quote:
Originally posted by kalakoa
raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour by April 1st 2015
Phase 1: $10/hr by 4/1/15. The full $15 by 2017-2021, depending on the size of the business.
Loophole: subminimum "training wage" for first 90 days.
Irony: franchisees claiming they're actually "small businesses" who just happen to be licensees of the major national brand.
If I understand correctly, Seattle raised the minimum wage, not the entire state of Washington. Washington has large agricultural employment using migrant laborers from Mexico that are paid by the piece, (for example, picking a flat of strawberries, paid by the flat) not an hourly wage. Don't worry, many of these products are labeled as organic, so you can buy them without any guilt.
In other news, facing criticism for not paying fast food workers a "living wage", the fast food giants are planning to replace many workers with automation, many of them expecting to reduce the number of employees by about a third. Some have already experimented with routing the drive through mic/speaker via VOIP to a call center in India, where a contractor enters the information into a computer that will appear in the kitchen where the car is at in the USA. The next step is to connect such a system with the automated equipment that will prepare most of the meal. Other options being explored are to push the ordering process onto the customer's cell phones via apps linked to the building's wifi.
For every action, there is an unexpected consequence. Some fast food workers will eventually get their living wage, however they will probably be the ones repairing the equipment that replaced their co-workers.
When I was a kid, things were a lot easier. Most of the fast food workers were teenagers in high school, not adult college graduates or sole wage earners, and they didn't need or expect a living wage.
