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- cross-posted to:
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California fast food workers will be paid at least $20 per hour next year under a new law signed Thursday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
When it takes effect on April 1, fast food workers in the state will have among the highest minimum wages in the country, according to data compiled by the University of California-Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education. The state’s minimum wage for all other workers is at $15.50 per hour and is already among the highest in the nation.
Newsom’s signature on Thursday reflects the power and influence of labor unions in the nation’s most populous state, which have worked to organize fast food workers in an attempt to improve their wages and working conditions.
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I look forward to everyone bitching about how much more food costs.
It’s a good thing food costs haven’t increased before this was announced! Where’s the dollar menu again?
Funny thing - there are multiple things that affect for prices.
Why would you assume food costs will increase?
Why would you assume increasing the cost of labor won’t increase the cost of the service?
In Denmark McDonald’s employees make $20~ an hour and a big Mac costs less. The only reason prices need to go up is to keep profits at an all time high to satisfy the Almighty shareholder. It’s just greed.
Edit: an extra $4.5 on a 40 hour a week is $180 or $360 pretax. The average rent in Cali as per Google is $1,726. 160~ hours a month ASSUMING you are allowed to work 40 hours you’d make $3200~ a month pretax after tax (per Google) it’s $2,608. Which leaves you $882 after paying rent (around 64% of your income). This part I don’t know about, but around $322 per month for one person for groceries. Leaving you $560 if you are just one person, if you’re a single parent with one or more kid you’re pretty much out of money at that point. Car payment, gas, you have zero extra money at all.
I’m not sure their point was that prices should go up, but that they will go up. Which you seem to agree with, you even cited greed as the explanation.
I cited that if they did, it would be because of greed. If you have to stop paying slave wages, record profits go away. If they want to pass 100% of that cost onto the consumer, then sure prices will go up to keep those record profits. In no way does it need to though.
So, either you think these companies will accept that loss, or you agree with the person you were arguing with.
Unless there is some wording in this legislation that dictates that the wage increase comes from profitability.
I never said it won’t increase prices. What I am saying is that supporting record profits on the backs of people that are unable to afford to pay rent is fucked up. If they can’t supply a product that people can afford without basically using slaves to do it, then they shouldn’t exist. The fact that McDonald’s can exist in other countries and supply a product that is cheaper than it is here is proof that it doesn’t have to be the way it is. Despite doubling cost of wages they should have never been that low in the first place. If you have to eat into your record profits to have people be able to afford to live then that’s your problem Mr every corporation.
That’s awesome. Nowhere near answered the question but thanks for all the facts.
Your question was literally answered in the first sentence lmfao. Learn to read?
I was unaware that Denmark was in the US now.
The point is that they’re able to raise wages and keep prices the same. It has nothing to do with being in a different country. Why would it not be the same case in the US?
I mean. I absolutely did, in the first post.
Is Denmark in California? These are completely different economies with entirely different systems of benefits.
Ok so you’re just making up a reason to be pissed off. Good luck with that.
Could you answer the question before asking another one?
Can you?
You obviously have no clue what you are talking about.
Food already costs too much and it does partially because the government continues to pay farmers not to grow to get votes.
cool, now give everyone a living wage, maybe a universal income, & you’ll have solved poverty
(X) doubt. You’ll just inflate shit. Need government regs on corps if you wanna solve poverty.
You’ll just inflate shit.
We’ll let’s see, inflation is running rampant irregardless of wage increases, so I think I’ll go with the wage increases.
Need government regs on corps if you wanna solve poverty.
Regulations like “what is the minimum salary you can pay your employees”?
These are not mutually exclusive policy points.
And your suggestion is simplistic and insufficient to achieve your end.
Care to tell me what suggestion I made?
That’s not fair. As a conservative, his reading comprehension is profoundly poor.
I hate to burst everyone’s bubble but all this is going to do is speed up fully automated restaurants.
Oh right because this was the only thing keeping businesses from switching to zero wage robots. No companies were already planning on doing this, but now that employees get a livable wage, all bets are off.
I might just be really cynical but that may be why they even agreed to this in the first place.
Automation, here we come!
It’s a good thing we weren’t automating anything before this! Nothing at all. Companies DEFINITELY weren’t researching and implementing automation until right now when the minimum wage increased. And they DEFINITELY will start hiring more people if the wages go down again.
