Fight for $15...

[Cameramonkey]

I'll entertain discussion of $15/hr when they can get my order correct.

CSB: Went on an ice cream run after dinner tonite. Here is how it went. (drive thru)
"Hi, I would like two oreo mcflurries, and one m&m mcflurry."
(delay) "What? You want two m&m mcflurries and a oreo mcflurry" (yeah, she said "a")
"No, Two oreo, one m&m."
"Oh OK. Pull forward."
As I pull forward, the tempting smell of fresh fries hits my nose.
She opens the window... "hi, can I add a small fry to that as well?"
she struggles. A LOT. calls over a manager. "It wont let me select a small fry." He helps her.
I pay and move forward, realizing the fries seemed a little expensive. $3ish for a small fry?
At the next window "you had the mcflurries, right? cool. Here are your fries." (the bag is huge for a small fry)
I glance in the bag and see two fries, at least one is medium (other is under the napkins) I check the receipt. I was charged for a medium AND a small fry.
I get his attention and say "I only ordered one small fry." trying to hand back the bag.
"Oh you dont want two medium fries?" At that point I snapped inside. I realized it just. wasnt. worth it.
"never mind" and I withdraw the bag back into the car.
About that time a girl comes up with my mcflurries. One is literally spilling out a dollop of ice cream over the dome lid, ready to slide down the outside. She couldnt have pushed it back in or wiped it off?

So In the end... Fail all around. Oh and the fries I got were old and soggy.

DEFINITELY not $15 worthy... lets recap:
Order taker couldnt listen
order taker couldnt operate the register.
runner couldnt read the screen to fill the proper sizes.
Ice cream girl delivered a hot mess that would have taken less than 2 seconds to fix as she walked toward the window.

I'd say the performance wasnt even minimum wage worthy.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

People keep posting their bad experiences. Like you don't have those with high paid professionals, I guess.

In the end, economically, the question is will you go back? Yes. You will. Mcdonald's and the rest will continue to make millions. You will keep going there. You will drag out the bad experiences when it suits you for a debate and neglect the good and/or adequate times that keep you going back.

The doctor who set my hand was 90 minutes late to do the surgery and then set my finger crooked. Higher stakes than a milk shake. What impact does that have on how we view the worth of a doctor?

 

[ModernGunner]

So yesterday fast food workers towed the liberal class war line by holding a one day walk-out of their minimum wage tasks, demanding instead $15/hr minimum industry wide.

This wage push really ticks me off to see minimum wage earners demand SKILLED worker pay for UNSKILLED tasks.

I started in fast food at $5.75/hr part-time in High School... was I underpaid? Yes... but it's wasn't a career, it was a starter job.

I now make ~$18 hour post-tax, when including medical benefits, working SKILLED retail with industry standard certifications and 8 years experience...

My wife makes ~$13/hr post-tax with bonuses working Daycare with State certifications 10 years experience, she's subjected to random unannounced drug tests, and yearly background checks so strict that if she gets arrested for just about ANYTHING... EVER... she loses her job.

We'd hate to make less than the guy flipping burgers next door, SIMPLY because we refuse to be a whiny brats who walks off the job.

Well K_W, my first question would be, WHEN was it that you made $5.75 / hr., IOW what year was that? 'Cause gasoline USED to cost $.25 / gallon at one point in U.S. history, as well. If we factor in inflation, what would that $5.75 / hr. be equivalent to today, in 2015?

If we look at minimum wage roughly 40 years ago, minimum wage in 2014 ('cause we're still in the early portion of 2015) should have been +/- $15 / hr. (depending on the area) to have the same purchasing power.

Just sayin'.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

If we're going to support the regulation of wages, why wouldn't we also support price controls, import quotas, domestic content and things of that nature? If I'm going to have to pay people more than the market will naturally support them, they should have to pay for goods and services at pricing levels over and above what the market would bear on its own. One would leverage the other and properity would reign.

