Posted on 04/11/2015 2:08:44 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
In a clearly orchestrated move, 28 McDonalds employees from around the nation filed health and safety complaints against their employer Monday, claiming they were severely burned while working and told by managers to treat the wounds with condiments. The employees were assisted in this effort by the "Fight for $15" campaign, a program launched by the Service Employees International Union. The SEIU has been attempting to unionize fast food workers, and as part of a broader effort, trying to get independent franchisees declared as "joint employers" so as to facilitate that process and gain access to the much deeper pockets of the franchisors.
One former employee claimed that "when rushing to meet her managers' demands, she severely burned her arm on a hot grill." According to the woman, "The managers told me to put mustard on it, but I ended up having to get rushed to the hospital in an ambulance." Fight for $15 cites "statistics" that say 79 percent of fast-food workers report they have been burned in the last year, with one third claiming they have been told to treat burns with condiments like mustard or mayonnaise. I don't know if you realize it, but this is indicative of an even bigger issue.
The food we eat is apparently both managed and prepared by complete imbeciles. Not to mention food costs are going to skyrocket with all that medicinal condiment repurposing. For the safety of all these clearly incompetent people, as well as their ignorant management, we need to automate those jobs as quickly as possible. Fortunately for them, that is what is likely to happen from their efforts.
I wrote earlier of the ongoing misguided attempts to extort a $15 minimum wage out of employers, pointing out that everything being relative, a minimum wage at any level is still a minimum wage. Where the efforts should be directed to motivate people to develop skills beyond what were supposed to be entry level jobs, these people are being duped into believing that a $15 an hour wage will elevate them into a different status and new lifestyle; as if there would be no impact on the economy around them. In fact, the biggest change they will likely see with a successful push to $15 an hour is that the economies of automation at that level will eliminate many of their positions.
One company, Momentum Machines, is already developing a robotic hamburger maker. They are creating a kitchen in a stainless steel box; a "hamburger-making machine that churns out made-to-order burgers at industrial speeds". All the raw, unsliced, un-diced ingredients go in one end, and up to 400 burgers an hour can come out the other. The company estimates that at CURRENT labor costs, the investment in a single machine can be recovered within a year. Tie that technology to already available self serve order kiosks and self dispensing soda machines; as well as something I call the Wilson Fantastically Fabulous Freezer French Fry-U-Later, and you really have something.
Food prepared quickly, safely and properly, all using English I can understand. But don't worry, these automated systems will be able to serve customers in a variety of languages.
I should also point out that 79% of robots don't get burned annually, saving apparently on condiment costs.
While workplace injuries are indeed a serious thing, claims of this magnitude, in my opinion, clearly are not. I don't know where SEIU and Fight for $15 get their statistics, and we have no way of validating the claims. However, it is possible that every year a high percentage of fast food employees do get burned on the job. I worked in fast food for 5 years, both in high school and the first two years of college. I know got a small burn here and there from bumping into equipment or being splashed by something hot. They were minor, and I never felt the need for Federal intervention. Plus, my bosses were good people. They never told us to use mustard, primarily because we were a Mexican food facility. Hot sauce on a burn is much zazzier, believe you me. I realize that these incidents happen, and employers must be diligent in caring for their employees, but to elevate these occurrences to a conspiratorial level is not serving anyone well - most notably the minimum wage workers being misled with this effort.
I sincerely doubt that anyone has told them that unions greatly support these efforts since their own contracts are tied to the minimum wage as a base. This means a win by fast food workers gives an automatic raise to many higher paid union workers. That surely is worth sacrificing a few low end jobs for "the greater good".
Personally, I will miss the nipple pierced multi-tattooed freakfest who hands me the wrong order at the drive-thru. Having my bagged Double Decker Taco Supremes shot at me with an air cannon as I drive by won't feel the same, but the order will likely be right.
Plus I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that no humans were harmed during the making of my lunch.
He also isn't going to have the raw animal pleasure of watching the youtube of the freakfest pissin on his burger and laughing at him either. Picked my tagline for a reason. Found myself sayin that to myself more and more often.
