This blog post is comes from a discussion on Micky D's workers striving for $15/hr. I suggested that if they got that wage, the end result would be the creation of robotic fast food processes and the elimination of many of the low wage jobs that industry has.

That notion drew some conversation and I did a data dump on the real scope of issue.

Wow....I agree with Pubby. What's this world coming too?!

 

Edit to add...maybe I'm confused and don't really agree with Pubby. It's been a long day

It is okay to agree with me cptlo

So your solution is to make the business pay these wages just because the people who work them are entitled to the jobs and wages. If they try doing that then more places will look like Detroit. That city died because unions demanded more and more. If the fast food industry ups the price of food they will go the way of the auto industry. Doubt they will ask for bailouts though they will just close their doors.

Not at all. I'm saying if they had unions which could negotiate retaining employees, they would (like auto workers) give up some jobs, agree to lower wages for some of the jobs that remain and do that through negotiation. If the fast food workers are unable to unionize, which is almost certain in right to work states like Georgia, the likelihood of those jobs surviving the next five or ten years - especially with a wage increase - very problematic.

NJ, I just don't think you or a lot of the folks on the right get it. The reason that employment has not rebounded is because businesses are investing in automation at an increasingly rapid rate. There aren't good jobs because industries from wall street - they've got computers that do trades faster and better than low-level traders - to factories which are moving back here because the robots work cheaper and more productively than do Chinese workers. With the doubling of computing power every 18 months advances in AI and controls, these 'machines' are taking jobs and will take more and more jobs.

I'm personally looking forward to the conflict with the conservative union called the teamsters are going to react when truck drivers become obsolete in probably about a decade.

The traditional solutions to this dramatic and rapid societal change is on an order of magnitude greater than the industrial revolution, NJ. Change is happening and happening faster than we imagine. It is mind boggling and the bad news is that reactionary approaches to the problems promise disaster.

Pubster... if you are even remotely serious about that comment then I would have to say we finally agree ojn something.

I'm convinced of it, seriously.

I don't know why a strike hasn't happened sooner. I wouldn't work there for $15.00 an hour, even. As for as I'm concerned people can make theior own burgers.

 

Pubby is not serious, on his last reply. He is trying his hand at being a comedian.

Oh, but I am serious TP. I think the dislocations in employment and by extension in the social stratification could become a time of great social unrest - depending on the leadership - more divisive than that of the early part of the 20th century. That these changes are happening in rapid fashion world-wide will exacerbate social conflict.

I think that it is extremely important for these jobs to exist at a minimum wage. The kids today do not understand what it means to work hard to get to the next level because they are given so much for nothing. They have already learned in school that they don't have to keep up with their studies because they will be given the chance to just make it up at the end of the semester. I completely agree with one of the posters that stated that these jobs are not supposed to be careers but a starting point. As far as standing on your feet for eight hours, waa waa waa! I worked at Six Flags for LESS than minimum wage sometimes working 10 hours a day then went to work at Davison's (Macy's)and stood on my feet for eight hours and dealt with asshats all the time. I knew this was not what I wanted for my life. I went to Georgia Pacific Corp and got a data entry job which was an entry level position. I worked hard and was noticed by the office manager. I was promoted to secretary of the accounting department. This was the beginning of my career in secretarial and accounting. I now have a great job, a college degree, and I can say that I was never handed anything that I didn't work for. Sometimes you have to make your own opportunities and like Ashton Kutcher said a couple of weeks ago, "most opportunities look a whole lot like hard work".

Tatertot; the notion of entitlement is one of the wild-cards in the coming social conflicts. The good news, if there is good news, is that the nature of work itself - what constitutes work and how it relates to one's individual survival - literally its definition - is one of the major changes we face.

I will say one last thing before I resume ignoring you...

 

It certainly is not republicans that want illegal aliens.

 

Just RINOs and democrats.

 

And stupid people.

I can only say that your attitude in regard to immigrants ignores the fact that the world's society is much more tightly integrated than anytime ever in history and the issues that confront us as a nation also confront the world as a whole.

Immigrants come in two flavors; there are those who are adapted to the future and there are those who are essentially economic refugees from failing nation states that are unwilling or unable to address the issues that confront their populations.

Throw in the big brother aspect of the NSA - and they're big brother for the world if that hasn't dawned on you. (Much of their signals intelligence gathering is obviously foreign, you know.)

The problems we face with immigration are unique to us. The EU also faces issues as the world becomes more 'the society' than any individual nation. The rise of multi-national corporations coupled with not just the gridlock of our national government but the lack of any thing other than a joke as parading as international authority, foreshadows conflicts between commercial entities that have captured and using their wealth to co-opt the governments of nation-states.

Oh, and cmorg, these multi-national corporations represent the power thrust of that group you call RINO's ... and are a key part of the GOP. And don't think these entities don't have their hooks in the Democratic party too.

Indeed, my gut is that these entities are likely behind the ineffectiveness we all see in our national leadership - the national leadership they provide us. Oh, and the gridlock? I feel that is just part of the strategy of these powerful institutions whose design is to convince us all that our vote doesn't count and that government just doesn't work but can't work to solve problems.

pubby

Source: McDonald's Workers Strike For Higher Wages