 

[K_W]

Well K_W, my first question would be, WHEN was it that you made $5.75 / hr., IOW what year was that? 'Cause gasoline USED to cost $.25 / gallon at one point in U.S. history, as well. If we factor in inflation, what would that $5.75 / hr. be equivalent to today, in 2015?

If we look at minimum wage roughly 40 years ago, minimum wage in 2014 ('cause we're still in the early portion of 2015) should have been +/- $15 / hr. (depending on the area) to have the same purchasing power.

Just sayin'.

I worked at McDonalds for $5.75 hr it was a summer job in high school, it was 2000. Then again after high school for $6.25 in late 2004 to about $7.10 when I quit in late 2005.

 

[rooster]

If we're going to support the regulation of wages, why wouldn't we also support price controls, import quotas, domestic content and things of that nature? If I'm going to have to pay people more than the market will naturally support them, they should have to pay for goods and services at pricing levels over and above what the market would bear on its own. One would leverage the other and properity would reign.

You do know that they already do this right?

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

You do know that we already do that they already do this right?

If we did it to the extent I'm talking about a greater number of the already moth-balled container ships coming from China would necessarily skyrocket. There'd be starving Chinese workers in the streets of Shenzhen and Shanghei.

 

[CHCRandy]

In 1967 you could buy a new home for $25,000 or less, at $1 an hour, $40 a week......you could own your home in 12 years of minimum wage pay. Today at $7.25, and average home $221,000........it would take only 14 years. In 1967 a gallon of gas was 20 minutes of work, a dozen eggs was 40 minutes of work and a gallon of milk was an hour of minimum wage pay....and men worked while women raised children. Today, gas is still 20 minutes of work, dozen eggs are 20 minutes and a gallon of milk is 30 minutes of minimum wage.... I guess it all works out in the wash, but man I would hate to try to feed a family on $10 an hour. Guess this is why it takes the husband and wife both working.....it's really sad it has come to this.

One Walton will make $400 million in dividends this year........while hundreds of employees sacrifice for next to nothing. McDonalds will make $5 billion in profit this year......if the wage is raised to $15, they will need to figure it out. I honestly think $7.25 is low....but $15 may be a little high. I think my town wastes money, they talk about needing to raise taxes and I say they should just get rid of the dead weight, and problems are solved. If they get rid of the dead weight, productivity don't change because the person was dead weight, but his wage is freed up. SO now you get the same thing done by paying productive people more. I see McDonalds no different. Instead of 15 x $7.25 bodies......they may have to get 8 x $15 productive people who get orders correct. Every where you look you can see waste and people being overpaid.

Greg Garrison always complains about the UAW, he says a guy hanging parts at GM is not worth $30 an hour...that is non skilled trade....and any monkey can be trained to do that. I never hear him complaining about the Union Kroger clerks or the teachers though. I just want to know who is going to be the wage czar? Someone has to decide who is needed and who is not, who is underpaid and worth more and who is overpaid and deserves less.

 

[17 squirrel]

I would suggest that you and all of the Walton family employees read the book, Sam Walton, Made in America.

 

[churchmouse]

I really would just like to find a place that I can understand the idiot taking orders.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

If we're going to support the regulation of wages, why wouldn't we also support price controls, import quotas, domestic content and things of that nature? If I'm going to have to pay people more than the market will naturally support them, they should have to pay for goods and services at pricing levels over and above what the market would bear on its own. One would leverage the other and properity would reign.

Because "the market" is neither fair nor free in terms of labor. Because we do believe that someone who works for a living should be able to make a living working. Because we do not want to regress to the time when the average laborer's economic value was his replacement cost. Because we want economic mobility and value having a middle class and a path to get there. Because we are tired of subsidizing employers who pay wages that won't support their workers living above the poverty level.

As I frequently say, feel free to tour a county with no labor regulations and a belief that "free market" is what's guiding the wages and working conditions of the workers. I don't see Americans lining up to go there to work.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Because "the market" is neither fair nor free in terms of labor. Because we do believe that someone who works for a living should be able to make a living working. Because we do not want to regress to the time when the average laborer's economic value was his replacement cost. Because we want economic mobility and value having a middle class and a path to get there. Because we are tired of subsidizing employers who pay wages that won't support their workers living above the poverty level.

As I frequently say, feel free to tour a county with no labor regulations and a belief that "free market" is what's guiding the wages and working conditions of the workers. I don't see Americans lining up to go there to work.

That we had all that stuff you mention, it certainly wasn't because we had a minimum wage. If we're going to use the minimum wage prop up the idea of a path to the middle class, we're in trouble. In the past, people didn't move from poverty to and, in many cases, past the middle class because we had a living wage minimum wage. We did it because we had a vibrant and growing economy. In much of that time labor had needed leverage to demand and get middle income wages. Thanks to many events, situations, and maybe because the US was just a bit exceptional, our growth needed a growing labor pool. Now...we're not so vibrant and because of many new events, situations, and maybe, just maybe our eschewing and/or squandering of our exceptionalism, labor (blue collar and white collar) now lacks the leverage they once had. If we want a return to the good old days, paying people more than they're worth (in economic output) is but chasing the wind.

 

[croy]

Majority of the time they can't get the orders right anyway, I don't believe they deserve minimum wage.

 

[rooster]

If we're going to use the minimum wage prop up the idea of a path to the middle class, we're in trouble.

A quick study on labor history will show that for much of the last 100 years that path to the middle class was brought to you by unions and the living wage a union job provides.

 

[oldpink]

I wonder what these protesting FF workers will be saying when tens of thousands of them get fired so that automation can replace them.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

As we've seen with unions, as the cost of labor increases, the business case for spending capital on automation gets easier to make. I can't speak, with first hand knowledge of many other automotive plants, but ours runs with a fraction of the un-skilled manpower per machine, producing relatively equivalent parts as "in the olden days", than we did before we installed the automation. And our/my fear that the labor savings would be substantially offset by down time and additional skilled labor costs have not been nearly as bad as I had feared.

 

[hoosierdoc]

I wonder what these protesting FF workers will be saying when tens of thousands of them get fired so that automation can replace them.

FF used to be entry level and a resume builder and customer-service learning tool. now people demand it be a career

I would hire a chick FIL A employee in a heartbeat over a mcd's employee, sight unseen

 

[churchmouse]

I will not accept my food from a machine in a drive through........I will stop fast food.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

I agree with SSGSAD what makes them think they are worth 15 an hour, when they can't get your order right.

I will never forget the time that I took my kids to our family doctor for their checkups. The nurse was getting their height and weight and when my daughter stepped on the scale, I suggested she take off the three-inch high shoes she was wearing, but the nurse said not to bother, so her height on the chart was at least three inches over. I just thought, "whatever".

Then, when my daughter was in with the doc, she was talking about soreness in her knees (off-season volleyball) and he diagnosed her with a condition (I forget the name) based on the fact that her chart showed that she'd grown so much since her last physical.

I could see both that nurse and that doctor might have trouble getting napkins in a napkin holder correctly, and I'm not sure I'd trust either to cook me some fried chicken. And I'm thinking they made more than minimum wage.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

As we've seen with unions, as the cost of labor increases, the business case for spending capital on automation gets easier to make.

Also true. Half the story, but true. There are no free lunches.

The other half of that equation is you are ALWAYS competing against automation. Technology only gets cheaper and more reliable. Ask the forklift operators and order pickers. Look at the MASSIVE change that resulted from farm machinery. Just wait for the changes self driving cars will have on those who work in the transport industry.

There is a certain amount of inevitability in all of this. Technology gets better, it displaces workers, there are fewer jobs, availability of labor goes up, wages go down, etc. etc. Artificial restraints on technology are counterproductive and simply leave those who implement them at a disadvantage against those who don't. The question is, how do we allow people to work and support themselves when more and more of the traditional fields for 'average' workers dry up and disappear. I'll now wait for someone to bring up "buggy whip makers".