How to Avoid Hiring $15/hr Schlubbs Mandated by Neo-Marxist City Councils

Reaganite Republican ^ | 24 September 2015 | Reaganite Republican

[Reaganite Republican]

 This fast-food minimum wage campaign has the potential 

to go down as an all-time EPIC bonehead move by the left- 

what if it make clear economic sense to replace workers at $7/hr, too? 

Sure, McDonalds sees the writing-on-the-wall, and has the financial war chest to deal with it. They've already opened a fully robotic Mickey D's in Phoenix, with plans to roll-out 25,000 more by just next year...

But what about the little guy?

The legislation recently seen in New York, LA, San Francisco, and Seattle inflicts large minimum wage increases on restaurants employing more than 30-or-so people- but that could easily mean a lot of family owned business, particularly those with more than one location.

And anybody who's ever spent any time in LA can tell you much of the fast food comes from small business owners, the ubiquitous burger and burrito stands, lunch trucks, etc, Quick lunches are a huge business in SoCal, but it's not just the national chains -although their presence is substantial- there's a lot of these businesses plus some medium chains unique to the west coast that are legendary (Tommy's, In-and-Out, Carl's Junior, Jack in the Box). 

But the small-to-medium outfits will be at a substantial financial disadvantage if they can't match McDonalds' mega-deep-pocketed automation drive- 
$15/hr will kill them, not to mention competion from myriad micro-businesses that employ friends/relatives (kids, for free) and/or hire far less than 30 people (on the books), if anybody.

The problem with these heavy socialist moves -like (easy to evade) soak-the-rich taxation attempts- is that it really isn't that difficult for thinking people to avoid hiring lazy, overpriced workers that aren't worth what you're paying them... and it doesn't take a $5M robotic restaurant to do it. 

Once the automation industry gets established, these vital (to our economy and society) entry-level jobs -which many of us had for our first employment ever, teaching us how the world worked at 16, 17 years old (as in my own case)- might pretty much disappear from coast-to-coast... how progressive!

See, businessmen with a successful operation didn't get that way by being stupid -a luxury somebody like John Kerry can enjoy, he married his money (and as a Dem, doesn't have to answer for serial ineptitude)... wily entrepreneurs always find a way to end-run unjust ruling class attempts 
to bleed them.

Smaller shops/chains can simply contract-out a lot of the work their people used to do, even some food prep (or purchase prepared food service items), so no prep cook anymore. You can hire an outfit to clean the parking lot and windows, and the cleaning company's own crew comes into the kitchen at night.

Good waitresses -if required- already make $15/hr from tips, so perhaps hiring a full staff there isn't a problem. And for that kind of money, they can bus their own tables.

I might pay fifteen bucks for a good front-end manager plus one quality cook in the back, but they'll have to bring me high-productivity with an advanced, semi-automated one-man kitchen. You can run almost anything with
2-3 people now, really.

The front counter kids aren't needed anymore- touch screen ordering systems are becoming quite commonplace now, and the price is surely coming down, like all tech. There's nothing particularly advanced or complex about them. 

A smartphone app taking orders is available for all shops, there's another counter person made redundant. 

And have you ever seen the conveyor belt running around a sushi joint, with the plates you just pick yourself, then bring your plate to the tray cart and pay the cashier at the end (by color of plates)? No waitresses, no bus boys at all... just a cashier, really.

Almost any fast food business could get by with 30% of the staff they've got now- outsourcing, some automation, and a thorough re-think of the operation can easily produce a new type of shop that doesn't need ten dummies milling around, looking confused all the time... not for a bloated $15/hr minimum wage, they don't.

Look at the typical lunch truck or Manhattan street cart- they serve 
almost anything off of a roach coach these days, and they do it all with 
1-2 people, everything needed is right at hand... and that's with little automation. 

The organization of small-medium fast food shops will quickly evolve to
wring-out all the employees not worth $15/hr... and that's most of them. 


It's like Art Laffer said- they ought to call any minimum wage legislation 
'The Black Youth Unemployment Act', because that's who's going to be screwed out of a job -by the thousands- in all of the major US cities suffering under ill-advised economic meddling (by people who have zero idea what they're doing).

In a sane world you'd expect a massive backlash pending against those who cost them their jobs... but these 'progressive' city councils will surely blame the evil capitalists for wanting to continue to exist. I suspect they'll then resort to boycotts next (and lazy people on welfare eat a lot of fast food!).

