Race for restaurant employees

[kelownman]

An interesting article from the Globe and Mail confirms what Rekabis said....

Wages for service sector jobs tend to be much higher than in Canada, where the dollar currently trades at par with the Australian currency. Entry-level fast-food workers, for example, are paid $20.08 an hour as a base hourly wage. Pay goes up to $25.10 on Saturday, $29.12 on Sunday, and overtime hours are $30.12 for the first two hours and $40.16 for each hour thereafter. On top of this, employers pay 9.5 per cent of wages to every employee's nominated retirement fund. Workers who are non-permanent "casual" employees are generally paid a further 25 per cent of their wages on top of these amounts.

Has the economy crumbled under the weight of high wages? No. The Australian economy has fared quite well by international standards. GDP per capita is healthy at around US$48,000, compared with Canada's $44,000. The unemployment rate is low, at 5.4 per cent nationally. There has not been a recession since the early 1990s. This is arguably in part a result of the buoyancy of demand created by high wages.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report- ... e38026876/

[rekabis]

People who are not capitalists (someone actually owning a business), consider this:

Stop asking, “why does a burger flipper make the same or almost as much money as me?”

And start asking, “why am I not being paid what I am worth?”

Your enemy is not the people struggling to survive. Your enemy is the Parasite Class capitalists who are pitting you against those less than you, in order to distract you from the fact that they are taking almost all the value of your labours, not to mention your youth and energy.

No-one “earns” a million dollars, much less a billion dollars. No-one can work a million or a billion times harder than anyone else. There is no good, no ethical, no righteous millionaire or billionaire. That kind of wealth can only be manifested and acquired through the rampant and parasitic exploitation of the working class.

No exceptions.

[Bsuds]

You can be an Executive Chef at a restaurant and make not bad money but when you look at the hours worked and the responsibility it sucks. Might not even average min wage because they don't pay overtime.

(my son did this) he now works for a large roofing co and is much happier with 9-5. No long hours, works overtime and gets paid accordingly.

I have no sympathy for places who treat their employees so poorly.

[rekabis]

Employees: Pay us $30/hour for entry level job!

Employers: *replace entry level jobs with automation *

Employees:

The thing about a robot is that they are not much different than a human.

You need to have the capital to purchase one in the first place.

Then you need to maintain that robot, fix it if it breaks, and replace it if it becomes obsolete. Which it will, rather quickly, especially if it’s doing a finicky/delicate or complicated job, like assembling food. Which means frequent obsolescence, and the need to buy newer, better machines on a frequent basis to stay competitive.

All of this costs money, and the manufacturer can just go elsewhere if you don’t want to pay what they are charging - in any cost effective marketplace, there will always be other customers who are willing to pay what the manufacturer is asking.

Plus, robots that do complicated tasks tend to be high-tech robots, and high tech costs a lot of money… even when amortized over its entire lifetime, and usually a lot more than your average human, even at $30/hr.

We had technically effective burger-flipping robots 20-25 years ago. Why isn’t McDonald’s - the largest burger fast-food chain on the planet - using robots to flip burgers? Especially in places like Australia and Seattle, where minimum wage is more than $15/hr?

crickets

Yeah, I thought so.

[Even Steven]

Why isn’t McDonald’s - the largest burger fast-food chain on the planet - using robots to flip burgers? Especially in places like Australia and Seattle, where minimum wage is more than $15/hr?

Lol. I think if you spend even 10 minutes on Google you'll know quite a bit about McDonald’s efforts in automation and how advance they are in that field. You might not see full automated McDonald's for a while but the fact that they have fewer employees per customer than other restaurants because their employees can serve more customers is absolutely factual. Thanks to automation they are hiring less employees than they would otherwise need.



There's automatic ordering kiosks. There are ordering apps. There are AI-powred drive throughs ordering, there are automatic grills that let one employee cook at the speed of 4 people...

Take away all the automation McDonald's implemented over the years and they'd have to hire two-three times as many staff members. It's kinda obvious that people are being replaced with automation, boomers need to catch up to the fact that automation in McDonald’s doesn't mean robot burger flipping. It means so much more.

When I was in Japan, we ate at automated sushi restaurant. The only staff members are cooks and cleaners. No tellers, no servers, no order takers. All through tablets and conveyor belts. If it wasn't for automaton they'd have to hire 20+ people to run it.

So yeah...so much for your crickets ha

[rekabis]

There's automatic ordering kiosks. There are ordering apps. There are AI-powred drive throughs ordering, there are automatic grills that let one employee cook at the speed of 4 people...

There have been automatic ordering kiosks in existence since the 1960s.

Not a high note for your “automation takeover” argument if it takes McDonald’s 60 years to implement that technology on a wide scale.

Oooooo… watch out people! Technology being invented today will take your job away… a half century from now. Brrrr… frightening.

[Bsuds]

There have been automatic ordering kiosks in existence since the 1960s.

Not a high note for your “automation takeover” argument if it takes McDonald’s 60 years to implement that technology on a wide scale.

And they still can't get an order right!

[Even Steven]

*removed*

[rekabis]

*removed*

[Urban Cowboy]

I think a few have forgotten, what happened to the auto industry in Canada, after the cost of a human tightening some bolts reached the area of $60hr.