I saw a video of a machine in italy that makes a pizza pie in 3 mins for a couple bucks with no human hand touching it. Fresh crust custom made from flour.
Jap have created a robot that picks only the most perfectly ripened strawberries. Those yokels in the fast food joints better find another job quick because the one they have now is goin the way of the dino.
$15/hr. ROFLROFLROFLROFLROFLMAO!!!
Where is the “spit in your burger” button? You know - for that fat white racist who makes the mistake of actually ordering something there?
I would make a guess that by 2025...a hundred McDonalds will be in operation around the country with a shift of three people (shift lead, a technical guy, and maybe one single clerk to handle older folks who aren’t into automation purchases). By 2035...the bulk of McDonalds operations within the US will be the same.
Not to discourage people...but if you are born in the next five years...you will likely never get an opportunity to work at McDonalds at age twenty-five. The french-fry job....the burger flipper....the clerk at the front who hooks up the soda machines each morning? These jobs will be obsolete within two decades.
The curious thing will be those folks who are twenty years old today and trying to survive in the coming era where they have worthless skills that won’t fit into any dynamic. Maybe Hardees and Wendy’s will be a decade behind McDonalds but it’s a dying profession.
The phrase, “Untouched by human hands,” comes to mind.
Butter was the go-to ointment in my childhood.
Thier ultimate goal is to be put out on unemployment so they can sit home and collect
Just last week, at a Popeyes chicken in the Atlanta airport, I placed my order and paid from an electronic touchscreen machine. No clerk needed in the ordering process.
Step 1
Pizza pronto! Vending machine that rustles up a fresh pie in just THREE minutes...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3189482/posts
Watch This Vending Machine Make Pizza
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3159855/posts
I tried that at a Wawa and thought it was great. There will be a problem with people who change their minds.
When the tyrants finally do get enough of them on the entitlements that enslave them and they have taken all the real workers’ money - nationalized every facet of industry, the final determination will be made that they don’t need to pander to them, let them sit idle just for their vote.
That’s when they’re given a place to live, what to do, what to think and where they have to go work for the “order.” If they won’t do it they will die.
Soylent Green.
Doing themselves out of jobs Americans don’t want to do.
Pussies. I worked as a cook in a catering facility I got so many first and second degree burns that they ceased being something that I even noticed. I once left four patches of sizzling skin from each of the fingers of my right on the raised door of a commercial Broiler. Their bitching themselves out of their job.
Well, that's a hail mary pass if I ever saw one...
Legally...I don't see how that would ever happen, but of course we are not in "normal" times...
Like living in a bad Ayn Rand novel...
The SEIU petition if found by the courts legally sound, would mean the end of the fast food industry as we know it...
All fast food companies would buy back all their franchises at some time..
Many will miss the raucous ghetto speech of the burgerers arguing with each other and with the customers
They can all work for the government. Watch TV and drink beer for EBT and rent subsidy and medical care and...
I remember that. And my mom would wrap up a bad burn with a silver dime or a quarter.
Even IF the woman in the article “severely burned her arm”
Even IF this was true - she was not ablaze - she probably only
burned a small part of her arm, so.....
why the need for a freaking AMBULANCE? That burn was not a life threatening injury - drive or get someone to drive you!!! She tied up a paramedic/EMT team and an ambulance for no reason. Let’s hope a heart attack victim wasn’t left waiting.
When I fell at work - my coworkers wanted to call an ambulance - I said “NO WAY”. Although I did concede to an
ambulance when I could not get off the floor - I fractured
a vertebra. I went by ambulance (the worst 10 minutes of my life). A small burn is no reason for an ambulance!
If they succeed in unionizing fast food they will have a union with no members but they will be able to get wages and benefits up to the level of that of auto workers or even higher. Or maybe there will have to be two $40/hour employees in each McD’s whose job is to stand around in spiffy uniforms pointing at the equipment between their 15 minute hourly breaks.
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