Reagan famously said "Entrepreneurs and small businesses are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States". Amazingly, the left has managed not only to destroy that sort of hiring, but has doomed the future of these entry-level jobs entirely- most fast food positions are as
good as gone already.

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Gateway Pundit   News Examiner   MemeGenerator   WeKnowMemes

[Reaganite Republican]

***PING***

[Dr. Ursus]

They can make more on social services!

[9YearLurker]

How right you are about the labor inefficiency of not only fast food, but many retail service-oriented businesses.

[TexasFreeper2009]

I predict the left will outlaw automated restaurants

[Flick Lives]

By accident or design, mandates like the $15 minimum wage help hollow out the middle class. In this case by cutting off the means of a first-time worker having an entry level job. Now an ever growing population won’t get their first job but instead can move straight to lifelong welfare and unemployment living at taxpayer expense. Meanwhile taxes have to go up to pay for the growing underclass, driving more middle class people on the financial edge into poverty.

This all works out beautifully, at least for awhile; creating the permanent democrat voting block whose subsistence living requires government handouts. Meanwhile the middle class shrinks. This leaves a large population of the underclass with a few ruling elites; much like China.

At some point, the elites turn on each other and the whole system implodes.

[Senator_Blutarski]

It's like Art Laffer said- they ought to call any minimum wage legislation 'The Black Youth Unemployment Act'...

Minimum wage jobs teach the skills needed for career advancement:

Punctuality

Appropriate behavior

Social skills

Teamwork

Personal responsibility

Honesty

And so on...

For many black youth a minimum wage job is the only way they will learn the skills needed to hold a job.

[circlecity]

"This fast-food minimum wage campaign has the potential to go down as an all-time EPIC bonehead move by the left"

Obviously this writer hasn't figured out that the left WANTS their wage hike to create higher unemployment. It just means more takers voting for Santa Claus.

[Adder]

Not sure why you couldn’t make them all contract employees. Instead of W2’s, you issue 1099’s. Each person that works there is responsible for his own taxes, insurance and fica: once you pay them, you are done with them and they can be terminated at will.

[Leaning Right]

I predict the left will outlaw automated restaurants

That was my thought as well. Perhaps they'll twist reality in such as way as to make automation unsafe or unsanitary.

Or they can go the Stalinist route, and ban them just because they have the power to do so. No explanation needed.

[Reaganite Republican]

Too much down time and make-work fussing

Jobs often lack clear definition it seems, too- lot of confusion

[Reaganite Republican]

For a LOT of kids, period

I always thought I learned more working than in school- changing tires, bussing tables, whatever

[9YearLurker]

(And slacker/Millennial employees.)

[Reaganite Republican]

There’s a lot of ways around this stuff... never works

[Terry L Smith]

God bless The Roach Coaches of america!!

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=roach+coach+pictures&view=detailv2&&id=946F68DAF37D51DAE67C00F35E624FD2FD6A0826&selectedIndex=44&ccid=GtI2hwxE&simid=608003035798832946&thid=OIP.M1ad236870c44a48c8b09e75dfd4116e1H0&ajaxhist=0

[joshua c]

Socialists do not understand economics or if they do, they think good intentions trumps good policy.

If higher costs are forced on business, they will find a way to cut costs. Its what successful business owners do.

[Little Pig]

I’m pretty sure the “news” site cited in the article is satire. There is no all-robot McDonalds in Phoenix, and McD does not plan to convert 25000 of its locations to automation by the end of the year. Most McD locations are franchises anyway, and not under direct control of the corporation.

That said, however, be sure that automation is a hot topic in the upper levels of the company’s management. So, “Fake, but accurate” I guess.

[blueunicorn6]

If you are paying a worker, then the Democrats can’t control that worker’s vote.

the Democrats lie and scare the crap out of people on welfare and government employees so they will vote Democrat.

And a Democrat in office has access to the public treasury to loot it.

[tbw2]

Then vending machine dispensing food courts become the norm, or the equivalent of an Automat.

[Yashcheritsiy]

Once the automation industry gets established, these vital (to our economy and society) entry-level jobs -which many of us had for our first employment ever, teaching us how the world worked at 16, 17 years old (as in my own case)- might pretty much disappear from coast-to-coast... how progressive!

Actually it is. The whole point to the progressive agenda is to prevent people from getting these entry level jobs so that they will instead remain perpetual wards of the state.