• 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!

After Winning a $15 Minimum Wage, Fast Food Workers Now Battle Unfair Firings

cpwill

cpwill

DP Veteran
Joined
Dec 20, 2009
Messages
75,652
Reaction score
39,915
Location
USofA
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Conservative
Er Mah Gerds! If Only Someone Could Have Seen This Coming!


New York City’s fast-food industry has served as a laboratory for the nation’s labor movement for the last several years.

Its workers were the first to stage rallies demanding a minimum wage of $15 an hour. Then, they pressed for changes in the way national restaurant chains set their work schedules.


Now, they are asking the City Council to shield them from being fired without a valid reason. That protection, the sort of job security that unions usually bargain for, would be a first for a city to provide to workers in a specific industry, labor law experts said.


City Councilman Brad Lander said he planned to introduce a bill on Wednesday that would require fast-food businesses to show “just cause” for firing workers and give them a chance to appeal dismissals through arbitration....
Click to expand...

It's almost as if.... when you artificially raise the cost of low-skill labor.... you reduce the incentive to keep it..... :thinking
 
Er mah gerds, people fighting for a better life.
 
cpwill said:
Er Mah Gerds! If Only Someone Could Have Seen This Coming!




It's almost as if.... when you artificially raise the cost of low-skill labor.... you reduce the incentive to keep it..... :thinking
Click to expand...

No one could have predicted this.

NO ONE....
 
Automation will kill most of these kinds of jobs in a few decades anyway.
 
Cardinal said:
Er mah gerds, people fighting for a better life.
Click to expand...

Flipping burgers is not worth $15/hour.
Want a better life? Stay in school and try for something more.
 
Roadvirus said:
Flipping burgers is not worth $15/hour.
Want a better life? Stay in school and try for something more.
Click to expand...

I'm sure fast food workers are deeply concerned about your opinion.
 
Roadvirus said:
Flipping burgers is not worth $15/hour.
Want a better life? Stay in school and try for something more.
Click to expand...

Someone has to flip them, someone has to clean floors etc. why should they just accept serfdom ?
 
Last edited:
Roadvirus said:
Flipping burgers is not worth $15/hour.
Want a better life? Stay in school and try for something more.
Click to expand...

Its not that flipping. Burgers is worth $15.

Its that everybody above that should be making more.

The ownership class just decided they needed the money more than we did.

So they could compete with those who enjoy huge populations of the desperate in their game of global Highlander.
 
What if...? said:
Its not that flipping. Burgers is worth $15.

Its that everybody above that should be making more.

The ownership class just decided they needed the money more than we did.

So they could compete with those who enjoy huge populations of the desperate in their game of global Highlander.
Click to expand...

The burgers are not worth 15 an hour...

And in places where burgers are worth $15/hr, the cooks are paid substantially more...
 
Hedgology said:
I fixed that for you...
Click to expand...

Neat argument. Everybody should accept starvation wages because automation is just coming for them anyway.

I can see why, with people like you out there, the workers might arrive at the conclusion that if they're ever going to have a better life, they'll need to fight for it themselves.
 
Cardinal said:
Neat argument. Everybody should accept starvation wages because automation is just coming for them anyway.

I can see why, with people like you out there, the workers might arrive at the conclusion that if they're ever going to have a better life, they'll need to fight for it themselves.
Click to expand...

You're not saying anything meaningful. We all have our own idea of what is valuable, but no one person determines what is valuable: society does.

It sucks that people routine task like fry-cooking is becoming obsolete; just like coal-miners; just like digital journalist, but why do you expect people to keep paying for obsolesces?
 
Hedgology said:
You're not saying anything meaningful. We all have our own idea of what is valuable, but no one person determines what is valuable: society does.

It sucks that people routine task like fry-cooking is becoming obsolete; just like coal-miners; just like digital journalist, but why do you expect people to keep paying for obsolesces?
Click to expand...

Fry cooking is not obsolete, we’re years away from seeing full automation in restaurants.
 
