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[cormack12]

They do this anyway regardless if the wage is $20 an hour or not, it might've sped it up in some specific ones but this was always the end goal, at least this way the workers can get more money before being made redundant.

Edit: maybe they can go and work at Walmart and Target since they're thinking of scaling back on self service because *drum roll* it's making stealing easier and it's cutting into their profits!

https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/retailers-shake-up-self-checkouts-to-curb-irritationand-theft-faa795ed?st=7c0su33px7v55zc&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

This is specifically about fast food places, however I don't think the supermarket point is that valid given the amount of youtube videos where people are just walking out wholesale while they have cashiers anyway (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...-dealing-with-shoplifters-in-our-london-store). It probably facilitates a little more opportunism, but the security and shoplifting issues aren't inherently a problem caused by self checkout. CostCo had that shit figured out years ago.

But yeah, take your point, front load a pay increase for a short amount of time while natural attrition happens. So a small number of people will gain - but then again I'll just echo whast I said earlier, this is so much a 'Fuck you, I got mine' attitude that trying to champion a social justice win seems a bit comedic to me. All fast food workers will obviously be cheering this, but the reality is a lot won't really benefit from it as they get laid off.

This shit would happen regardless of that wage increase (probably faster now). If companies could operate without paying anything to employees - they would do that...

Exactly. How do you make transition quicker? How do you push technology and venture investments? Make the alternative/status quo too expensive to maintain.

My local McDs (not California) just did this two weeks ago. The difference is, they only have two self-service kiosks. Not show in your video, but the drive through line is now constantly around the block.

Personally I think we'll see the franchise split. The rise of McDeliveries have completely fucked McDonalds QA. They are complaining they only had 1.9% growth instead of 2.5%. We'll probably see the CosMcs go fully automated, I think we'll see smaller automated franchises dedicated just for McDeliveries and we'll see more and more restaurants go automated ordering only. Personally I've no idea why you'd want to talk to a person rather than order frrom kiosk. You can specify each ingredient - the UI has to be spot on as it's for customers (and not some shitty till exclusions the cashiers get wrong). The biggest cost saving is always staff.


I'm not really sure why this has become a business bad discussion if I'm being honest. This is fundamentally one of the big immigration issues everyone faces with cheap labour. We've all been there. You get a quote for £600 to tile a bathroom, then you get a Polish guy who will do the same job for £400. How many of us go with the guy who charges £600? Unless there is some sort of premium guarantee you're willing to go over. People offering to block pave your drive or lay Indian stone up to 40% cheaper than the local family businesses est. 50 or more years ago.

I also think the situation will be very different city to city, never mind country to country. Tipping culture is crazy in the US, so it would be interesting to see how much they earn on paper compared to how much they earn beyond. Ultimately, your pay is determined by how easy you are to replace. If you walked about tomorrow, how easily can you be replaced compared to inefficiencies - that's why HCAs are low paid in UK for example. The value of what you do can be high, but the value of the skill can be low.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Fast food isn’t people’s first choice.