Posted on 08/29/2013 8:40:20 AM PDT by Hojczyk
Last week, the SEIU helped organize employee walk-outs at fast food restaurants in seven major cities, with the promise that more would follow in the future. The strikers demanded a $15 minimum wage, which represents a greater than 100 percent increase over the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
Today, many stores are also turning to robots to do the jobs that employees would otherwise do. This isn’t science fiction: San Francisco-based Momentum Machines recently announced a new robotic burger-flipper that does the work equivalent of three full-time kitchen employees. That’s 360 burgers per hour—and there’s no SEIU to organize a walkout.
This trend toward automation doesn’t just affect the kitchen. McDonald’s has installed touch-screen ordering terminals at 7,000 European locations. Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s younger brother has even started a new company that’s selling a tablet ordering device that reduces the need for as many waiters per shift. Casual dining restaurants are experimenting with similar technology, which would reduce the need for wait staff by one-third.
These changes don’t become inevitable until the cost of service gets trumped by customer resistance to higher prices. But once the jobs are automated, that’s one less entry-level position for a less-skilled employee to work his or her way up the career ladder.
The striking employees might be well-intended, but they’re only fighting the laws of economics — and that’s a fight they can’t win.
(Excerpt) Read more at epionline.org ...
Are pink slips a law of unintended consequences for the strike?
but can a machine spit in your burger?
The SEIU is mainly made up of people who are too stupid to get affirmative action jobs.
Wannabee cops who couldn’t meet the standards.now rent a cops.
Toilet Cleaners with 9th, grade educations.
Health care workers. You know, The ones who scrub the floors and wash the sheets. Janitors, and potty scrubbers at nursing homes. Food service workers, who wash the dishes and scrub the floor.
I know an Engineer who has been working on one of these automated burger-flipping systems since 2006. Either it is still not ready for prime-time or the customer is afraid to roll them out, fearing the Obamabot backlash.
Was at McDonald’s drive thru yesterday. They now have a machine for drinks where you press a button the drums of cups drops the size out, fills it with what you want and the woman is only there to put a lid on and hand it to me.
saw that one of the fast food strikers, was complaining that she , as a single mother of 3, could not maintain her family while working at a fast food restaurant.
guess she should have thought about that, before she became a single mother of 3, while working at a fast food restaurant. its the upside down world of entitlment liberals. they get themselves into a bad situation, and its up to someone else, to fix it for them.
but can a machine spit in your burger?
Maybe not but it can certainly be programmed to randomly drip lubricant.
It’s probably a price barrier. FF workers are cheap, so things to replace also need to be cheap. Eventually either FF workers will become expensive enough or the machines will become cheap enough to make the replacement. A good rule of thumb is the cost should be at or below 5 years wages of the replaced workers.
Haha. That Sounds great. I’ll take one big spit and one big drip. With fries. Thanks. (Better just making our own sandwiches ).
For the fast food places that get picketed by these morons, the management should put up a sign: “Coming in 2014 — fully automated ordering and order processing systems.”
Then tell the strikers that only the best workers will have jobs. There will be layoffs and cutbacks. Have a nice day.
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