• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Fast-food workers kick off global labor action

TheDemSocialist said:
Never seen one here. And I believe it was company policy when i worked there like 6-7 years ago. But hey maybe policy changed.
But speaking of Subway, the CEO of Subway is in favor of minimum wage hike.
Click to expand...

And soon Subway workers can be replaced with a machine.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Hope not. Then the revolt will commence.
Click to expand...

Why? It's 2014, humans shouldn't be making the sandwiches anyway. There's engineering, science, math, music, philosophy, and art to do. Why should we get bogged down in archaic and inefficient jobs. Pay some engineers, get the machine. As we advance and become a more complicated society and a more advanced society, we'll need humans doing more and more bigger things. The lesser things will have to be taken up by machines.

It's progress.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Yea... Estimates say it will raise the cost by .69... Really "expensive" :roll:
Hell some economists say nothing will happen to price because prices are not set by the cost of production of something but instead by the supply and demand for that item.
Click to expand...

Sources? They better be authoritative, like non-government non-university.
 
American said:
Sources? They better be authoritative, like non-government non-university.
Click to expand...

:lamo Universities arent "authoritative"? :lamo Well I guess that throws just about every study out the window since you know, scholars do scholarly work... But anyways here is a report: Price of Big Mac Could Rise by 68 Cents If Minimum Wage Doubles - ABC News

Here is the no change argument: The Real Change In The Cost Of A Big Mac If McDonald's Workers Were Paid $15 An Hour: Nothing - Forbes
 
TheDemSocialist said:
:lamo Universities arent "authoritative"? :lamo Well I guess that throws just about every study out the window since you know, scholars do scholarly work... But anyways here is a report: Price of Big Mac Could Rise by 68 Cents If Minimum Wage Doubles - ABC News

Here is the no change argument: The Real Change In The Cost Of A Big Mac If McDonald's Workers Were Paid $15 An Hour: Nothing - Forbes
Click to expand...


You can't pay people twice as much and not affect anything.
 
American said:
You can't pay people twice as much and not affect anything.
Click to expand...

A report begs to differ. And another report only says it will raise the prices of a Big Mac by .69 cents.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
A report begs to differ. And another report only says it will raise the prices of a Big Mac by .69 cents.
Click to expand...

If a Big Mac goes up in price by 68 cents, that better be a good goddamned Big Mac, because right now the thing isn't worth 68 cents total, and the labor to make the thing is worth less than that.
 
The Man said:
If a Big Mac goes up in price by 68 cents, that better be a good goddamned Big Mac, because right now the thing isn't worth 68 cents total, and the labor to make the thing is worth less than that.
Click to expand...

No no no. POINT SIX NINE cents. As in, less than a cent.
 
law said:
No. You have just told a person to pay a fast food worker if they want to see them earn more, that means all war-mongers would have to be suited and booted ready for deployment to Afghanistan. This is clownboy's world of "if you support a policy, shut up and do it".
Click to expand...

I am confused by your logic. He said help pay them more while they are struggling. YOU said "if you support a policy, shut up and do it". He never said that if you believe in raising the minimum wage, you should go start flipping burgers, which is what you said with a retarded war scenario. We also all already help pay for the wars we are in whether we are for them or not, so I really don't get your droning on.
 
I worked in fast food as a teenager. Its not a pleasant job, but its also not a job that is difficult to do. Even someone with below average intelligence and physical abilities could still adequately do the job. My point here is fast food workers are easily replaceable. Literally almost anyone can do the job. These are entry level, bottom rung positions in the workforce. Places to prove you have basic work place skills like being able to show up on time, do as your boss instructs you, work with others, ect. Its a place to build up experience and references. Its not a place to make a career. You can't expect a job that has virtually a limitless pool of workers to draw from to offer significant or even mediocre wages. You work here for a bit and move on to better things.
 
Psychoclown said:
I worked in fast food as a teenager. Its not a pleasant job, but its also not a job that is difficult to do. Even someone with below average intelligence and physical abilities could still adequately do the job. My point here is fast food workers are easily replaceable. Literally almost anyone can do the job. These are entry level, bottom rung positions in the workforce. Places to prove you have basic work place skills like being able to show up on time, do as your boss instructs you, work with others, ect. Its a place to build up experience and references. Its not a place to make a career. You can't expect a job that has virtually a limitless pool of workers to draw from to offer significant or even mediocre wages. You work here for a bit and move on to better things.
Click to expand...