Now to me, I don't view the ability to tighten screws, and bolts, as all that "skilled" insofar as skilled labor goes, so it shouldn't be any surprise that most of those jobs went to robots, or out of country, where workers considered half that pay a decent wage.

About the only thing I agree with so far, is that ridiculous bonuses given to executives, for basically doing what is their job, should be reigned in significantly, or taxed at 90%.

[W105]

In your example, all I can say is expecting $30hr for what has been entry level work decades back, is a ridiculous ask.

Why? If employee compensation kept up with executive compensation, minimum wage would already be at this point.

And yet, despite a 50% increase in employee productivity, wages have stagnated since 1978, while executive compensation has soared by 940%.

And that is before the cost of products, which have similarly grown alongside wage stagnation… almost as if the increase in product prices has absolutely nothing to do with employee wages. Maybe we should be looking at cutting executive compensation instead…

First off paying such a wage would see many places simply close, and those that don't would jack up the price of food so much that people either simply wouldn't go out to eat, or at the very least would cut way back, both of which would hurt the business severely.

Zero-sum *bleep*. Look at Australia, where the wages for a burger-flipper are three times higher than in America, but the prices of those burgers are hardly any different.

And a rising tide does indeed lift all boats.

If you give a member of the Parasite Class an extra $10k, they’ll just stick it into an offshore investment account where it benefits no-one but themselves.

If you give an average Joe & Jane Taxpayer an extra $10k (through their wages), they will immediately turn around and spend it in their community, causing a cascade of spending throughout that community that gets multiplied with every echo. A single $10 spent in a community often creates $100 of additional spending through that community via the local multiplier effect.

There are for sure job examples of where this wage is justified, but entry level work experience is not one of them.

Why not? At what point do you say, “You are not worth paying enough to live”? Because that is exactly what you are saying.

Almost 80% of “entry-level work” in North America is being done by adults, living on their own, often with children.

Are you telling those parents to choose between feeding their children and putting a roof over their heads? Are you really that much of a monster?

Your attitude is typical of the Parasite Class, who see anyone who isn’t of their own class as vermin, as sub-humans to be exploited for profit in any way required for that profit. Quit being a sociopath.

I know many who did such work as income during college years, and the good ones make out really well, largely because they are very good workers and got excellent tips as a result. Tips that by the way I'm sure many never claimed on their taxes.

And was rent for you, at that time, north of $1,500/month for a single bedroom? No. I could probably guarantee that it was a very affordable portion of your paycheque.

The recommended rent portion for any paycheque is one-third. With average entry-level rent (1brm apartment) in Kelowna now beyond $1,500/mo, this means that the average entry-level wage also needs to be three times that amount… which clocks in at $54,000/yr, or $29.59/hr. And that is entry-level wage.

Above that one-third of a paycheque level for rent, it becomes increasingly more difficult to survive in an area, with it becoming almost impossible once rent is more than half of a paycheque.

And you are raging at values over $20/hr? What a delightful little parasite you are.

How about you go start up some eatery or coffee shop and pay your staff $30 bucks an hour, then come back and let us know how it went. It's easy to talk when it's not your wallet handing out the cash.

Seattle coffee shops and eateries are currently thriving, despite advertising jobs in the low-$20/hr range. Why? Because that wage gets pumped straight back into the local economy, causing more customers to go to those coffee shops and eateries, thereby increasing profits and making it much more affordable to hire employees at higher wages to deal with increased demand.

Rising water. Boats. This concept is not difficult, and is backed with the weight of real-world evidence.

^^ excellent post !! 100% real truths

[Urban Cowboy]

Seattle coffee shops and eateries are currently thriving, despite advertising jobs in the low-$20/hr range. Why? Because that wage gets pumped straight back into the local economy, causing more customers to go to those coffee shops and eateries, thereby increasing profits and making it much more affordable to hire employees at higher wages to deal with increased demand.

Rising water. Boats. This concept is not difficult, and is backed with the weight of real-world evidence.

Almost feels like you're trying to make my point for me.

Those coffee shops ye speak of, what are they charging for coffee, like upwards of $7? Depending on the chain, when I can buy a perfectly good quality coffee at the Mc D's drive through for under $2.

Oddly enough also, the times I've taken a gander at the people in Starbucks, for the most part they are all in the demographic screaming for a living wage.

Perhaps the problem is people need to live within their means, and I'm not sure if spending $200 a month on your morning latte quite qualifies.

[GordonH]

Society has always had the working poor, more then likely will always have this group in the workforce. Because a vast majority of people want goods and services for as little as possible.

Education and the desire to better ones self.

[OKkayak]

Society has always had the working poor, more then likely will always have this group in the workforce. Because a vast majority of people want goods and services for as little as possible.

Education and the desire to better ones self.

Education has become big business in itself, to the point people spend years paying off debt for a piece of paper that is completely unnecessary for many occupations.

[GordonH]

Society has always had the working poor, more then likely will always have this group in the workforce. Because a vast majority of people want goods and services for as little as possible.

Education and the desire to better ones self.

Education has become big business in itself, to the point people spend years paying off debt for a piece of paper that is completely unnecessary for many occupations.

Majority of jobs with good pay and future i.e doctors/specialist... lawyer... engineering... architect etc... etc. Definitely need credible papers.
Even automobile technicians need credible education papers, well at least when trying to get on at a dealership or any major service department.