally. Some months the outlet loses money for months at a time. Staff can be a fucking nightmare!
Today FF outlets are looking for employees over fifty five with some other source of income if possible.
People who come to work clean and sober. Have clean personal habits. Work easily with others. Keep their fucking 'issues' and politics to themselves. 'Head down tail up' as the saying goes. They intend to stay at the job like 'forever'. The work for them is relatively easy.
A couple of friends own local FF franchises. Over the last few years they have replaced their fulltime and part time employees with the aforementioned and got rid of the fuck-wit teenagers and shit disturbers.
One of these outlets employees four full time staff and about twenty part timers in the 'pool'.
Not one of these employees is under forty years old. Most are in their mid-fifties with some sort of pension from somewhere.
The next time you go into a ff outlet notice the age of the staff.

. You can thank the grand socialist experiment for all that has transpired to date. It has been conducted wrong headedly and ignorantly. Those who have done this won't admit to their wrong, and instead just keep doubling down on it. Yes some are finally waking up, but will it be too late ?

 

[dannyboys]

I have first hand intimate knowledge of the reality of owning FF franchises.
The vast majority are privately owned.
The vast majority average about 3% net profit yearly. And that's considered a pretty successful outlet.
The vast majority only make money seasonally. Some months the outlet loses money for months at a time. Staff can be a fucking nightmare!
Today FF outlets are looking for employees over fifty five with some other source of income if possible.
People who come to work clean and sober. Have clean personal habits. Work easily with others. Keep their fucking 'issues' and politics to themselves. 'Head down tail up' as the saying goes. They intend to stay at the job like 'forever'. The work for them is relatively easy.
A couple of friends own local FF franchises. Over the last few years they have replaced their fulltime and part time employees with the aforementioned and got rid of the fuck-wit teenagers and shit disturbers.
One of these outlets employees four full time staff and about twenty part timers in the 'pool'.
Not one of these employees is under forty years old. Most are in their mid-fifties with some sort of pension from somewhere.
The next time you go into a ff outlet notice the age of the staff.

. You can thank the grand socialist experiment for all that has transpired to date. It has been conducted wrong headedly and ignorantly. Those who have done this won't admit to their wrong, and instead just keep doubling down on it. Yes some are finally waking up, but will it be too late ?

Socialism always works great for the 'Takers' in any society. It never works great for the 'Makers' though.
Obama was elected by a bunch of 'Takers' because he promised them him would let them, even encourage them to 'take' all they could get away with.
M. Thatcher said it best: "Socialism works great until you run out of other people's money to spend".

 

[Fair&Balanced]

Business cannot base their budget on emotional factors... If they have 40% available for labor costs than that is all they have, regardless of how long the janitor has been working for them.

. Agree if that's all they have, but how do you know what they have, and if they did what I said, then would you disagree with them for doing so ? Hmmm, is it that you like calaboration on the issue at or near the top or in certain circles, otherwise to say that if the employee's being treated badly at XYZ company can't run to ABC company in order to do better, and/or get a better situation going, then somehow that is a good thing in your opinion ?

That's our point. You seem to be automatically assuming they do have money to pay more. You don't know that.

I know the company has more money to pay employees more, when they do in fact pay their employees more.
Most businesses that have more money, do in fact pay their employees higher wages.

And I have in fact worked with companies that simply didn't have anymore money. They couldn't offer you a pay raise, if they wanted to.

When I was in high school, I worked at McDonalds. I think I was paid 25¢ over minimum wage, which was $4.50 an hour. They never gave anyone a raise. Why? Because they were broke. And as if to prove it, the year after I left their employment, they closed the store. "McDonald has billions! They can pay $15/hour!".... you don't know that. Each store, is a self contained business. Most are franchises, that are not even connected to McDonald's corporate. The store someone is working at, could be on the brink of bankruptcy. You don't know.

The stores that make more money, routinely pay higher wages. Again, all the way back in the 1990s, if I worked at the fast food joint downtown, I was paid $4/hour more. Why? Because it was way downtown, and you were hopping with people all day long, and thus obviously the store made more money, and thus they could pay higher wages.

Like I said, employers that can pay their workers more.... routinely do. By the way, that's at all pay ranges, not just entry level. If you doubt that, just ask how much a mechanic makes at the Chevy dealer, verses the Cadillac Dealer. Or look at how much airline pilots made in the 1970s, when plane tickets were 4 times higher in price. Airline pilots made a ton more than they do today.

This shouldn't be surprising. When the company makes more money, they are routinely willing to pay out higher wages.

When they don't.... they don't.

Complete and utter bunk. Businesses don't give raises when they have more money, they give raises when they need to do so to retain employees. PERIOD.

 

[Andylusion]

I'll tell you "people" something. I don't work in fast food, but people who do, do a lot more then "flip burgers". That's a term used by those who are clueless

That's true. Most people that think of them that way could not do their job.

I've done their job. I worked at both Wendy, and McDonalds, and a Subway. I have done their job, and quite frankly anyone a notch above a trained monkey, could do their job.

It's actually easier now, than it was before. When I was there, I had to actually pick the correct cup size, and fill it with the correct drink, and amount of ice. Now the computer drops the cup, fills the ice, and adds the correct drink.



When I was there I had to actually flip the burgers over, and check to see they were done right. Now you slap a frozen patty on the grill and hit a button, and it pops up when it's ready.

View attachment 72588

When I was there I had to memorize a keyboard with little keys with the words of each meal, each option, and every extra thing, and how to enter coupons and so on. Now the cash registers are all pictures, and look like something Fisher Price made up, that a 4-year-old could operate. For example, when someone said "can you add onion" you had to find a normal sized key on a keyboard, that had "add onion" on it, in tiny letters because it fit on a normal keyboard key. It didn't come up with a giant picture of an onion on the screen that you tapped.

View attachment 72589

Honestly, the burger flipper job of old, was easy as cutting butter. If the "burger flipper" colloquialism is no longer valid, it would only be because that makes the job sound harder than what it is now.

In fact, this post is hilarious to me, because I now feel like the old man "when I was your age..." accept instead of walking up hill both ways to school, it was "I had to flip burgers with my bare hands, and mix soft drinks with raw ingredients from coke-a-cola!"

But it's true. I actually flipped burgers over. Now they just hit a button, and walk away.

. Everything is going automated anyways, so using that as a threat is typical and ridiculous. The fact that automation is going to happen (saving corporations millions more), is all the more reason for the positions to become more quality, secure, long term if desired, and lucrative for teens or for who ever finds themselves on the climbing ladder rungs in their jobs they are appointed too or choose in their lives... Listen, there are people who end up in all different situations in life, and just because they might find themselves somewhere they are over qualified for, doesn't mean they should be abused in the situation. No matter what, there should be a structural ladder type pay system in every company that considers themselves a company. Now if someone decides to be a janitor all their life at a company, school or etc. then there is no excuse that they shouldn't have an entrance pay, then after that to become a part of a structural pay system that recognizes many factors in which meets the expectations of the job position, and then a participation in a profit sharing program. This was the case for many years in America, until greed started raging like a wid fire burning everything in it's path.

That is not inherently true. Everything will be automated, only if the cost of labor, makes automation a requirement.

If you intend to drive up labor costs with health care mandates, minimum wage laws, pension costs, Union contracts, taxes for medicare, and social security, and on and on and on..... Then you are correct. Everything will be automated, and people will be replaced with machines.

But if you don't do those things, and actually reverse the costly regulations and controls, and contracts, and taxes.... then no, it is not inherent at all.

Automation is horribly expensive. The machines are expensive. The maintenance is expensive. Retooling is expensive. Yearly shut downs, are expensive. Lost production when the machines fail, is expensive.

Even something as simple as fixing a mistake is horribly expensive with automation. When Apple redesigned screens for their Iphones, and sent the new screens to China, where literally hundreds of thousands of Iphones with bad screens had already been made.... the workers simply started pulling out the phones, removing the screens, and replacing them. That would be impossible for an assembly line of machines.

This is the reality.

My uncle worked for a company that sold automated glassware machines. Cups, and plates, and other glass objects, made by automation. They sent him to China to sell their products. He came back with zero sales. Every company he talked to was eager until they got all the numbers crunched, and found that even the best most productive machine, was still more expensive than just hiring people, when you factored in that you could say "ok make glass cups now", and the men would stop, and switch jobs. A machine, would have to be shut down, retooled, and reconfigured, and you would have to pay an engineer with programming experience, to do this.

Every company, would prefer to use human labor. Every company would.