Yep, many fast food places are already implementing AI taking orders in the drive thru, not to mention all the kiosks in the lobby. Only a matter of time until making the food is automated and all there will be is a skeleton crew of workers to make sure everything is running smooth.
This is not a bad thing. It is always a good thing when humans can be freed to do non-repetitive tasks. Or would you prefer to return to weaving your own clothes?
Where did I say it was a bad thing? Lol.
Where did I say you said it’s a bad thing? Lol.
I was visiting a city for a wedding and went to a restaurant I’d never heard of to get food. Turned out to be drivethru only with an AI voice assistant order taker and holy crap was it a fight to get the AI to give me a damn second to read the menu for a place I’d never been. The food was very good though
This is an awesome victory for fast food workers and unions. People constantly shit on the folks working in customer service and kitchen jobs, but they are often gruelling and unpleasant. The people there certainly deserve it more than the CEOs and shareholders exploiting them (I mean, I’m against the entire structure, but if we’re working within that structure, then ye .).
Here’s a (not so) funny anecdote: I went to Italy years ago and got McDonald’s equivalent of a double quarter pounder with cheese for shits and giggles. Dollar for euro, the price was about the same, if not a little cheaper, in Italy. Now couple that with the fact that Italians have access to healthcare, are paid a living wage, and have ample vacation pay.
These companies could pay their workers properly and provide benefits if they wanted to, they have the money. They don’t because fuck you
This is also anecdotal but I’ve met a lot of Italians where I now live and they all say pay and working conditions in Italy are poopoo. I suppose it’s all relative though.
Immigrants usually say that.
But central and southern Italy is like in a perpetuate state of Alabama.
I’ve no idea what that means but I’m sure it’s nice?
yee-a haw
Yeah when you think about how many meals they sell in an hour, they probably only need to charge less than 20 cents more for a meal to cover the cost of employees having a livable wage.
If were charging more for your burger in Italy, the difference in price was small enough to be unnoticeable. Because when you do the math, employees wages at a fast food joint isn’t a significant percentage of the price.
But did you ever stop to think about how Italy’s system impacts the most important among us: the wealthy shareholders? A truly humane system would prioritize them at all costs.
/s (should be obvious, but I’ll put it there to be safe.)
They still monkey around the hours in these places to avoid paying any employee too much. I’ve worked in similar industries and you have to fight for shifts, or deal with taking shifts last minute on your days off.
But muh freedumb
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minimum of 20 locations nationwide
And then, when this predictably puts all the small time, local food joints out of business, the people that vote for these clowns will be complaining that big corporations control everything.
Can you guys even see 10 inches in front of your own nose?
The raise takes effect on April 1 and applies to workers at restaurants that have at least 60 locations nationwide — with an exception for restaurants that make and sell their own bread, like Panera Bread.
Where did you get 20? And does your point about minimum locations make sense with also bringing up local joints who are explicitly exempt given said minimum?
Edit: I see, are you saying that small businesses won’t be able to compete with this new wage minimum? Valid point there.
A business that can’t pay its employees a living wage isn’t a business
Hear, hear.
My bad, 60. That’s even better. To get the good pay you have to work for a big corporation.
Yeah, the “exempt” ones will be in a situation where they’ll have to raise pay above what they can afford, thus going out of business, or have high turnover and high employee resentment. The end result of all of this is of course more big multinational control over the fast food industry.
I don’t wanna debate the subject or anything but I did want to point out that there ARE other factors that keep employees around besides wage especially at lower skill jobs where there is wide range of ages that could work there. If you’re a good boss to work for in a small business, less money could be worth better work environment.
A lot of people are scared of change. And im sure there are plenty of people don’t really try to achieve more on life than being content.
and also McDonald’s has had competitive pay above minimum wage for a while now. Idk I just don’t think this stuff will be such a pendulum swing as you anticipate because of these things so I wanted to share.
Well, my thoughts on that are 1) if you wouldn’t move for 20 an hour because the environment’s good, is $20 really a living wage? If you can stand $15 then that’s gotta he enough to live, right? 2) if people won’t achieve more than the minimum they need to get by, maybe that’s something we should just let happen, and 3) if companies are raising pay to stay competitive without government action, doesn’t that negate the argument used to institute stuff like this?
All of your arguments in this thread sound like someone who really has already made up their mind how they feel and you just say whatever feels right. Your last point alone is so silly, as if there hasn’t been decades of history proving otherwise. Maybe try focusing on listening for a while instead of trying to be right.
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Um… literally all of it? All you have shared are opinions.
You’re not only just stating your opinion but it’s also your opinion of what the consequences might be. Shit that hasn’t happened yet!! And you haven’t even used any source or data or even a reference to a specific time in history where something like this happened that leads you to believe in the consequences you’re insisting will happen, which would at least be something I could point to as true or not. So like, yeah man idk but you really do not be so stubborn about what you think might happen in the future.
Yeah the obvious solution to stop big businesses is removing all regulations. Once everyone is all getting paid below minimum wage, wages will magically go up and they’ll be better off.
And then something will trickle down or something
I never said anything about removing all regulations.
Just, think about the downstream impact of what you’re doing. This one’s fucking econ 101 level obvious, there’s a meme about shit this obvious involving a bicycle and a stick. There’s got to be a better, more well thought out idea. Here’s one off the top of my head: a 0.1% additional business tax for every location above 10 in the state that goes towards housing assistance for food service workers. That’s a win win; either you get more business diversity in the state or you get all the workers at all the fast food businesses a pay bump.
If you think this isn’t corporate capture and corrupt business politics you’re nuts. There’s a fucking exemption in the law for panera bread.
You’re worried about regulatory capture but you think it’s good sense to tie housing assistance to the employer?
Where did I say housing assistance was tied to an employer?
I literally don’t care if something is owned by a small or big business. The obsession of small businesses is absolutely stupid. I only care if prices are low and wages are high. If that means only “big businesses” can provide that because of economies of scale, than good for them, companies should be rewarded for doing that.
If “small businesses” want to compete they should provide equity, there’s literally nothing stopping that from happening.
There’s a local barber shop that I go to and in my province the min wage was increased 50% while the prices have climbed 80% since I started going to them. But guess what, there still the best price/service wise so I go to them. The chains cost more than double plus taxes. And a lot of the local neighboirhood goes to them.
The only business that complain about labour laws especially laws like this that put heavier burden on larger companies are poorly run companies.
I see good business treating people good so when things like this comes up it shows me that business people will always push against progress.
So you’re in favor of monopolization?
If it’s better for customers and workers what’s the problem (from a capitalist perspective)?
Do you want to punish success?
If small businesses become successful and grow do you want to purposefully stop them?
I always ask what is the difference between a small and big business and nobody gives a good answer.
Small business is always used as a shield to attack workers.
Genuinely, if they don’t offer a innovative product, what’s the point of “small business”? What’s the point of a “small business” barber/retail store/grocer/etc. besides better prices?
When does a “small business” become a “big business”? And should we stop that from happening?
It seems to me that “small business” is just entitled people. If those same people became a “big business” they would want to crush their competition (i.e. “small business”) look at Bill Gates/Steve Jobs against IBM.
The only thing that “small business” people want is for them to be the owner of a “big business”. That’s it.
If you actually care about distribution of ownership and wealth. You’d advocate for co-operatives, ESOPs and distributed ownership structures. Otherwise I don’t care.
The issue is that this inevitably leads to monopolization. When a large business is able to keep competitors out of the market, they eventually are able to raise prices without any competition which is drastically worse for consumers. There are many reasons why monopolies have historically been broken by the government and why the government should continue doing so. It’s not for anyone’s best interest other than the shareholders.
How did the big business become a big business?
I have literally seen a small business expand beyond my city and become regional over a couple decades. And probably will try to be national chains.
From a capitalist perspective. What’s bad about monopolization? For big businesses to be big business they need to have success. Why do you want to break success? Why do you want to pick winners and losers?
I don’t believe in any of that. I prefer distributed ownership and benefits.
If the consumers own their own stores through a consumer cooperative than they can set the prices for themselves. And hence don’t need “competition”. And since the shareholders would be the members (i.e. the consumers), in a consumer cooperative, then that means they’ll benefit. No need to have any billionaire tyrant either local nor from a big box store.
From a capitalist perspective, there’s nothing wrong with monopolization. The issue is with the capitalist perspective, itself.
I don’t believe in any of that. I prefer distributed ownership and benefits.
That’s good. I thought I was debating some free market psycho. I think we agree on this.
Uh… no? It’s right there at the bottom:
The raise takes effect on April 1 and applies to workers at restaurants that have at least 60 locations nationwide
Small time, local food joints would not be required to raise wages above the current minimum. They’d actually be able to compete more.
What the heck are you smoking?
OK I fat fingered 20 instead of 60. That’s even better for my argument. To get the good pay you have to work for a huge multinational. Who else has 60 locations in the US alone?
What are you smoking? You know there’s a labor market right? And companies compete for workers? Imagine you run a taco shack and every one of your employees is waiting for the minute there’s an opening across the street at taco bell, or the opening of the new burger king down the street. What do you do? High turnover and employee resentment or raise wages? If raising wages means going out of business you’re stuck.
And then small minded people like you will be in a thread in 2 years quoting statistics showing how big corporations are putting smaller ones out of business and taking over all the industries, even going so far as to blame corrupt politicians and corporate capture, conveniently forgetting that you cheered on the very corporate capture legislation that led to it.
This is what I knew you meant and very good points by the way.
They all just showed their own absolute ignorance about how an economy actually functions by their responses.
I would rather see the franchisees go under for a more limited impact to the economy overall (more inflation).
idk personally I think if you can’t pay a living wage you don’t have a business model, you have a loophole of exploitive policy. Like, you’re saying all this and I’m hearing “but without slaves to pick my cotton I’ll go out of business!” good
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This is the fast food lobby’s main talking point. Personally, I don’t disagree. Decide a living wage, make that the bare minimum for everyone. The talking point however is that “my poor wittle small business can’t afford to pay people enough money to live please daddy let me continue the exploitation.”
Indeed - not saying I agree, but this is the main talking point from the fast food companies. It’s not fair they have to pay more when (sometimes) slightly smaller businesses do not.
Smoking the usual “reactionary right-wing ignorance”
And they’re fucking addicted to it. Get your facts out of here.
Y’all got any more o’ that ignorance? I’m tired of knowing shit at this point.
Now what about the rest of everyone? There need to be regulations for everyone, including gig workers, to make more money.
Gig workers gimped themselves voting to remain as contractors in prop 22. And now there’s that stupid 80%(?) majority rule to make amendments.
In those workers’ defense, the delivery companies spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a disinformation campaign to trick the public into thinking that voting for 22 was in their own interest.
It’s absurd that it was on the ballot in the first place.
In those workers’ defense, the delivery companies spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a disinformation campaign to trick the public into thinking that voting for 22 was in their own interest.
Probably the single easiest proof that the companies see the proposed changes as a threat to their bottom line. They’re not spending that much money for their workers, they believe it’ll cost less to sway opinion than it would to change policy. That people still buy into the bs is really disheartening.
I was one of those tricked 😔
Yep, I remember riding in Ubers and conversing with the drivers about it at the time. A lot of their responses were to the effect of “well Uber told us X on a notification on my phone.” And I would ask them do you really think Uber has your best interest in mind? I hope I actually woke a few of them up, but most did little to no research, and were actively telling people to vote for it.
For people who are afraid that raising wages will mean less people employed: for the most part, wage demand is pretty inelastic. Studies have shown that wages changes really don’t mess with numbers employed that much. Most places only want to employ the least number of people they can already. They can’t go lower, generally.
Of course it doesn’t. The amount of money these people make is insignificant compared to the billions siphoned off by corporations to payout themselves and their shareholders. Wage suppression is about control.
So now that ca is at 20$. Why is tipping still a thing?
This is only for fast food workers, who generally don’t get tips.
Money is literally worth half of what it was when I graduated high school in the 90s. My senior year I worked as a grocery clerk and made $9.50/hr while in a small city in Oregon (not expensive California). Math works out for me.
Well, there’s this, and this to say you’re right. Had the minimum wage tracked in line with production, it would be ~$26 today. If it had tracked in line with inflation, it would probably be closer to $21.45.
That it’s been flatlined for so long means people working for minimum wage have been getting steady pay cuts for 50 years.
It also happens that this is one of the reasons social security is straining financially- they were able to predict the demographic bulge of the baby boomers well enough, but they weren’t able to predict that wages would be constrained in the way they have been- and wages are the basis for Social Security’s funding.
I’ll just leave this here
This website gets posted a lot but the site itself doesn’t really give any context, it’s just nudges and winks. And people posting it never really give any context either.
So here is some more context.
Go after those who caused the increased cost of living not employees who are simply trying to survive because of it.
rents have probably doubled in the last decade, absurd to think that wages wouldn’t need to go up. Groceries in the last year as well. COVID was clearly a cover to gouge.
So that would put it at 31 Aud dollars or so.
There a trades that take 4 year apprenticeships in Australia that are paid less than this or very close too.
Fast food joints shouldn’t be a place to build a career, they’re a place for students etc to work.
If you want high living wages go to school or get a trade, minimum effort jobs are not for grown adults.
Fast food joints shouldn’t be a place to build a career, they’re a place for students etc to work.
Soooo who exactly is going to serve lunch when school is in session?
Uni isnt every day 10 hours a day
Then never in your life go to a fast food joint at 10 am on a Tuesday.
In terms of pure dollar amount, it should by adjusted by PPP. It should be a wage to live off of. I’m in engineering, a few years into my career, I am well paid but I should be paid more, relative to CoL. I should be doing very well even if I have a family not doing well because I don’t have one.
That’s the thing people always miss. It’s not that the fast food workers getting $20 is high, it’s that every profession should be getting paid more. Wages across the board are stagnant.
…unless you’re a CEO. Wages, especially minimum, have been stagnant to declining for decades, meanwhile CEO and c-level pay is up like 900x. Whatever this raise costs in aggregate, I will nearly guarantee you can probably look to increase in compensation package for like 10 people in CA at most who are getting the same amount next year.
Yes, I should have more clear. I was speaking specifically about the workers, not executives.
oh yeah, that’s not a clapback, just furthering your point that if you think the problem is the guy who still probably can barely pay their rent, you’re woefully ignorant.
Oh yes, very much agreed. It’s infuriating.
Fast food joints shouldn’t be a place to build a career, they’re a place for students etc to work.
This is why you can’t buy fast food during school hours. Seriously, stop with this bootlicking, boomer classist bullshit myth. All work deserves dignity and a living wage. Aside from that, I will near guarantee that you apply this across the industry, you’ve just closed about 85% of restaurants and hospitality (retail, etc) as most of the people working there are not students. Also, it’s NOT easy work which is another bullshit line. It’s like that old trope about the plumber that comes out and twists one knob and the guy that called them says “you only twisted one knob! Why should I pay you $300?” and the plumber says “because I knew which knob to twist.” Fast food and this type of work is a lot like that, except we don’t pay them well enough for most to stay long enough to know which knob.
Tbh, if fast food employees were paid their worth, there is a decent chance that customer cost would go down because they’d usually be closer to max efficiency and the restaurant would spend less money on things like lawsuits and fines and such because the “manager” had more than 10 minutes of experience and training before promotion.
What an incredibly bad and ignorant take. If you can make more money flipping burgers, trades will have no choice but to raise their wages to compete. Or, quit your job and go flip burgers if that’s a better deal.
Fast food places are so fundamental as a stepping stone to building a career and to say only children who are exploited should be working there only says you are ok exploiting children.
If someone is working to serve you your food, they deserve a living wage.
Students uni etc not children.
Ok here’s a revised paragraph for you:
Fast food places are so fundamental as a stepping stone to building a career and to say only young adults who are exploited should be working there only says you are ok exploiting young adults.
Ouch on those age numbers.
If they’re meant for students than you wouldn’t be mad if they were closed during the day would you? Since that’s when students are in school and all.
Sounds like the trades are being underpaid.
Hopefully this will cause a push to higher wages across the board. California is expensive to live in, and $20 / hr is reasonable, but difficult, to live on.
You can get 20/hr + jobs pretty fucking easily in California
Bullshit. I live in Los Angeles. Good luck getting $20+ / hr anywhere.
Bay area SF SJ area 20 is basicallt the nee minimum, lots of security jobs pay 22-25 for no experience
And the minimum wage in that area should be at least $30-40+ to live there.
Lol. It won’t.
Yet
