you should be paid wages allowing you to live a decent life, save a little bit, and enough so you can afford to hope a little bit. K&R

for specific minimum wages. I REALLY think this is a bad idea.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/11/fast-food-robot_n_5668600.html

For three decades now, the idea that robots will replace fast-food workers has been more of a pipe dream of tightwad business owners than a reality. But a group of engineers claims to have finally found a way to get rid of pesky humans once and for all.

Momentum Machines of San Francisco has invented a fully-automated contraption that can grind meat, slice tomatoes, grill patties, wrap fully cooked burgers and do pretty much anything else human fast-food workers can do. The machine is capable of cranking out 360 burgers per hour, according to Momentum Machines' website.

The group plans to sell its invention to restaurants and, eventually, open its own chain to sell gourmet burgers at fast-food prices by eliminating the cost of paying line cooks. This, its website claims, will "democratize access to high quality food, making it available to the masses."

“Our device isn’t meant to make employees more efficient,” co-founder Alexandros Vardakostas told Xconomy in 2012. “It’s meant to completely obviate them.”

~ snip ~

[hr]

a reason to do nothing ('because they'll find a way to weasel out of this').

not just for fast food workers. I don't believe that it's the government's job to decide which companies and industries to have cost advantages over others. New York is expensive enough, where a $15 minimum makes sense for all.

So there may be reasons why Cuomo can do this for one sector (to the exclusion of other sectors) without legislative approval, while doing it en masse for everyone WOULD require legislative approval.

No single person should have that much power (even if for supposed good).

but you know what's good for them because of some abstract idea about how things SHOULD be rather than face a reality of how things actually WORK. Your compassion won't buy them any diapers or baby formula.

but not workers in other industries.

You are complaining about the compassion of a poster who wants EVERYONE to get a minimum wage of $15/hour, not just workers in a particular industry for a particular type of company?

If you know of a reason why the governor CAN'T do this for any other workers, then feel free to explain, but if you're just guessing this is the case and don't know, why are you comfortable NOT giving other workers $15/hour? The raise at chain fast-food restaurants won't buy the lady at Duane Reade diapers or baby formula.

Moving on...

The article says exactly nothing about why Cuomo was able to use this process to raise wages for some fast food workers, but is not able to use this mechanism for other workers. It's not in there. Yes you, or at least your argument, is finished here.

much sooner.

All the states have to match the Federal minimum wage.

First, just "contract out" the work and dont actually employ them. Other businesses do it.
2nd, I wonder if this singling out would pass a challenge in the SCOTUS? Equal protection and all that. Does this law apply to non-chain fast food? If not, why not?
3rd, increased automation; you cannot raise the cost of labor 70% in 2 yrs and not have negative results. So we'll end up having fewer employees any way you look at it.

They ALWAYS find a way to get around laws that will reduce profits.

I know there are communities that tried to pass zoning laws to keep out "undesirable" fast food joints and it was difficult to come up with a definition that did what they wanted.

...rather than pick and chose industries.

Also, if you going to raise the minimum wage selectively, fast food is probably the worst place to do it.

These chain fast food places will simply hire less people and automate the rest. So it's good that some will have a better wage (still not livable in NYC), but the chains will hire 2/3rds less employees and kiosks will take your order and half the food preparation will be automated as well. This process has already begun in some places, and will advance more quickly in places with higher payroll costs.

I remember working for a bank in college and they told us tellers how wonderful the new full service ATM's would be because they'd reduce lines and make our lives easier. I'm sad to say it didn't occur to most people that the machines were designed so the bank could terminate most of the tellers, not make their lives better. And sure enough, that is what happened. This was a big branch and we had like 10 tellers on duty most of the time (including drive thru).....within a year or two it was 1/3 of that and dropping. And of course the tellers that remained didn't have it any easier, in fact they had to run back and forth between lobby and drive thru to help customers. It's really too bad because bank teller used to be a pretty good PT gig or entry level job, now there are very few per branch as they've been mostly replaced by ATM's.

So the thing is this has been tried. The name was Automat. Horn & Hardard's
Automats. They failed. It was popular for a while but went down the tubes.

People want human contact. The self serve checkouts will fail also.

You must be joking or live in some secluded area where you don't see how fast automation is progressing.

Just a few years ago the checkouts at all the grocery stores near me had a real human, now there is maybe 1 or 2 human being checkers for 7-8 automated ones. And in my area, those were union jobs. All gone.

Almost no one cares about human contact at a fast food joint. They just want their burger, fries and soda. These places will be largely automated almost everywhere over the next decade or so, but the first ones to fire most of the humans will be the stores with the highest payroll.

McDonalds has converted all of their French locations to automated kiosks.

We'll eventually see it here along with people just using apps on their smartphones to place orders.

they have four self-checkouts in my supermarket. I'm probably hyper-sensitive but after a long day or week when I'm at the market just trying to get a dozen eggs and some scallions and tired of dealing with people, the LAST thing I want is to deal with check out cashiers with attitude problems.

I have good judgment about people, and if I can't find anyone I want to check me out, I'll use the self-checkout scanner, but if those are broken, then I'll put my items down and leave the store.

So yeah, if I can find a cashier without the bullshit, that's what I prefer.

and their menus are if anything more complicated than your typical burger joint.

Plus kiosk ordering makes it easier to get upsales (extra cheese, extra bacon, etc)

these age increases will likely lead to increased automation and job loss, but in the long run this is a good thing. It will reduce the number of dead end, unfulfilling jobs and free people up to do something that enriches society. We just need to be sure that there are the right programs in place to help people find better paths when job loss occurs.

Fill out the order on the phone app, it's ready when you pull up to the take out counter or drive-through. Don't even need a kiosk.

These terminals are getting popular in Europe I was reading the other day.

Just kidding, but $15 dollars an hour comes to $30,000 a year if the fast food worker works five days a week for 50 weeks (And takes 2 weeks off for vacation). It is $31,200 if you use 52 weeks a year instead of 50.

If that minimum wage worker starts at age 17 and retires at age 67 (which is the Retirement age for people entering the workforce today) that comes to $1,560,000. Think about it 1 1/2 million dollars!!!! (Just pointing out a Million Dollars is NOT that much anymore).

At $8.75 per hour, that is $910,000 earned if someone starts at age 17 and retires at age 67 or $18,200 a year.

40 hours a week, 52 weeks in a year, 50 years between age 17 and 67 comes to 104,000 hours worked. Thus to earn a Million Dollars in one's life time, assuming 50 years of working, 40 hours working a week, for 52 weeks in a year, you only have to earn more then $9.61 per hour. $9.61 will put you just short of a million, $9.62 an hour will put you over a million dollars an hour.

In UPS, a loader makes about $11.50 an hour. There is no way a fast-food worker should make more than a UPS truck loader.

If (as I suspect) you can't raise every job to $15, why would fast-food workers get the pick? There are about 20,000 other jobs that I would pick ahead of them. A bank teller makes less that that to start. Some a lot less. Hell, a Traffic Enforcement Agent (you may be used to the politically incorrect term "meter maid&quot even makes less!

UPS loaders now have the option to leave for easier work at McD's at $15/hr.

UPS either raises pay to match or loses valuable employees to McDs

Applies to every industry

Are they organizing?