Posted on 07/29/2013 11:03:49 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
If Seattle fast workers demanding a big raise in the minimum wage get their way, they'll soon be replaced by robots says KIRO Radio's John Curley, who points to growing automation as a warning to those who want $15 an hour or more to flip burgers.
A group of local fast food workers recently staged a one-day walkout and are calling on the Seattle City Council to increase the minimum wage from $9.19 per hour - the highest in the country - to $15 an hour.
"We're asking for $15 because in order to support one person in a one bedroom apartment you need to make $14.88. We don't make anywhere near that and we're all on food stamps," 23-year-old Amanda Larson told KIRO Radio's Linda Thomas recently as she worked the counter at a Seattle Arby's.
But restaurant owners argue they simply can't afford it. With technology continuing to allow restaurants around the world to replace people with robots and computers, Curley says look no farther than several examples in Japan and Europe as a sign of what's to come if the Seattle workers get their way.
A noted Japanese sushi-chain has robots making food while customers order on a touch screen. A conveyer belt delivers their food and a computer tracks customer purchases and automates their bill payment at the end.
"There are no managers in this restaurant," Curley says. "The managers are all in a centrally located place that are just simply watching video screens. So they've been able to cut out almost all the help."
Several years ago, McDonald's installed thousands of touch-screen kiosks at stores across Europe, replacing cashiers entirely. The company has reportedly also tried out automated burger flippers to further cut back on employees.
It's not far fetched. A Chinese restaurateur has developed a robotic chef now found in a number of noodle bars, further eliminating the need for humans. With the robot chefs costing just $1,500, they're far cheaper than employees and don't demand raises or breaks.
Curley says the workers here demanding higher wages for a job that should be entry-level should think twice before raising too much of a fuss - before they find themselves completely obsolete.
"The saddest thing for this story, if you follow it, is robots will replace human beings in these McDonald's and fast food restaurants and low skill workers will have really no place to go."
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
I going to sell pencils on a New York City street corner and since I’m not interested in no minimum wage, no living wage or any of that stuff, I’m going for the “Living Well” wage.
Therefore my pencils will be priced and sold at $100 each and I will sell at least 12 per very short day. I know that sounds like a lot but this is New York City where a guy picking up garbage starts at about 70 grand a year and you need half a million dollars to own a cab.
But why would anyone pay a hundred bucks for a ten cent pencil? New York City will pass a law demanding the first 12 people I approach buy a pencil or face discrimination charges and fines. Cheaper to buy the pencil, cash or credit card. After all, when the fast food joints are put out of business people like me will have to fend for ourselves.
Now don’t think you’re going to brush by me like you didn’t notice me, I got a hidden camera and a hungry lawyer. You will buy.
Who loves ya, baby!
You are what you are worth.....PERIOD!
If you perform a job that requires minimal mental skills and can be replaced in an instant by someone else with the same mental capacity, you are not worth much.
If you use a job that requires minimum mental skills to have the money to improve yourself through education or technical skills, your worth is much greater for a future employer. From there, you can advance your income and living standard greatly and enjoy the life most of us taxpayers currently live.
Unions thrive upon these fools who have no ambition to improve themselves. All that unions want is their dues...nothing more. The higher the pay...the higher the dues.
These are the true Obama voters who think that by voting for someone like him they will eventually be good socialists and enjoy the good life. Well, they are wrong and when their employer closes the door to his business, they will make more on welfare anyway.
It’s amazing just how stupid today’s society is.
I came from an era when America was great, you were solely responsible for your own actions and worked as a child while gaining the skills and work ethic to advance yourself through the course of your life.
Not now, for it’s the Union or Government’s responsibility to do that with this society.
The world needs ditch diggers too son...
“And the prospect of humans becoming blobs like in Wall-E is scary yet possible”
I have been saying that since I saw the movie.
Will they squirt oil in your food if you’re not of their tribe?
Of course, she’s a pastor and her wage is set by TPTB in her denomination rather than the amount of money brought into her congregation.
The wife a a former pastor of ours had that same attitude. Somehow the sympathy for the person who’s trying to make an honest buck by trying to keep a business afloat just is lost in the shuffle. There she was, laying heavy burdens ad grievous to be borne on men’s shoulders, while admitting that she would not move them with one of their fingers.Matthew 23:4For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
- King James Bible
daleks v/s Cybermen?
At even 4 times the $1500 quoted in the story for a type of robotic server, the fast food workers are screwed.
Robots and other automation are now actually helping to bring manufacturing back to the US.
And also note that I include plumbers in highly skilled -- those guys sometimes can earn more than I do -- and they deserve it!
Until the illegal mexicans drive them out of business just like they have all the construction trades.
Really? Is "putting your life on the line" the criteria you'd use? Gotta include cab drivers and fishermen then, because their jobs are many times more dangerous than either cops or firemen.
Cheap labor stands in the way of innovation. It’s why the Civil War South was so lame - cheap slave labor. The north had to industrialize. The South didn’t.
If food workers want a hundred dollars an hour - in 3 years the whole mess will be automated...
I support this. Robots don’t have salivary glands with which to spit in my food.
Saw you liked Ender’s Game, another great book. But yes, I do think the thinking of Heinlen in Starship Troopers is spot on. Will we ever get there?, Who knows. Dont know if you read the book; if not check it out, you’d probably like it.
I had no idea that the first one opened in 1902. “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”
“Well, at least a robot chef won’t get all disgruntled and spit on your food...”
You obviously aren’t a computer programmer. ;-)
Bender if you do get gig at McDonalds don’t mess up my order sweetie LOL!
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