Higgins86 said:
Fry cooking is not obsolete, we’re years away from seeing full automation in restaurants.
Click to expand...

No, we're not. There are already machines that take your order in many different fast food chains and these same chains have already spent millions in R&D related initiatives to automate the food preparation process. In Japan, there are already robot Okonomiyaki cooks.

Most people don't know that tech firms have already developed technology that is at least a generation ahead of what is publicly available. Getting it out to the market is all a matter of cost competitiveness.
 
Wage metrics and cost of living metrics need to get in line with each other somehow.

In the 1970's I started out washing dishes and going to school, a starving student who could still manage to pay a hundred and ten dollars a month rent on a crappy 120 square foot bachelor pad, put gas in my old beater of a pickup truck, pay my light bill and eat.

It would have seemed a dismal existence if not for the fact that I not only "had enough to get by", I also had the ability to practice upward mobility and quickly move up to better wages and better quality of life. Pretty soon someone else had to wash the dishes and live in my tiny hovel as I was off to better things.

That's not very much the truth for minimum wage workers today, who can't even swing rent at all on what they make.
Fix that problem, and the rest starts to slowly but surely take care of itself.

I don't care so much HOW it gets fixed, just that it gets fixed. Despair is poisonous.
 
Hedgology said:
No, we're not. There are already machines that take your order in many different fast food chains and these same chains have already spent millions in R&D related initiatives to automate the food preparation process. In Japan, there are already robot Okonomiyaki cooks.

Most people don't know that tech firms have already developed technology that is at least a generation ahead of what is publicly available. Getting it out to the market is all a matter of cost competitiveness.
Click to expand...

Lol America only just embraced “ chip and pin” a decade after the rest of the world. If you think it’s ready for nationwide fully automated restaurants then that’s adorable.
 
Hedgology said:
You're not saying anything meaningful. We all have our own idea of what is valuable, but no one person determines what is valuable: society does.

It sucks that people routine task like fry-cooking is becoming obsolete; just like coal-miners; just like digital journalist, but why do you expect people to keep paying for obsolesces?
Click to expand...

Cool. So if you see automation coming for you, just take starvation wages right now.
 
Higgins86 said:
Someone has to flip them, someone has to clean floors etc. why should they just accept serfdom ?
Click to expand...

How much should someone who sweeps floors make? Plus you really cant ignore the damage this does to kids seeking their first job. Who's going to hire the unskilled 16 year old?
 
What if...? said:
Its not that flipping. Burgers is worth $15.

Its that everybody above that should be making more.

The ownership class just decided they needed the money more than we did.

So they could compete with those who enjoy huge populations of the desperate in their game of global Highlander.
Click to expand...

Do you have any idea what the profit margin is for the fast food industry?
 
Fletch said:
How much should someone who sweeps floors make? Plus you really cant ignore the damage this does to kids seeking their first job. Who's going to hire the unskilled 16 year old?
Click to expand...


It’s not about how much they make but the quality of life they should enjoy. If the US had more social programs and supported its working class better then wages wouldn’t be the issue.
 
Cardinal said:
Cool. So if you see automation coming for you, just take starvation wages right now.
Click to expand...

You need work that is more specialized than just fry-cooking. I'm not in that situation, so I don't expect my job to be automated out of existence. But, anything is possible.

However, I know a few high/mid-level programming languages (Python, R, C++, VBA), structural employment is not really something that I am really concerned with.

There are ways to help people who are left behind without forcing market players to deal with certain inefficiencies.
 
cpwill said:
Er Mah Gerds! If Only Someone Could Have Seen This Coming!

It's almost as if.... when you artificially raise the cost of low-skill labor.... you reduce the incentive to keep it..... :thinking
Click to expand...

CP, I'm not seeing the connection between people being fired for what looked like legitimate reasons and the minimum wage hike. Can you please explain it. After all you posted it and you seem to see it clearly. thanks in advance.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom