Wendy’s To Switch To Self Ordering And Automation To Avoid $15/hr Wage hike

this is going to happen anyway...trying to couch this as being because wages go to 15 an hour is ridiculous.....here's the real answer.....companies will do anything to cut worker's wages, doesn't matter the excuse. they want to show a "good customer front", and be known as a "responsible employer" so they will blame it on something.....and if you don't believe this...tell me, why do CEOs and other execs get bonuses and raises even when the company doesn't do great?....Carly Fiorina, for an extreme instance, former CEO of HP now running for POTUS, drove HP into ground until she was fired....and she still got a 40 million severance package !!!....tell me, when was the last time a hourly worker at a company lost gobs of the companies money, and got a nice fat check for doing so??

a reply to: olaru12

That is great. Our family does that too. We eat at individual owned restaurants and hamburger joints. There are quite a few around here. And I look for the retail stores tucked away around corners and small hubs.

wage hike or not all major companies are cutting costs, eliminating jobs and replacing them with automated technology. it s
competicares me to think how many fewer jobs will be around when my kids are grown. competition for high paying careers will be fierce and low paying warehouse and service industry jobs will be close to non existent.

a reply to: Mugly

To the first question, I asked for details for a reason. I was genuinely interested in what bene's one could get while working 25 hrs and not 40. Funny the other side of this is at 25 hrs a week you are not eligible for the ACA, but at 40 hours a week you would be.

After reading your reply about workers quitting; your jobsite has very poor working conditions as you have outlined and the pay is just not incentive enough for most people to stick it out. If the boss is an @$$ that might add to this too, I never work for @ssholes.

I see that because your company is is paying low wages for nasty work everyone else should get less, what a philosophy!

Not a big deal as your jobs will be filled by robotics in the near future, they already have robotic welders, robotic automation is the future like it or not.

This all happened in the past. Automation isn't new. Why would it suddenly turn to defeat? In the past, we always found new work.

I do think there's a possibility we hit a ceiling and cannot further keep pace with it, but we can't know there's a ceiling until we see it or hit it. If we kill automation prematurely we'll make life harder. Imagine if we had stayed in caves because "Building shelters closer to needed resources will leave our people with nothing to do! These long travels to the hunting grounds and to water and foraging sites are necessary employment!"

Want to re-link something from earlier in the thread:
www.gizmag.com - Hamburger-making machine churns out custom burgers at industrial speeds...

There're many other examples of technology which dares to automate and displace workers. I've read of software which reads the addresses on letters replacing workers in post offices. While they still use some workers to assist the software, there're fewer than in the past. Software is becoming capable of recognizing our handwriting, as well as understanding our speech and identifying our face. We're in the beginning stages of a pattern-recognition software revolution which has been going strong for probably 30 years. Some might call it AI, but that's giving it too much credit. However, this sort of technology is replacing workers who might have previously thought themselves safe. Hence, given AI is in a gold rush right now, nobody on the lower rungs--even if they're white collar--should feel safe.

And I was reading an older book from 2004 when I came to this passage (DOES IT MATTER?, Nicholas G. Carr, p. 145-146):

As was the case with earlier infrastructural technologies, heavy investments in IT have led to what economists call "capital deepening" within companies--the replacement of labor with equipment. Simply put, computers have taken on the work that used to be done by people. When economic growth is strong--when output rises faster than productivity--that kind of trade-off pays off not just for individual companies but for the whole economy and hence the whole society. The commercial sector becomes steadily more efficient, displaced workers rapidly move into new jobs, and general living standards rise.

But if productivity growth races ahead of economic growth, a very different and altogether less attractive economic dynamic may play out. The stock of jobs may begin to decline, unemployment may drift upward, the supply of goods may outstrip demand, prices may drop, and the divide between the wealthy and the poor may grow wider and deeper. We have, it's worth noting, seen signs of all these phenomena in the recent history of the US economy. It would be rash to jump to the conclusion that strong productivity gains from IT investment will end up doing harm as well as good--the resiliency of the American economy is hard to overstate--but it would also be rash to dismiss the possibility out of hand.

If, in fact, we look back to the second half of the nineteenth century, we find a troubling precedent. In the 1870's, the world was also emerging from a technology-inspired spending spree. The rapid expansion of rail, shipping, and telegraph lines opened the door to global free trade and inspired massive capital investment. The resulting combination of rapidly increasing production, surging productivity, fierce competition, and widespread industrial overcapacity set the stage for nearly three solid decades of deflation, despite the continued expansion of the world economy. In Britain, the dominant economic power of the time, the overall level of prices dropped a staggering 40 percent. In the United States, prices for most products decreased steadily from 1867 through 1897.

The prophecy of the Mechanics Magazine writer--"greater will be the cheapness of everything"--came to pass, though with different and more complex effects than he had imagined. Profits fell along with prices, and businesses suffered. As economic malaise spread, the belief in unbridled commercial opportunity that had taken hold in the middle years of the century died away. Workers lost their jobs, farmers and laborers rebelled, and countries began to rebuild barriers to trade. As the historian DS Landes put it, "Optimism about a future of indefinite progress gave way to uncertainty and a sense of agony."

originally posted by: MystikMushroom

And I've also noticed not ONE teenager working at Wendy's or Taco Bell in the last 2-3 years. Where are the teenagers working these days?

They are racking huge student loan debts for which when they graduate...maybe find themselves working as management as fast food restaurants once they grad and can't get a career for their chosen studies....just be patient.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom

And I've also noticed not ONE teenager working at Wendy's or Taco Bell in the last 2-3 years. Where are the teenagers working these days?

Actually, I have noticed many teens working in fast food.

a reply to: AlaskanDad

if you say so.
thats why quality people(me) still have to check automated work.
whatev
im out

a reply to: Mugly

I wonder what it was about my last post that hit home?

Might it have been the comment on the Boss being an @$$?

Or may it have been the fact that your company pays to low of wages to keep workers?

Then again it could be that the crappy working conditions, I mean who would want to be exposed to lead particles?

As for automation; rest assured it just keeps getting better as it advances!

Have a great day, dude!

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
a reply to: Mugly

I wonder what it was about my last post that hit home?

Might it have been the comment on the Boss being an @$$?

Or may it have been the fact that your company pays to low of wages to keep workers?

Then again it could be that the crappy working conditions, I mean who would want to be exposed to lead particles?

As for automation; rest assured it just keeps getting better as it advances!

Have a great day, dude!

I can't speak for others, but I know it would get tedious having people who can't afford their own healthcare, liberals, continuously insisting they know more about business and economics than me.

a reply to: JohnnyTede

And you are are a self proclaimed economic expert, I bow to your opinion.

Excuse me for being so ignorant as you labelled all liberals, I again bow to your ability to debate and your overwhelming rebuttal.



Lol's

originally posted by: Skywatcher2011

originally posted by: MystikMushroom

And I've also noticed not ONE teenager working at Wendy's or Taco Bell in the last 2-3 years. Where are the teenagers working these days?

They are racking huge student loan debts for which when they graduate...maybe find themselves working as management as fast food restaurants once they grad and can't get a career for their chosen studies....just be patient.

salary for in-an-out fast food manager....base salary 84,000 a year...
www.glassdoor.com...

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Wow the fingerprint scan creeps me out. I'm afraid we'll be seeing more of this kind of thing in the corporate world. It's one thing for a co with high security needs and another for a fast food joint IMHO.

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
a reply to: Mugly

I wonder what it was about my last post that hit home?

Might it have been the comment on the Boss being an @$$?

Or may it have been the fact that your company pays to low of wages to keep workers?

Then again it could be that the crappy working conditions, I mean who would want to be exposed to lead particles?

As for automation; rest assured it just keeps getting better as it advances!

Have a great day, dude!

what hit home is you just dont get it or are being obtuse on purpose.
the conditions of where i am at now are awesome.
the previous place. not as good. pretty bad for most actually.
i didnt deal with the conditions long cause i bid out of those areas.
my point was there is work and people dont want to do it.

then you come in ragging it out talking about the low wages and the conditions.
the wages might be considered low at the starting point but you rack the money up fast.
in these types of jobs you start at the bottom. you do the # work for the #(ish) pay and prove that you can handle it. once you do that the company invests money and time in you in the form of raises and training.
it has served me well.

but the point was people get hired so they have a job. might start at 12 or 13 bucks. crap conditions. yup. hard work. yup. long hours. yup. if you can grind it out for 6 month or a year or so you can move through to the better spots.

my brother worked there too. he was 19 and his only job before that was part time at lowes making like 8.50
it was not uncommon for him to bring home a grand in a week.
there is work out there.

i get tired of hearing about how my job will be replaced with automation...maybe it will but i doubt it.
i am in the industry. i see what is happening and where the automation is going.

i know though. someone reads a few articles about how 3d printing is replacing people or how robotic welders are replacing people and they think it is across the board.
i am 37 and i am confident that i can finish my working career without ever being replaced.

it is just tiring arguing these points with some of you.

i like to debate to relax and not think about work but a lot of people have absolutely no idea what they are talking about.
throwing stats and links and this and that.
if youre not in the industry then you dont know.
simple as that

a reply to: Mugly

source

i think a lot of guys would be out the door in a second if they could make 15 flipping burgers.

all they do is bitch. all the time. about everything.
if they are not bitching cause it is hot then they are bitching at the hours. then they bitch cause this company is strict on cell phones. they cant check their facebook or shoot a text. then they bitch cause they have to walk across the street to smoke and can only do that 2 times in a day.

pretty sure most fast food joints dont have it locked down like that.
if they could make 15 and smoke a bunch of times and check their phone all day then yeah, i think they would be out the door.

It looks like you bitch a lot about what others do, or maybe it would be more appropriate to say what others won't do.

a reply to: AlaskanDad

im bitching about them bitching.
theyre also the ones that are having a hard time hacking their first year or so.

quote the other posts where i said once people make past the first year or two they usually stick long term.
why?
money is good. job security is good.

again, my point is there is work out there for people who want it and i will never be convinced otherwise.

a reply to: Edumakated

The link spells out the compensation for each executive. not all is salary some is stock. which pays a dividend each year. He's not just getting paid 2.5. he's getting 7.

And I'm going to say this about executive compensation.

As long as the employees aren't being screwed over by the executives then I don't care how much they pay themselves. If they are paying their employees well. Then go ahead. Give yourself a nice fat bonus.

However when companies pay the bare minimum and use the left over to pay themselves bonuses. We have a problem. A problem that falls on the tax payer. Because now those employees go out looking for benefits. And we foot that bill.

This is great, now the people that are demanding 15/hr will have to learn some skills to get a job somewhere else.

Wendy’s To Switch To Self Ordering And Automation To Avoid $15/hr Wage hike

So instead of a rude person at the cash register it will be a machine. Will I get charged with aggravated assault or destruction of private property, when I drag it across the counter and kick the living shh..... stuff out of it.

originally posted by: Mugly

im bitching

About what $15 an hour will do to whom???