There are a ton of things, people never grasp about automation. An employee... generally, not always, but generally will become more valuable, and more capable over the duration of his employment, and his employment can last 20, 30, 40... even 50 years.

Machines? Machines work best the first year you have them. Then they go down hill. Every year they get slower, have more problems, cost more money to fix, and if you get 10 years out of one, that's actually pretty good.

So why do companies replace people with machines?

Union Contracts. Health Care mandates. Taxes. Unemployment comp. and on... and on... and on... Going on strike, complaining about wages, crying about benefits..... after a while, there's a break even point, where human labor because unprofitable, and machines are.

And back to your automatic pay.... You must not have ever run anything in your life. Or you ran a company, where the profit margins were so high, that you could make that choice.

Fact is, not all companies can do what you say. You simply can't pay someone a "living wage" when the work they do isn't worth that much money. I can demand my customers pay me $100 to mow their lawn so I can have a living wage, but they are not going to pay that much. If they don't pay that much, I can't pay an employee that much.

Did you read about the stores that are closing because of minimum wage hikes?

San Francisco Bookstore Closing Due to Minimum Wage Increase

Many. And it's not hard to figure out. I can point to my own experience. In the 2000s, I used to eat at Chipotle every day. Huge burrito for $4.25. Now they are $6.50. The price changed from 2007 to 2009 when the minimum wage went up.

I no longer go to Chipotle. Too expensive. Just because you think someone should be paid more, doesn't mean the customer is going to pay for it. And ultimately the customer is always the one who pays for wages. If the customer refuses to pay $16 for a cheap fast food burger, then you can't pay a burger flipper $15 an hour.

.
Automation is horribly expensive. The machines are expensive. The maintenance is expensive. Retooling is expensive. Yearly shut downs, are expensive. Lost production when the machines fail, is expensive.

So it's a threat with no substance eh ? Sounds like by just doing right by your employee's is the best solution then. Some things are just found out the hard way in life I guess....


Ever seen the situation when you choose the cheapest path in life, and what happens because of that ? I paid $900.00 dollars for a set of tires for my pickup. They lasted 10 years until I needed another set.. Then I only needed two. The two cost me $500.00, and hopefully they will last as long as the other ones did. My mom likes hitting those used tire stores... I say yes if you don't mind tires that could be your death trap or changing them every other 3 months.

At some point, the cost of human labor out weights the costs of automation.
The faster you reach that point, the quicker people are replaced by machines.

If "doing right by your employees" means paying them tons of money.... no it would be better to replace them with machines.

I never suggested that automation was so expensive that it would never replace human labor. I said that *IF* human labor becomes too expensive, then it would. But *IF* human labor does not, then it won't.

*IF* your version of "doing right by your employees" means paying them tons of money, then yeah, they will be replaced with robots.

 

[Andylusion]

Define "horribly expensive"

Annual cost for 50 employees @ $15/h MW - $2,307,962.50

Math** - $1,560,000 wages + $96,720 Social Security Tax + $22,620 Medicare Tax + $571,475 Health Insurance + $57,147.50 Workers Comp​

Annual cost for 2 Robotics Engineers (2016 median $81,267) - $224,889.25

Math - $162,534 wages + $10,077.11 Social Security Tax + $2,356.74 Medicare Tax + $33,668 Health Insurance + $16,253.40 Workers Comp​

Annual savings for automation of MW jobs - $2,083,073.25

"Typical stand-alone robot arms with welding packages cost between $28,000 and $40,000. A pre-engineered workcell with safety equipment starts at $50,000." ~ How much does robot automation cost?

"San Francisco-based Momentum Machines claim that using Alpha will save a restaurant enough money that it pays for itself in a year, and it enables the restaurant to spend about twice as much on ingredients as they normally would – so they can buy the gourmet stuff. Saving money with Alpha is pretty easy to imagine. You don’t even need cashiers or servers. Customers could just punch in their order, pay, and wait at a dispensing window." ~ Robot Serves Up 360 Hamburgers Per Hour

"The burger-bot was designed to displace two to three full-time kitchen workers, which would save a franchise up to $90,000 per year." ~ Super Efficient Burger-Flipping Robots Might Steal Your Fast Food Job