Perfectly put. The notion that a job such as a fast food worker should pay an average wage is retarded.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
A report begs to differ. And another report only says it will raise the prices of a Big Mac by .69 cents.
Click to expand...

A report? You'll believe anything that's put in front of you that serves you agenda.
 
Psychoclown said:
I worked in fast food as a teenager. Its not a pleasant job, but its also not a job that is difficult to do. Even someone with below average intelligence and physical abilities could still adequately do the job. My point here is fast food workers are easily replaceable. Literally almost anyone can do the job. These are entry level, bottom rung positions in the workforce. Places to prove you have basic work place skills like being able to show up on time, do as your boss instructs you, work with others, ect. Its a place to build up experience and references. Its not a place to make a career. You can't expect a job that has virtually a limitless pool of workers to draw from to offer significant or even mediocre wages. You work here for a bit and move on to better things.
Click to expand...
Exactly. Its not even a low-skill job, its a no-skill job. And progressives want to bankrupt businesses so that these jobs can enable people to buy houses, cars and Xboxes. Unbelievable.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
A report begs to differ. And another report only says it will raise the prices of a Big Mac by .69 cents.
Click to expand...
That "study" (which I doubt is even an actual study since the communist Huffpost didnt publish the actual study, they just reported it so we dont know where the numbers come from) has been debunked.

A Big Mac miss by The Huffington Post : Columbia Journalism Review

The only way to get the 17 percent-of-revenue labor figure is to divide payroll and benefits at company-operated restaurants by total revenues. But here’s the thing: More than 80 percent of McDonald’s restaurants are franchises, and the company makes scads of money from them in no small part because it has no direct labor expense at those stores. The HuffPost explicitly includes executive compensation in its 17 percent figure, but executive comp and the pay of folks in Chicago who run marketing and the like are housed in “selling, general & administrative expenses,” not under payroll & employee benefits at company-operated stores.

You have to divide company-operated payroll & employee benefits by company-operated sales to get an apples-to-apples measure. That gets you 25 percent. So a Big Mac would, in fact, have to go up by a full dollar, not 68 cents, in order to double wages at McDonald’s. And the Dollar Menu would have to become the Dollar Twenty-Five menu.

It’s harder to get at non-restaurant (ie headquarters) wages because McDonald’s doesn’t break out labor costs in SG&A. Assuming pay is half of the total, it would put the number at 22 percent.

And then there are the franchisees. There are 1.9 million people who work at McDonald’s restaurants, but just 440,000 of those actually work for McDonald’s Corporation. The rest work for franchisees who pay a cut of their sales to Chicago for the rights to the Golden Arches, Ronald McDonald, and standardized coronaries-on-a-plate.

Worldwide, those franchisees took in $70 billion in revenue last year, and US stores took in $31 billion of that. McDonald’s Corporation doesn’t break out similar expense numbers for its franchisees, so the best I can do is research from Janney Capital Markets. It puts labor costs for US franchises at 24 percent of sales, which gibes with McDonald’s company-owned stores. Janney estimates franchisee operating income at just 5 percent.

If Janney is right (and I’m a bit skeptical. Five percent margins seem awfully low), McDonald’s franchisees in the US pay out, very roughly, $7.4 billion in labor costs a year and make about $1.6 billion in operating profit. Doubling pay without dipping into profit would mean menu prices would have to rise 24 percent—and that’s assuming such price increases wouldn’t hurt sales, which they would.

The bottom line is: This “study” and The Huffington Post are both wrong.
- See more at: A Big Mac miss by The Huffington Post : Columbia Journalism Review
Click to expand...
 
The Man said:
Perfectly put. The notion that a job such as a fast food worker should pay an average wage is retarded.
Click to expand...
Tell that to person making your burger if you want some zit juice and pubic hair as condiments.
 
More fast food workers need to grow a pair and unionize, otherwise they will never have enough leverage to negotiate a decent wage. Like Walmart workers, until they do that, it is difficult for me to have any sympathy for them.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Their job is "worth" less than a minimum wage keeping up with inflation?
Click to expand...

Yep. If you're living on minwage, you need to sacrifice. No extra spending, get two jobs, and go to night school. Welcome to life. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
 
Muhammed said:
More fast food workers need to grow a pair and unionize, otherwise they will never have enough leverage to negotiate a decent wage. Like Walmart workers, until they do that, it is difficult for me to have any sympathy for them.
Click to expand...

Thankfully there are states that have right to work laws to prevent unionization.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom