Wendy's to replace workers with Robots to avoid paying humans $

[Audioblysk]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/another-minimum-wage-backfire-1439249236

 

This is a little laughable. I love how it's flipped around. "It's all the 'progressives' fault and they caused this"

 

"Because we'd need to start paying a wage that makes it so our employee's can live somewhat more comfortably at a few dollars an hour - I guess we're FORCED to cut jobs" As if the company is sitting on razor thin margins of profit and has CEO's taking daily pay-cuts to help the company break into the black

 

Blah Blah Blah inflation blah blah blah income inequality. It's amazing how some people will step on the heads of others sinking in the river to keep afloat rather than put a stop to people making more money in a day than you'll see in a lifetime. It's never a matter of how MUCH one can take home (i.e. GASP a MAXIMUM WAGE?) but it's always a matter of a few dollars more an hour to people who cannot afford shit in life. Good job humans.

 

I do look forward to the people defending the concept of not upping wages due to 'inflation' and other hogwash. It's always fun to see just how much people will defend the current situation because they 'worked hard and don't work minimum wage jobs anymore' or whatever one has to justify to themselves for shoving the lower earning populations into the category of 'well they should work harder because I...'

[KovalainenFanBoy]

I for one welcome our new robot overlords bottom-tier workers

[juiceciuj]

pay wall can't see the full article

[Hugh Mughnus]

Automation is extremely beneficial to society. It sucks for the people directly affected but overall it's a beneficial phenomenon.

[Audioblysk]

pay wall can't see the full article

Shit, it wasn't a when I posted it. I'll copy some of the article in here.

 

 

Automation is extremely beneficial to society. It sucks for the people directly affected but overall it's a beneficial phenomenon.

Yes and No.

 

 

President Obama has frequently demanded an increase in the federal minimum wage to $10.10 from $7.25. Meanwhile, dozens of states have set minimum wages above the federal level and politicians from Seattle to New York are congratulating themselves for taking it all the way to $15. Maybe they should look back at the workers they’re leaving behind on their march to progressive-landia. Make that ex-workers.

 

Last week the Wendy’s Company did a public service on its second-quarter earnings call by explaining how mandated wage hikes will lead to fewer jobs for the low-skill workers that progressives claim to be helping.

 

First, CFO Todd Penegor talked about the pressure to pay higher wages and said that “we continue to look at initiatives and how we work to offset any impacts of future wage inflation through technology initiatives, whether that’s customer self-order kiosks, whether that’s automating more in the back of the house in the restaurant. And you’ll see a lot more coming on that front later this year from us.”

 

So the company will now use machines to do jobs that used to be done by people who have become too expensive to employ. We keep hearing that these minimum-wage laws benefit restaurant workers. But since many will no longer be working in restaurants at all, the reasonable conclusion is that the activist campaigns to raise the minimum wage are mainly intended to benefit the unions that back them.

 

On last week’s call with securities analysts, Wendy’s CEO Emil Brolick was asked how the franchisees who own and operate Wendy’s locations could raise prices to offset the higher wage costs in places like New York. He replied that “our franchisees will likely look at the opportunity to reduce overall staff, look at the opportunity to certainly reduce hours and any other cost reduction opportunities, not just price. You know there are some people out there who naively say that these wages can simply be passed along in terms of price increases. I don’t think that the average franchisee believes that.”

 

Mr. Brolick elaborated that “we believe that some of these increases will clearly end up hurting the people that they are intended to help. And we continue to believe that one of the great opportunities you have in a business like ours is that an entry-level person, in a very short period of time, can rise to become a manager in a restaurant, and have an income above the median household income in the United States of America.”

 

We see here again the vast gulf between progressive claims and progressive reality. Remember last year when McDonald’s then-CEO Don Thompson, amid protests over entry-level wages, agreed to President Obama’s idea for a wage hike? Then came news of new automation plans at McDonald’s. Just what struggling low-wage workers need. Another law that prices them out of a job.

[Zephyr_Nova]

I couldn't read the article, but I look forward to robofast-food workers if that's really going to be a thing.

 

*nm, blysk has me covered!

[juiceciuj]

Automation is extremely beneficial to society. It sucks for the people directly affected but overall it's a beneficial phenomenon.

right. all jobs that can be automated should. the problem comes from not having any plan for people who, through no fault of their own, no longer have jobs. all these companies are acting like they're doing "the right thing" by building factories in the us again when in fact the major reason they're building them here is it's finally cheaper to have robots make your shit than chinese slave labor.

[The Wumbo Man]

A lot of places already have robotic cashiers, McDonald's to name one. Stuff like this is pretty inevitable. Think of how many people in the world are employed to drive taxis/buses. They can all be replaced by self driving vehicles (and most likely will).

[Hugh Mughnus]

 

Automation is extremely beneficial to society. It sucks for the people directly affected but overall it's a beneficial phenomenon.

right. all jobs that can be automated should. the problem comes from not having any plan for people who, through no fault of their own, no longer have jobs. all these companies are acting like they're doing "the right thing" by building factories in the us again when in fact the major reason they're building them here is it's finally cheaper to have robots make your shit than chinese slave labor.

 

Agreed.

 

The question is whether the companies as a matter of corporate social responsibility should be planning for the people, or whether the people as individuals should be planning for themselves. I take the latter approach in my life as I know companies will fuck me any chance they can.

[oscillik]

We're all going to die.

[juiceciuj]

 

 

Automation is extremely beneficial to society. It sucks for the people directly affected but overall it's a beneficial phenomenon.

right. all jobs that can be automated should. the problem comes from not having any plan for people who, through no fault of their own, no longer have jobs. all these companies are acting like they're doing "the right thing" by building factories in the us again when in fact the major reason they're building them here is it's finally cheaper to have robots make your shit than chinese slave labor.

 

Agreed.

 

The question is whether the companies as a matter of corporate social responsibility should be planning for the people, or whether the people as individuals should be planning for themselves. I take the latter approach in my life as I know companies will fuck me any chance they can.

well when public education doesn't nearly keep up with the rate of skill/labor required to be necessitated in the job market you're fucking over a lot of people (in the us at least). can't expect the general public to all be innovators/entrepreneurs/etc.

 

end goal should be nobody works obviously.

We're all going to die.

why not eat at arby's

corporate social responsibility is an oxymoron fyi

[Hugh Mughnus]

 

 

 

Automation is extremely beneficial to society. It sucks for the people directly affected but overall it's a beneficial phenomenon.

right. all jobs that can be automated should. the problem comes from not having any plan for people who, through no fault of their own, no longer have jobs. all these companies are acting like they're doing "the right thing" by building factories in the us again when in fact the major reason they're building them here is it's finally cheaper to have robots make your shit than chinese slave labor.

 

Agreed.

 

The question is whether the companies as a matter of corporate social responsibility should be planning for the people, or whether the people as individuals should be planning for themselves. I take the latter approach in my life as I know companies will fuck me any chance they can.

well when public education doesn't nearly keep up with the rate of skill/labor required to be necessitated in the job market you're fucking over a lot of people (in the us at least). can't expect the general public to all be innovators/entrepreneurs/etc.

 

 

 

Good point.

 

Capitalism

[juiceciuj]

perspective: i lucked into my middling income job for a small company with a good owner who genuinely cares about his employees after working for a corporate theatre chain that gladly automated my job (projectionist) as soon as it became economically feasible. i doubt 1% of the people losing their jobs at wendy's will be so fortunate.

 

my friend who i was discussing this with recently was saying that he thought this was 10+ years away from happening and i figured it'd be much sooner than that. since i can't see the article i just want to know how soon/how large this rollout is going to be?

 

also there was a big npr story on automation a few weeks ago that was pretty interesting. what surprised me most was about how forbes and other major news organizations are allowing ai to write articles now but are trying to keep it under wraps. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/05/08/405270046/episode-622-humans-vs-robots

 

*corrected the link*

[Rubin Farr]

I'll be back...with your order

 

[oscillik]

lol McG

 

touche

[perunamuusi]

fuck the robots

 

direct action

 

[lala]

I for one welcome our new robot overlords bottom-tier workers

 

flol

 

 

this is really interesting if you havent seen it:

 

[spratters]

Places are starting to pop up with automation without it being reported very much, I think now it's not so much of a huge deal since it's inevitable in some cases.

 

There's a bank in town (probably hundreds more elsewhere) which has got rid of cashiers in favour or machines.

[lala]

HSBC loves that dont they

[chenGOD]

Sadly inevitable - I do hate that they blame it on profit margins - taking a quick skim through Wendy's 2015 Q2 earnings call shows a pretty healthy profit.

While I agree that it's good to replace workers with robots in these sorts of jobs (seriously, this is the shit that needs to be automated) there needs to be some social responsibility to provide a living. After all, without people earning enough to purchase Wendy's "food", the company would go out of business in a hurry. And you can bet that the vast majority of Wendy's earnings comes through people in the low and lower middle income brackets.

 

Personally, I put my money where my mouth is - I haven't eaten at a fast food joint in about 3 years now. I'd rather eat at a local restaurant. Not a perfect solution, but at least the owners are local business people.

[Braintree]

It's kind of funny to me that the jobs that get automated aren't for your core necessities as a human.

[LimpyLoo]

Remember when everyone thought automation was gonna cut the 40-hour work week in half? Ha.

 

I predict that within the next 20 years, everyone will realize they're actually a socialist (in the colloquial sense). 130 years ago nearly everyone was pro-labor, pro-union (yes, even the Republican Party). It took decades and decades of "pro-business" propaganda and lobbying to turn American into what it is now.

 

 

Of course in hindsight, it was horribly naive to think that automation would benefit workers. If we lived in a world of co-ops and BOC-esque communes, automation would benefit workers and drastically reduce the work week. But as we all know, corporations don't really care about what happens to civilization. Capitalism creates perverse incentives, and the well-being of the planet (and the people on it) is simply an miniscule variable in a giant cost/benefit analysis.

 

We also have this idea that, thanks to modern medicine, we're all going to live a lot longer. That magically the fruits of technological progress will benefit us all. Hey, we cured Hepatitus C...go humans! Oh wait, nevermind: it costs $150,000 for a few dozen pills. But hey, I'm sure things will be different with life-enhancement medicine, right? This is what happens with privitization.

 

I think the world that most of us actually want to live in is one where we pay a few pennies a year for life-enhancement R & D, and then we all share in the benefits, no? And really I don't see how industrial automation is much different of a situation.

[chenGOD]

Limpy - american style capitalism that puts profit above all else is the one you're looking at. The culture of greed is 'murica's biggest export.

Capitalism and market structures are better at allocating resources, and have the same weaknesses (the human factor) as centrally planned economies. So using these tools while trying to alter society to become more empathic is probably the better way forward than trying to reinvent the wheel in terms of an economic system.

[geosmina]

oh noes.

 

hopefully in my next life i could be born as a robot.

[LimpyLoo]

Limpy - american style capitalism that puts profit above all else is the one you're looking at. The culture of greed is 'murica's biggest export.

Capitalism and market structures are better at allocating resources, and have the same weaknesses (the human factor) as centrally planned economies. So using these tools while trying to alter society to become more empathic is probably the better way forward than trying to reinvent the wheel in terms of an economic system.

 

I just mean "socialism" in the colloquial sense, where the well-being of civilization is not put second to an individual's right to ruthlessly pursue profit at any cost to those around him/her.

 

Really, I'm just advocating for whatever system would do that, which might just look like a heavy-regulated variant of capitalism.