** Annual cost of a single full time $15/h MW worker = $46,161.75/y
Compensation for Hours - $31,200
Employer's portion of Employee's Social Security Tax (6.2% up to $118,500 - 2016 rates) - $1,934.40
Employer's portion of Employee's Medicare Tax (1.45% - 1/2 of 2016's 2.9% rate) - $452.40
Employer's costs ACA (conglomerate average) - $11,429/y

NOTE A) Going with 50 employees at a 50/50 split of single and family workers since the presumption is now that MW is not a temp job for teens, but rather a bottom rung job that should both support a family and foster employee growth with the company (aka no fast food joint ever, but the argument presented is that /all/ jobs are upwardly mobile yes?) employer totals $150,625 for singles + $420,850 for families = $571,475/y
NOTE B) 2016 average annual health care costs to employer $6,025 single worker / $16,834 family plan (18% single / 29% family)
NOTE C) Tax Fine for failure to provide health insurance (2016 rate) - $36,500/y per employee would cost employer $1,825,000/y​

Average cost of workers comp insurance (varies by job type/risk - generic average is 10% of entire payroll so $57,147.50/y) - $1,145.95

. Hope this was directed towards Andylusion, because he was the one talking about "horribly expensive".

But he made my point. He showed that paying employees $15 /hour was unbelievably expensive, and made the alternative of automation practical, and justifiable even if costly.

Those people would end up unemployed and broke. If not living off the government, then doing illegal activity.

 

[Andylusion]

Business cannot base their budget on emotional factors... If they have 40% available for labor costs than that is all they have, regardless of how long the janitor has been working for them.

. Agree if that's all they have, but how do you know what they have, and if they did what I said, then would you disagree with them for doing so ? Hmmm, is it that you like calaboration on the issue at or near the top or in certain circles, otherwise to say that if the employee's being treated badly at XYZ company can't run to ABC company in order to do better, and/or get a better situation going, then somehow that is a good thing in your opinion ?

That's our point. You seem to be automatically assuming they do have money to pay more. You don't know that.

I know the company has more money to pay employees more, when they do in fact pay their employees more.
Most businesses that have more money, do in fact pay their employees higher wages.

And I have in fact worked with companies that simply didn't have anymore money. They couldn't offer you a pay raise, if they wanted to.

When I was in high school, I worked at McDonalds. I think I was paid 25¢ over minimum wage, which was $4.50 an hour. They never gave anyone a raise. Why? Because they were broke. And as if to prove it, the year after I left their employment, they closed the store. "McDonald has billions! They can pay $15/hour!".... you don't know that. Each store, is a self contained business. Most are franchises, that are not even connected to McDonald's corporate. The store someone is working at, could be on the brink of bankruptcy. You don't know.

The stores that make more money, routinely pay higher wages. Again, all the way back in the 1990s, if I worked at the fast food joint downtown, I was paid $4/hour more. Why? Because it was way downtown, and you were hopping with people all day long, and thus obviously the store made more money, and thus they could pay higher wages.

Like I said, employers that can pay their workers more.... routinely do. By the way, that's at all pay ranges, not just entry level. If you doubt that, just ask how much a mechanic makes at the Chevy dealer, verses the Cadillac Dealer. Or look at how much airline pilots made in the 1970s, when plane tickets were 4 times higher in price. Airline pilots made a ton more than they do today.

This shouldn't be surprising. When the company makes more money, they are routinely willing to pay out higher wages.

When they don't.... they don't.

Complete and utter bunk. Businesses don't give raises when they have more money, they give raises when they need to do so to retain employees. PERIOD.

And yet.... I've been given a raise. I have no degree, no skills, no abilities whatsoever. I was given a raise. Can you explain that? They could have replaced me with a million people easy. Any idiot could have walked in off the street, and done my job. Why give me a raise?

Why did the airlines in the 1970s and prior, pay their pilots tons of money? Why did airline pilot pay drop after deregulation, when ticket prices fell. Did they need to keep pilots in the 1970s, and magically not have any need to keep them in the 1990s?

Why do McDonald's in Norway pay their employees $15/hour, when there is no minimum wage at all? Can't be because they charge $16 for a burger, and thus have the money to pay more.... right? So what's your answer?

Why do Cadillac, and Lexus dealerships pay their mechanics way more than Chevy and Ford Dealers? Couldn't be because those cars bring in more revenue, and thus they can pay more.... right? So what's your claim?

 

[Fair&Balanced]

Business cannot base their budget on emotional factors... If they have 40% available for labor costs than that is all they have, regardless of how long the janitor has been working for them.

. Agree if that's all they have, but how do you know what they have, and if they did what I said, then would you disagree with them for doing so ? Hmmm, is it that you like calaboration on the issue at or near the top or in certain circles, otherwise to say that if the employee's being treated badly at XYZ company can't run to ABC company in order to do better, and/or get a better situation going, then somehow that is a good thing in your opinion ?

That's our point. You seem to be automatically assuming they do have money to pay more. You don't know that.

I know the company has more money to pay employees more, when they do in fact pay their employees more.
Most businesses that have more money, do in fact pay their employees higher wages.

And I have in fact worked with companies that simply didn't have anymore money. They couldn't offer you a pay raise, if they wanted to.

When I was in high school, I worked at McDonalds. I think I was paid 25¢ over minimum wage, which was $4.50 an hour. They never gave anyone a raise. Why? Because they were broke. And as if to prove it, the year after I left their employment, they closed the store. "McDonald has billions! They can pay $15/hour!".... you don't know that. Each store, is a self contained business. Most are franchises, that are not even connected to McDonald's corporate. The store someone is working at, could be on the brink of bankruptcy. You don't know.

The stores that make more money, routinely pay higher wages. Again, all the way back in the 1990s, if I worked at the fast food joint downtown, I was paid $4/hour more. Why? Because it was way downtown, and you were hopping with people all day long, and thus obviously the store made more money, and thus they could pay higher wages.

Like I said, employers that can pay their workers more.... routinely do. By the way, that's at all pay ranges, not just entry level. If you doubt that, just ask how much a mechanic makes at the Chevy dealer, verses the Cadillac Dealer. Or look at how much airline pilots made in the 1970s, when plane tickets were 4 times higher in price. Airline pilots made a ton more than they do today.

This shouldn't be surprising. When the company makes more money, they are routinely willing to pay out higher wages.

When they don't.... they don't.

Complete and utter bunk. Businesses don't give raises when they have more money, they give raises when they need to do so to retain employees. PERIOD.

And yet.... I've been given a raise. I have no degree, no skills, no abilities whatsoever. I was given a raise. Can you explain that? They could have replaced me with a million people easy. Any idiot could have walked in off the street, and done my job. Why give me a raise?

Why did the airlines in the 1970s and prior, pay their pilots tons of money? Why did airline pilot pay drop after deregulation, when ticket prices fell. Did they need to keep pilots in the 1970s, and magically not have any need to keep them in the 1990s?

Why do McDonald's in Norway pay their employees $15/hour, when there is no minimum wage at all? Can't be because they charge $16 for a burger, and thus have the money to pay more.... right? So what's your answer?

Why do Cadillac, and Lexus dealerships pay their mechanics way more than Chevy and Ford Dealers? Couldn't be because those cars bring in more revenue, and thus they can pay more.... right? So what's your claim?

If you don't understand the basic principles of supply and demand, I can't help you.

 

[hadit]

You say things like a business should do this or should do that yet you never seem to say what an person should do to take responsibility for his own life

Like so many people here you shift the burden of personal responsibility away from the individual and onto another entity be it government or a business.

I do not confuse the issue by holding people responsible for their lives. It is not a distraction. In fact I shine a light on the real problem here it is you that want to avoid the issue of where actual responsibility lies. Instead you'd rather blame an employer for not having the pay scale he "should" have which really means the one you think is the right one.

This is a perfect description of a liberal mind.
Liberals have zero respect for high achievers, in fact they loathe them. On the other hand liberals have great compassion and admiration for under achievers.

. Thanks for informing everyone that while on the plantation, they are to never question the master, and they are to be over joyed at the crumbs thrown to them on the slave Shack floor.. You see the slaves didn't slave for free.. They got a roof over their head with a dirt floor to boot, and they had corn to mash and a hog to eat etc. So who were they to question or ask for more ? I guess the tongue whips being brought out here, are equivalent to the whips when the slaves got out of line or to uppity back then. I guess they wanted to be slaves all their lives as well right ? I have actually seen that argument put up before also... Amazing.

Who patrols outside your house with a shotgun to make sure you don't leave the plantation? Who rides a horse carrying a whip while you pick cotton? Who sold your wife and child to another slave owner? See how silly your argument sounds?

 

[EverCurious]

I was speaking more of any company with 50 employees, but we could probably do the math for McDonald's since they put a lot of their business information out there. 35,000 stores across the globe, 80% are franchised - over 57% are conventional franchises w/24% being licensed to foreign affiliates/developmental licenses. They employee 1.9 million workers. Average franchise makes between $500,000 and $1,000,000 profit a year, w/total sales averaging $2.6 million. Their advertising budget is $988m year.

Now the raw math 1.9M employees divided by 35,000 stores comes up with 54,285 workers per store, but we know that's not true lol Some of them have to be researchers, nutritional experts, chemists, butchers, corporate, there's probably builders and architects, etc.

We can take the FF industry numbers from 2013 though; 3,653,168 employees and 232,611 FF establishments which gives us an average of about 16 employees per.

Wages $33,280 + $2,063.36 Social Security Tax + $965.12 Medicaid Tax + $3,328 Workers Comp Insurance = $39,636.48 per employee
We'll presume they don't have health insurance just to make this easier (though higher ups get health insurance benefits I believe)

Cost of labor to average franchise $634,183.70

And do keep in mind that not all employees at McDonald's make $15/h, the higher ups get $25+/h (according to my kido anyway; a year or so ago he turned down a management position at McDonald's to intern as an airplane mechanic. This is in Alaska so our rates are a bit higher, but that was the stating wage so.)

Now there's no costs for automation of a single franchise I can find (or I would have posted it) but the links I provided give a range of $28,000 for a single welding robot to somewhere over $90,000 for something that replaces almost all employees (as they said it would supposedly would save them that much,) the other article claims it would pay for itself in a year. If we presume the later two are true we come up with a cost of around $500,000 - $1m to automate.

Middle ground on that cost would be about $750,000 so we can estimate that it would take 2 years for automation to be cheaper than workers for most franchises.

 

[Fair&Balanced]

I was speaking more of any company with 50 employees, but we could probably do the math for McDonald's since they put a lot of their business information out there. 35,000 stores across the globe, 80% are franchised - over 57% are conventional franchises w/24% being licensed to foreign affiliates/developmental licenses. They employee 1.9 million workers. Average franchise makes between $500,000 and $1,000,000 profit a year, w/total sales averaging $2.6 million. Their advertising budget is $988m year.

Now the raw math 1.9M employees divided by 35,000 stores comes up with 54,285 workers per store, but we know that's not true lol Some of them have to be researchers, nutritional experts, chemists, butchers, corporate, there's probably builders and architects, etc.

We can take the FF industry numbers from 2013 though; 3,653,168 employees and 232,611 FF establishments which gives us an average of about 16 employees per.

Wages $33,280 + $2,063.36 Social Security Tax + $965.12 Medicaid Tax + $3,328 Workers Comp Insurance = $39,636.48 per employee
We'll presume they don't have health insurance just to make this easier (though higher ups get health insurance benefits I believe)

Cost of labor to average franchise $634,183.70

And do keep in mind that not all employees at McDonald's make $15/h, the higher ups get $25+/h (according to my kido anyway; a year or so ago he turned down a management position at McDonald's to intern as an airplane mechanic. This is in Alaska so our rates are a bit higher, but that was the stating wage so.)

Now there's no costs for automation of a single franchise I can find (or I would have posted it) but the links I provided give a range of $28,000 for a single welding robot to somewhere over $90,000 for something that replaces almost all employees (as they said it would supposedly would save them that much,) the other article claims it would pay for itself in a year. If we presume the later two are true we come up with a cost of around $500,000 - $1m to automate.

Middle ground on that cost would be about $750,000 so we can estimate that it would take 2 years for automation to be cheaper than workers for most franchises.

Automation. LOL notice Wal Mart has cut back on their self check outs an added more workers because generally speaking people like to deal with people. Now eventually these machines will be commonplace, regardless of the mw, but it is a red herring in terms of the mw discussion.

 

[EverCurious]

You're not accounting for how the age of customers influences such decisions. How many seniors and older folks are eating at McDonald's every day vs how many Millennials who can't even put down their cell phones to drive?

 

[beagle9]

Business cannot base their budget on emotional factors... If they have 40% available for labor costs than that is all they have, regardless of how long the janitor has been working for them.

. Agree if that's all they have, but how do you know what they have, and if they did what I said, then would you disagree with them for doing so ? Hmmm, is it that you like calaboration on the issue at or near the top or in certain circles, otherwise to say that if the employee's being treated badly at XYZ company can't run to ABC company in order to do better, and/or get a better situation going, then somehow that is a good thing in your opinion ?

That's our point. You seem to be automatically assuming they do have money to pay more. You don't know that.

I know the company has more money to pay employees more, when they do in fact pay their employees more.
Most businesses that have more money, do in fact pay their employees higher wages.

And I have in fact worked with companies that simply didn't have anymore money. They couldn't offer you a pay raise, if they wanted to.

When I was in high school, I worked at McDonalds. I think I was paid 25¢ over minimum wage, which was $4.50 an hour. They never gave anyone a raise. Why? Because they were broke. And as if to prove it, the year after I left their employment, they closed the store. "McDonald has billions! They can pay $15/hour!".... you don't know that. Each store, is a self contained business. Most are franchises, that are not even connected to McDonald's corporate. The store someone is working at, could be on the brink of bankruptcy. You don't know.

The stores that make more money, routinely pay higher wages. Again, all the way back in the 1990s, if I worked at the fast food joint downtown, I was paid $4/hour more. Why? Because it was way downtown, and you were hopping with people all day long, and thus obviously the store made more money, and thus they could pay higher wages.

Like I said, employers that can pay their workers more.... routinely do. By the way, that's at all pay ranges, not just entry level. If you doubt that, just ask how much a mechanic makes at the Chevy dealer, verses the Cadillac Dealer. Or look at how much airline pilots made in the 1970s, when plane tickets were 4 times higher in price. Airline pilots made a ton more than they do today.

This shouldn't be surprising. When the company makes more money, they are routinely willing to pay out higher wages.

When they don't.... they don't.

Complete and utter bunk. Businesses don't give raises when they have more money, they give raises when they need to do so to retain employees. PERIOD.

. Or reward employee's. It's all up to a business, and may the best business win.

 

[dannyboys]

I'll tell you "people" something. I don't work in fast food, but people who do, do a lot more then "flip burgers". That's a term used by those who are clueless

That's true. Most people that think of them that way could not do their job.

I've done their job. I worked at both Wendy, and McDonalds, and a Subway. I have done their job, and quite frankly anyone a notch above a trained monkey, could do their job.

It's actually easier now, than it was before. When I was there, I had to actually pick the correct cup size, and fill it with the correct drink, and amount of ice. Now the computer drops the cup, fills the ice, and adds the correct drink.



When I was there I had to actually flip the burgers over, and check to see they were done right. Now you slap a frozen patty on the grill and hit a button, and it pops up when it's ready.

View attachment 72588

When I was there I had to memorize a keyboard with little keys with the words of each meal, each option, and every extra thing, and how to enter coupons and so on. Now the cash registers are all pictures, and look like something Fisher Price made up, that a 4-year-old could operate. For example, when someone said "can you add onion" you had to find a normal sized key on a keyboard, that had "add onion" on it, in tiny letters because it fit on a normal keyboard key. It didn't come up with a giant picture of an onion on the screen that you tapped.

View attachment 72589

Honestly, the burger flipper job of old, was easy as cutting butter. If the "burger flipper" colloquialism is no longer valid, it would only be because that makes the job sound harder than what it is now.

In fact, this post is hilarious to me, because I now feel like the old man "when I was your age..." accept instead of walking up hill both ways to school, it was "I had to flip burgers with my bare hands, and mix soft drinks with raw ingredients from coke-a-cola!"

But it's true. I actually flipped burgers over. Now they just hit a button, and walk away.

. Everything is going automated anyways, so using that as a threat is typical and ridiculous. The fact that automation is going to happen (saving corporations millions more), is all the more reason for the positions to become more quality, secure, long term if desired, and lucrative for teens or for who ever finds themselves on the climbing ladder rungs in their jobs they are appointed too or choose in their lives... Listen, there are people who end up in all different situations in life, and just because they might find themselves somewhere they are over qualified for, doesn't mean they should be abused in the situation. No matter what, there should be a structural ladder type pay system in every company that considers themselves a company. Now if someone decides to be a janitor all their life at a company, school or etc. then there is no excuse that they shouldn't have an entrance pay, then after that to become a part of a structural pay system that recognizes many factors in which meets the expectations of the job position, and then a participation in a profit sharing program. This was the case for many years in America, until greed started raging like a wid fire burning everything in it's path.

That is not inherently true. Everything will be automated, only if the cost of labor, makes automation a requirement.

If you intend to drive up labor costs with health care mandates, minimum wage laws, pension costs, Union contracts, taxes for medicare, and social security, and on and on and on..... Then you are correct. Everything will be automated, and people will be replaced with machines.

But if you don't do those things, and actually reverse the costly regulations and controls, and contracts, and taxes.... then no, it is not inherent at all.

Automation is horribly expensive. The machines are expensive. The maintenance is expensive. Retooling is expensive. Yearly shut downs, are expensive. Lost production when the machines fail, is expensive.

Even something as simple as fixing a mistake is horribly expensive with automation. When Apple redesigned screens for their Iphones, and sent the new screens to China, where literally hundreds of thousands of Iphones with bad screens had already been made.... the workers simply started pulling out the phones, removing the screens, and replacing them. That would be impossible for an assembly line of machines.

This is the reality.

My uncle worked for a company that sold automated glassware machines. Cups, and plates, and other glass objects, made by automation. They sent him to China to sell their products. He came back with zero sales. Every company he talked to was eager until they got all the numbers crunched, and found that even the best most productive machine, was still more expensive than just hiring people, when you factored in that you could say "ok make glass cups now", and the men would stop, and switch jobs. A machine, would have to be shut down, retooled, and reconfigured, and you would have to pay an engineer with programming experience, to do this.

Every company, would prefer to use human labor. Every company would.

There are a ton of things, people never grasp about automation. An employee... generally, not always, but generally will become more valuable, and more capable over the duration of his employment, and his employment can last 20, 30, 40... even 50 years.

Machines? Machines work best the first year you have them. Then they go down hill. Every year they get slower, have more problems, cost more money to fix, and if you get 10 years out of one, that's actually pretty good.

So why do companies replace people with machines?

Union Contracts. Health Care mandates. Taxes. Unemployment comp. and on... and on... and on... Going on strike, complaining about wages, crying about benefits..... after a while, there's a break even point, where human labor because unprofitable, and machines are.

And back to your automatic pay.... You must not have ever run anything in your life. Or you ran a company, where the profit margins were so high, that you could make that choice.

Fact is, not all companies can do what you say. You simply can't pay someone a "living wage" when the work they do isn't worth that much money. I can demand my customers pay me $100 to mow their lawn so I can have a living wage, but they are not going to pay that much. If they don't pay that much, I can't pay an employee that much.

Did you read about the stores that are closing because of minimum wage hikes?

San Francisco Bookstore Closing Due to Minimum Wage Increase

Many. And it's not hard to figure out. I can point to my own experience. In the 2000s, I used to eat at Chipotle every day. Huge burrito for $4.25. Now they are $6.50. The price changed from 2007 to 2009 when the minimum wage went up.

I no longer go to Chipotle. Too expensive. Just because you think someone should be paid more, doesn't mean the customer is going to pay for it. And ultimately the customer is always the one who pays for wages. If the customer refuses to pay $16 for a cheap fast food burger, then you can't pay a burger flipper $15 an hour.

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Automation is horribly expensive. The machines are expensive. The maintenance is expensive. Retooling is expensive. Yearly shut downs, are expensive. Lost production when the machines fail, is expensive.

So it's a threat with no substance eh ? Sounds like by just doing right by your employee's is the best solution then. Some things are just found out the hard way in life I guess....


Ever seen the situation when you choose the cheapest path in life, and what happens because of that ? I paid $900.00 dollars for a set of tires for my pickup. They lasted 10 years until I needed another set.. Then I only needed two. The two cost me $500.00, and hopefully they will last as long as the other ones did. My mom likes hitting those used tire stores... I say yes if you don't mind tires that could be your death trap or changing them every other 3 months.

If automation was "horribly expensive" then why is virtually every FF outlet in the country buying it?
The initial engineering has been done years ago. The manufacturing plants (100%) in China are cranking out fully automated chip friers by the thousands with the cheapest labor on the planet.
An automated chip frier will last for years.
PRO TIP ASSHOLE!!!!! During the slow winter season scheduled maintenance crews survive ALL the FF automated equipment.
There is NO downtime!
The crew comes in at 10PM Monday night in January. The crew has serviced all the equipment by Tuesday morning.