Posted on 07/30/2014 1:29:30 PM PDT by jazusamo
Once again, one man has dictated a major change of federal law that can cost American families dearly.
It may double the price of your Big Mac, Whopper, fried chicken, donuts or other purchases at your local fast-food restaurant.
Where’s the beef coming from? Surprise! This time it’s neither President Obama nor Attorney General Eric Holder who is twisting the law like a pretzel from Auntie Anne’s. It’s Obama appointee Richard Griffin, the president’s hand-picked choice for the all-powerful position as general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Mr. Griffin has declared that millions of Americans who work for franchise restaurants aren’t merely employees of the business owners, regardless of what their paychecks and the tax records say. Reversing decades of clear legal precedents, he declares that from now on they are the “joint” employees of McDonald’s and the other big franchise companies as well as the local store owners.
Now the big labor bosses no longer would face the challenge of trying to organize each separate restaurant into a local bargaining unit. They can go after all staff at all the Pizza Huts, all the KFC’s or all the Starbucks at the same time.
Never mind that local franchisors hire and fire their own people. Mr. Griffin treats the operations as though they are identical photo-copies from a FedEx Kinko’s franchise.
The unions’ top goal is to double starting pay from the minimum wage of $7.25 a hour to $15 an hour. Expect the price of a burger and fries to be super-sized along with the wages. The Service Employees International Union and United Food and Commercial Workers already have extensive multimillion-dollar corporate pressure campaigns up and running, which they call the Fight for 15.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
When the only jobs Obama can help create are part time fast food jobs, he needs to call in his markers from the NLRB and state Dems to make it look like these are real career jobs with a career path. Oh well, Moochelle wants to kill fast food anyway (except for herself) so it all fits together. The greatest irony is that Obama’s voter base will be the ones hit the hardest by all this.
There will be plenty of fast food joints, they'll be automated with one or two employees working per shift. We need some FReeper to find us the automation stocks that are gonna soar on this.
Not at double the prices, no.
I worked in the finance end of a major fast food company years ago.
And, can say that the salaries wages and benefits, the cost of paying the hired help, was by far the biggest single expense of running the business.
The employees started at minimum wage, but were eligible for regular raises based on job performance.
If the payroll costs had to double, due to law or government decree, it would have “upset the applecart” as far as any budgets or financial projects were concerned.
Bottom line is that these companies, if forced to pay a major increase in their wages to the hired help, will have to cut back in the number of employees, and cut expenses somewhere else. They will not simply be able to pass these increased costs along to consumers.
And if prices do rise too much, then the customers will hit the drive thru much less often, resulting in a loss of revenue with which to pay the hired help.
Liberals and labor agitator types either don’t understand these concepts, or don’t think through the consequences.
I think that they have drunk the koolaid to believe that they are ENTITLED to earn more money. After all, they are working, so should get the same money as someone else who is working. I truly do not think they understand the concept of “relative value”. I expect that this just one of the many failures in our parenting and education systems, for those who reach adulthood not understanding this.
If they understood this, they would get it that both (1) many fast food type jobs do not require the skill level to demand the wages being tossed about and (2) very few consumers will buy the products if the wage increases are implemented.
It is very sad that so many do not understand this or refuse to understand it (think, Nancy Pelosi) for the sake of helping to present the affected workers as victims of the system and the evil rich people.
Seriously? You think fast food workers have any inkling of basic economics? Do you think they consider themselves as just one of many factors of production subject to the laws of supply and demand? No, the vast majority of fast food workers think they can endlessly demand more from their employers and their prices to consumers magically won’t increase. Just like union workers who would rather shut down entire companies or industries rather than make a wage concession (see Hostess Brands). It’s the “gibs me dat” or “Obama’s stash” mentality at work.
The ass-clown-in-chief won’t be happy until all businesses are dead.
In Zero’s economic recovery, the job is now a “sandwich artist”. Try to keep up /s
Well, I DECLARE Richard Griffin to be traitor and demand he be shot. See, I can declare stupid stuff too!
Chik-fil-A is a very different type of franchise than typical. The franchisee has skin in the game but does not own the facility or intellectual property.
I looked into this because I wanted one. It’s a good model for somebody who wants to work hard and make good money but it doesn’t really build wealth that can be passed on to heirs.
I miss it also, the 0bama/Holder cabal and handlers are killing us.
In the short term, 0bama’s voter base will be hit the hardest by this, but in the longer term, it will be the shrinking middle class, who will now have these millions of more people to support at a higher level, with our tax dollars. They will not be allowed to starve, and the middle class will be blamed for no longer “spending their money” at the fast food places (as if the middle class has discretionary money with which to do that, very much).
You underestimate the ingenuity of American tech and the low costs of Chinese manufacturing, LOL.
We used to have a couple of tiny one-person drive thru-only places near the shopping center, the edge of its parking lot actually. One was a burger place and one was a KFC or something.
I don’t think they are there any more.
Good point. These people don’t have the knowledge to grasp the concepts we discuss here. They think about getting a bigger paycheck, without any thoughts of where the money to pay them comes from .
Automat ,without the people at the back
I remember during the Bush years Democrats derided fast food employment as “McJobs”.
Now during the ongoing Baraqqi Depression the MSM feels these are supposed to be career middle class jobs.
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
To begin with, and as mentioned in related threads, the Founding States had made the first numbered clauses in the Constitution, Sections 1-3 of Article I, to clarify that all federal legislative / regulatory powers are vested in the elected members of Congress, not in the executive or judicial branches, or in nonelected government bureaucrats like those running the NLRB, EPA, etc.. So Congress has a constituitonal monopoly on federal legislative powers whether it wants it or not.
And by delegating federal regulatory powers to nonelected bureaucrats, Congress is wrongly protecting federal legislative / regulatory powers from the wrath of the voters in blatant defiance of the statutes referenced above imo.
Also, with the exception of the federal entities indicated in the Constitution's Clauses 16 & 17 of Section 8 of Article I as examples, entities under the exclusive legislative control of Congress, the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate intrastate labor issues. The states uniquely have the 10th Amendment-protected power to regulate intrastate labor imo.
So the Constitution-ignoring NLRB is wrongly trying to exercise federal power over citizens that the feds don't have under the Constitution anyway.
As a side note concerning the federal government's constitutionally limited powers, please consider the following. The states would sure be a dull, boring place to grow up and live in if parents were to make sure that their children were taught about the federal government's constitutionally limited powers as the Founding States had intended for those powers to be understood. /sarc
Thomas Jefferson had put it this way:
“Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature.” - Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Edward Carrington January 16, 1787)
In fact, forget about traditional salesman / sucker cliches like "buying the Brooklyn Bridge." Voters now have to deal with the problem that they have foolishly traded their votes for constitutionally nonexistent rights and federal spending programs based on constitutionally nonexistant federal government powers.
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