Posted on 09/06/2014 10:39:23 AM PDT by upchuck
Union activists want to raise the minimum wage in the fast-food industry to $15 an hour. However, fast-food restaurants operate on very small profit margins; they could only afford such wages by raising prices—significantly. Higher prices would, in turn, drive customers away, forcing even larger price increases to cover costs. Ultimately, the average fast-food restaurant would have to raise prices by nearly two-fifths. This would cause sales to drop by more than one-third, and profits to fall by more than three-quarters. Absent the widespread adoption of labor-saving technology, the union-led “Fight for 15” would make fast food much more expensive for Americans. Fight for 15
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has launched an expensive PR campaign calling for wages of at least $15 an hour in the fast-food industry. This Fight for 15 is part of a larger SEIU pressure campaign to unionize fast-food restaurants. Hundreds of union activists have staged “walkouts” and protests across the country demanding the higher pay rate. These protests have attracted considerable media attention. However, if the SEIU achieved its stated goal, it would hurt the budgets of millions of moderate-income Americans. No, Fast-Food Joints Cannot Absorb Cost Increases
Artificially inflating wages would substantially increase fast-food restaurants’ total costs—labor makes up a considerable portion of their budget. ...snip... Labor costs (26 percent) and food and material costs (31 percent) make up the majority of the typical restaurant budget.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the average cook in a fast-food restaurant earned $9.04 an hour in 2013. The SEIU’s push for $15 an hour would consequently raise fast-food wages by at least 66 percent. Paying $15 an hour would raise fast-food restaurants’ total costs by approximately 15 percent.
(Excerpt) Read more at heritage.org ...
http://www.businessinsider.com/momentum-machines-burger-robot-2014-8
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3100817/posts
I feel sorry for these low-intelligence, low-info Dem voters.
They have absolutely no IDEA what mere cash cows they are to the SEIU!
People don’t HAVE to go to fast food restaurants. Nothing is FORCING them to go.
If you over-price the food, the customer base will dwindle.
(I’m embarrassed to have to type these words but that’s really how economically illiterate an amazing number of my fellow Americans truly are.)
That's only on the first wave of consequences. The second, and larger wave comes with the wage inflation across the board as EVERY other economic group seeks to balance the books.
Why shouldn't I be entitled to a 66% increase as well?
...
Paying $15 an hour would raise fast-food restaurants’ total costs by approximately 15 percent.
If the restaurant's costs increase by 15%, why would they have to raise prices by ~40%?
Attention Fast Food Workers! Here are your replacements.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/arielknutson/vending-machines-you-wont-believe-exist?s=mobile
the seemingly newly Riche.......burger flippers will then have their hours drastically cut back
we order and pay online.... (computer or cell phone)
we go in, our order is ready, we are OUT the door in under 20 seconds, with our food fresh and cooked exactly to our order
works every time, perfectly
(the last time we tried to order from the nice little girl at the counter, she asked for $55 for the cheeseburger
and did not realize that was a mistaken sum even when we got her to ring it up again)
technology is easy, fast, accurate, better ... saves us about 20 to 25 minutes waiting time...we get exactly the ingredients we asked for.........
technology is better at the bank (we use ATM, technology instead of waiting on long lines there, too)
technology is better on bridges and toll roads too....we are now sailing right through where the toll booths used to back up traffic........... (transponders or plate readers)
there are now machines that will cook up to 400 burgers to order, varying ingredients as per customer requests
try to have government force wages up...and we will all get faster, and better food.....as the rest of the stores automate
any labor union which tries to do this to the fast food workers does NOT have their best interests at heart. All the labor union will accomplish is to throw thousands of burget workers onto the unemployment lines.
(while making for even more automation equipment manufacuring jobs in Communist China)
I'd like to ask the fools pushing for this if they have any idea why McDonald's doesn't charge for drink refills anymore?
The last time this nonsense started up, the ‘raise’ that the workers received meant than cost of one employee per shit exceeded the cost of Coke syrup. So in a couple of years, all the drink stands were moved to the customer side of the counter, and the number of employees on the other side of the counter reduced be one. Multiply it by the number of McDonald's that existed at the time and the number of shifts, and it was something like 12,000 workers. But hey - the ones that weren't laid off did get a raise!
Higher wages = more automation in the food-preparation industry.
Look at what happened in an old union-employment industry like the auto industry. As the unions struck for higher and higher wages, the manufacturers began installing computer-controlled robots to do the repetitive and mind-numbing jobs like welding seams or placing and securing various components in the process of assembly of the end product. The workers never returned to the job once they were replaced by a machine with no opinions whatsoever about the nature of the task, never took sick days, and demanded no fringe benefits.
Wages are not a RIGHT, they are a REWARD for productivity on the part of the employee. If the productivity falls below a certain level, the only logical response of the employer is to discharge the employee who fails to produce a sufficient amount to justify keeping his position open, and return a profit to the employer.
And profit is what goes to further expand the work force.
The product of government schools.
They are smart like King Barack Obama - They think wealth is created with a barrel of ink and a government printing press.
Judging by the nuclear grade stupidity of people like this one would find it hard to believe that Americans were once looked upon as sharp negotiators and hard to best in a deal.
I don’t think the min wage hike only affects fast food workers. It grocery store clerks, Walmart workers, ...anybody making min wage now.
Paying $15 an hour would raise fast-food restaurants’ total costs by approximately 15 percent.
If the restaurant's costs increase by 15%, why would they have to raise prices by ~40%?
Perhaps because labor is only part of the cost equation.
If the minimum wage is raised to $15 basic raw foods costs, packaging and transport costs will also go up, perhaps much more as the costs filter through the economy .
Most union wage scales a tied to minimum wage and automatically go up if the minimum wage is hiked up.
In reality, costs will increase by at least 40% in the fast food industry and also to some extent in just about every other industry as well.
This is really an attempt by the commissars in the Obama Admin to ignite a wage driven Wage-Price inflationary cycle.
What it will end up doing is killing the economy and killing any entry level job opportunity or possibility for upward mobility for our increasingly permanent underclass.
Was recently at a reunion most of my old mates have become very skilled, very well educated and very, very successful.
ALL of us worked for nothing more than minimum wages to start our careers with and most of continued to do so so until after graduation from college.
Looking back, we all laughed at our entry level jobs and how, from our more experienced perspectives, we were barely worth (if at all) the minimum wages we were paid.
That's how it works in our society - low skilled workers get paid what the market will bear and they get paid more as they become more experienced, skilled and valuable.
People don't become CEOs over night and many CEO started their careers at minimum wage if one looks back .
I don’t think the min wage hike only affects fast food workers.
The union slackers will also receive the raise because its written in most of their contracts that minimum wage goes up so does the union wages.
(they could only afford such wages by raising prices—significantly. Higher prices would, in turn, drive customers away )
Actually there is another way the could do it. If you have 10 workers raise the wages of 6 or 7 and fire the other 3-4. The remaining ones will make more but have to do much more work for it.
In no way in a real world does a $15 wage for fast food workers not destroy jobs...........
Fast food is probably the primary, and cheapest source of protein for lower-income people. Make it more expensive and they become malnourished, with everything that implies, particularly infectious disease. These things always purport to help the poor, and end up kicking them in the teeth.
That's another way the marginal or entry-level worker gets screwed. Raise the miniumum to $15 and suddenly those jobs will become attractive to a higher-calibre level of employee, whose intelligence and motivation will compensate for the additional pay. The marginal worker, or one looking to get his foot in the door, will be out-of-luck and out-of-work.
The article took that into account; it said, in a roundabout way, that a 60% increase in labor costs would increase overall costs by 15%.
Soon to be replaced by robotics.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.