Carl's Jr. CEO Readies Robot Workforce to Counter Rising Wages

[Mortuorum]

Like it or not, we live in an age of globalization and extremely rapid technological advancement. The job of management is to maximize productivity, defined as the ratio of output to inputs used in the production process (O/I). Inputs include labor and capital (including the costs of purchasing and maintaining equipment; i.e. automation). To improve productivity, you need to increase outputs or decrease inputs. Generally speaking, it is easier and more effective to decrease inputs than it is to increase outputs.

I'm getting a headache and flashback to the annual company email at my last work reading that (where I was made redundant hehe XD)

Sorry, based on earlier posts, I thought some "Business 101" was required there.

[quote/]
Some forward-thinking economists have suggested that we're approaching a tipping point where we will need to start paying people a basic living "wage" not to work because automation will become so much more efficient than labor. That is an idea Americans rankle at because it's fundamentally at odds with the American work ethic.

its add odds with the way modern society is structured....everything from the cradle to retirement is often geared (sometimes unfortunately) for the purpose of "getting a good job"

a little left of field but I did wonder were we able to implement a basic income...what kind of social programs could be implemented to keep people fulfilled and engaged with life. We're not used to doing things for the sake of doing things or being masters of our own time...but I think its doable, because you ask most people about their jobs they usually wish they could be doing something else

on one hand I am very wary and fundamentally against forcing people to do shit for "their own good" (looking at "work for the dole" programs in my own country) on the other I worry you wouldn't want to foster a population of angoraphobic shut ins who do nothing but consume corporate mass produced entertainment all day.....[sub/]sounds terrible I wouldn't know anything about that...[/sub][/quote]
There's lots of different ways this could go, and it will take people a lot smarter than me to figure that out.

Best case, we wind up in a Star Trek-like scenario where people are free to exchange ideas, create and consume art, etc. The basic living stipend would be adequate to live comfortably and afford a few luxuries. People who want to work (or are willing to perform work that can't be automated) would be be compensated beyond the basic stipend and be able to afford nicer things. Worst case, we wind up with something like Max Headroom (for anyone like me who's old enough to remember that).

 

[Vault101]

Best case, we wind up in a Star Trek-like scenario where people are free to exchange ideas, create and consume art, etc. The basic living stipend would be adequate to live comfortably and afford a few luxuries. People who want to work (or are willing to perform work that can't be automated) would be be compensated beyond the basic stipend and be able to afford nicer things.

I think eather way there will be unforeseen pitfalls but also perhaps in such a system we wouldn't have the same ideas about "stuff" and "value" although what kind of social hierarchy would come from it....who knows really

 

[Zenja]

It's called a minimum wage job for a reason people. Minimum. Wage.
If you can't make a living off of it, work hard to get a better job? I did. Everyone else I know did.

"minimum wage jobs" shouldn't be viewed as temporary jobs for kids/students as there are many factors that can prevent people from "moving onwards" not to mention that jobs of any kind are not in infinite supply

The answer isn't to raise minimum wage, it is to get those at the top to be willing to part with their cashflow. Imagine if businesses like this paid $15/hr even if minimum wage was $7/hr. Imagine if The workers made minimum wage + 10% of the weekly gross income split between all workers. (An average night at a place like McDonalds pulls in roughly $20k here so all 30 workers would split $14,000 on average every week, more if they can encourage more business. The business still retains $126,000 of the weekly income while paying out an additional $470 to each employee on top of their $300 paycheck more than doubling their salary. If they drive down business, it hurts their salary, if they drive up business the reverse is true. All the franchise owner/business is out is a measely 10% to ensure customer service. It isn't hard to pull in $200,000+ a week with good service and everybody wins. The company still retaining $180k of that 200k and its workers being able to not scape by.

The problem with raising minimum wage is that is set the bar on the new minimum wage and there is no law in place to make business not raise their prices as a response. If everyone makes 50k a year tomorrow, candy bars will cost $10 because they CAN and people would probably be foolish enough to go ahead and pay for it because "now they can afford to" setting the new standard and driving poverty even higher once every single market raises prices and it once again gets too expensive to live. Remember, consumers lead where the market goes, so consumers helped to put us here, not just corporate fat cats. People will complain about these practices and how it stands against what they believe in, and then go buy a burger there and support the practice. If this was as upsetting as some claim, businesses like this would go out of business fast.

An organized consumer movement is needed more than a minimum wage increase. But that means we consumers have to organize, make a clear message to send out, then boycott, and that requires caring more than simply crying out about it on the internet.

 

[Zeriu]

Makes you wonder, is it worse to always be poor, or to get up there only to lose your job?

That's what I've always wondered. I live in a third world country, and like China, one of our advantages is cheap labor. If the standard of living gets better, and everyone gets a bit more financially stable, then we lose that advantage, and then we have a situation like this where CEOs would rather replace everyone with robots. Maybe we should just make being poor not so bad. Or we could force the corporations to keep their employees on.

I dunno. I know nothing about this.

This is one of the few genuine posts in this thread. The truth is that the future is sneaking up humanity. There will come a time when human labor will be entirely replaced by robots. I think we should talk about that scenario more, because I feel that the world is completely unprepared.

I don't find it useful to bash this CEO as well. He's right, why wouldn't he want to replace Suzie and Sally with something that doesn't have all the extra baggage that comes with being a human in the workforce. His statements about politics are dumb, but what do you expect, a lot of people have fucked up opinions. Some of them are in the running for president.

 

[shirkbot]

Hello there

Hello to you too

Sorry to cut in, but I was just listening to a podcast yesterday where they were talking about the detrimental effects of the "growth imperative" on businesses. It just seemed to tie-in nicely to what you guys were talking about.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/doug-rushkoff-says-companies-should-stop-growing/

OT: I'm not sure how immediate a threat automation it, but I tend to favor preparing for the worst because it will almost certainly happen sooner or later. I will say that part of the reason to hike the wages through legislation is to make it so prices go up marginally across the board. That way you avoid one company paying workers better at the cost of sales because everyone has to adjust at the same time. It's basically a cheat to avoid both competition and collusion.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I wouldn't want to eat in a robot serving restaurant as i would rather deal with a human.

 

[Callate]

...And when the robot fails to notice my burger is still pink through the middle and laced with e. coli? Hell, what if there's a smaller error- a missing ingredient or side order, a flavor that's out on the drink machine- how do I appeal to the robots that they got it wrong?

This is the sort of "solution" you come up with if you never eat fast food and have been making several orders of magnitude more than the minimum wage for decades.

 

[flarty]

The long term trend of automating more and more jobs will spell the end for capitalism (or at least how we know it) and will spell the down fall of those who are pushing for its implementation. What the rich do not realise is that the economy is a circular system to an extent. By automating more and more jobs, less and less people will be earning, meaning these rich idiots well be decimating there own customer base. Eventually this will of course reach a tipping point when the capitalist system will fall apart, either through an economy where no money is really circulating, or through horrendous debt (more than we have now) to fund a welfare state in a futile and desperate attempt to keep the money circulating. You can't keep hoarding more and more cash and expect it too keep working, that's including the estimated $32 trillion already hidden in offshore accounts.

But hey ho, I'm not a fan of the current system and can't wait for it to fail, so let the greed of the 1% be their own undoing. Hopefully a better one can built to the benefit of everyone after.

 

[zelda2fanboy]

It's always classy to see political grandstanding and fear mongering from a millionaire. My town is packed to the gills with fast food restaurants, but it lost all of its Hardees more than a decade ago. That food was disgusting, even by fast food standards. By comparison to Carls Jr's 3000 locations, McDonalds has over 14,000 stores and has pay that starts at $10 / hour. That's well over my state's minimum wage, which is one of the highest in the country. If you think installing and maintaining robots is cheaper than that when it comes to preparing food, then you're nuts. Most of the people I see when I eat fast food are the elderly anyways and I highly doubt they'll appreciate automated fast food locations. The man is just publicly lobbying to support his bottom line, which is important when your business sucks.

 

[EbonBehelit]

Of course he sees competitive wages for the working class as a problem - that type of thinking is endemic to the profit-margin-obsessed social elite that run all these enterprises.

I'm estimating that automation is going to replace almost half of the current workforce in the next 25 years. At this stage, it looks unlikely that unemployment in First World countries is ever going to trend back down again.

Eventually, things will get so bad that a Universal Basic Income will become a standard throughout First World nations. It's either that or total anarchy.

 

[Mikeybb]

He's spouting trickle-down economics and it DOES NOT WORK.

I've always thought the concept of "trickle down economics" can best be explained through the following image.

Followed by this one.

Best explained that is in a safe for work way.

The other options would have involved either that gif of the oblivious handler standing in exactly the wrong place when an elephant decides to let go, or the mad max scene from Fury Road if I could have found it complete.

Suffice to say whenever I see a person exalting the virtues of 'Trickle Down Economics', I come away with the feeling I've been pissed on and someone is confused as to why I'm not grateful for the shower.

 

[mysecondlife]

Carl's should really prioritize on making bikini clad fembots as well. I'm sure models are expensive.

 

[Qizx]

It's called a minimum wage job for a reason people. Minimum. Wage.
If you can't make a living off of it, work hard to get a better job? I did. Everyone else I know did.

Yeah as so many other people have said there is SO much wrong with this.

"I beat cancer with this treatment, YOU SHOULD TO."
"I was able to run 100M in 10Seconds, YOU SHOULD TO."

This is coming from a person who worked in minimum wage jobs for a while and now am living comfortably with a pretty nice salary. I had A LOT of help, from friends, family, etc... Not everyone can do what I did, in fact very few people have the luxuries I do/did.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Man, a lot of luddites on here.

For starters, I think people are taking the concept of "robots" and running a little far with it. I'm pretty sure he's largely talking about this:

which is really not all that different from the large number of cashiers who have been replaced at Supermarkets by the "do it yourself" check out lanes.

2nd, by the logic a lot of people seem to be espousing here, we should have banned Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Redbox in order to make sure that video stores like Blockbuster video and Hollywood Video stayed in business. After all, thousands upon thousands of people lost their jobs when those places went under. How about all the music/record stores that went under when ITunes and IPods became a thing (not to mention CD manufacturers)? How about all the banks who were able to cut down the # of tellers they needed when ATMs were invented? It's called 'creative destruction', and it's been going on since basically time immemorial. We're always inventing things that either completely replace or cut down the need for as much manpower, and people always fear it and claim it will lead to out of control unemployment, but it never does (it's called the "luddite fallacy" in Economics).

3rd, people don't get paid based upon how hard they work (for the most part): they get paid because of their ability to do something that other people can't do (or in some cases won't do) that people are willing to pay for. This is why pro athletes make so much money: you can argue all you want that their job "isn't that important", but the truth is that only a small % of people are capable of ever playing in the NFL, NBA, MLB, etc. Surgeons get paid 100x what a fast food worker does not because the Surgeon necessarily works 100x harder than the person at Mickey D's, it's because the vast majority of people are physically and mentally capable of working fast food, while only a small % of people are physically and mentally capable of being Surgeons. Supply and demand.

 

[Ukomba]

Just goes to show, the MINIMUM wage is always going to be 0. If a worker does $10 worth of work for the company, and they cost $15, then either lay that person off or the company fails.

 

[lacktheknack]

...and then no one bought the bot-burgers because no one has any money. ;___;

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Perhaps you could take a pay cut yourself first, Mr. CEO? How much money do you make a year again? More than probably every single one of your employees combined will see in their lifetime? Or perhaps you could maybe raise the price of a few items by a few cents? A dime might not seem like much by itself, but if you 5,000 of them, that's $50,000.
Pretty sure it's statements like this that lead to the whole, "We are the 99%!" movement. This guy comes off as an ass. No one--except other well-off 'I-have-so-much-money-I-could-never-spend-it-all-but-I-want-MORE!' people--is going to feel sorry for this guy. He's complaining about paying people while it sits in a corner greedily hoarding his wealth.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Perhaps you could take a pay cut yourself first, Mr. CEO? How much money do you make a year again? More than probably every single one of your employees combined will see in their lifetime? Or perhaps you could maybe raise the price of a few items by a few cents? A dime might not seem like much by itself, but if you 5,000 of them, that's $50,000.
Pretty sure it's statements like this that lead to the whole, "We are the 99%!" movement. This guy comes off as an ass. No one--except other well-off 'I-have-so-much-money-I-could-never-spend-it-all-but-I-want-MORE!' people--is going to feel sorry for this guy. He's complaining about paying people while it sits in a corner greedily hoarding his wealth.

I decided to do a little research:
-Andy Puzder (the Carl's Jr. CEO) makes about $4.5 million in salary (before taxes)
-The highest US tax bracket is 39%, so it means after income taxes, Puzder takes home $2,745,000/year.
-Carl's Jr. has about 1356 locations worldwide.
-I couldn't find exact employment numbers, but the average fast food joint has 15.71 employees, so 15.71x1356=21,303 Carl's Jr. fast food workers.
-$2,745,000/21,303=$128.85.
-A person making minimum wage ($7.25) working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year brings home $15,080.

In other words, if the CEO of Carl's Jr. gave away every penny of his salary after taxes to his low-level employees, his employees would get a whopping $129 more each year. That's an increase of 0.008%.

Saying he should "take a pay cut" is a cop-out, it would do essentially nothing.

 

[Worgen]

snip

Somehow, I doubt the rich asshole needs your defending. I think he has enough money without it.

 

[Fox12]

It's a tricky situation with no clear answers.
I'd say we need to move towards human enlightenment being the goal and material possession being standardized in some way.
No clue how though, since someone always strives to be on top, or worse - acts behind the scenes.

An alternative would be benevolent dictatorship with clear cut rules.

Macro societal handling aside, he's within his right to do so. It sucks, but that's the open market for you.

I wonder if we're beginning to reach a point where capitalism is obsolete.

Enlightenment is great and all, and you may be right, but the transition will be incredibly painful. What do we do when we reach the point where human labor simply isn't needed anymore.