The rumor I heard was that McDonalds would be outsourcing the job of taking orders at the drive-thru window to some company in North Dakota, because the minimum wage in North Dakota is only $5.15, whereas it's higher in other states, so they figure they can save some money. In other words, you could be going through a drive-thru in San Diego and giving your order to some guy in North Dakota. This struck me as very odd. But it appears that
the story is basically true, except that
McDonalds denies that its reasons for doing this has anything to do with trying to pay their employees less. They claim that when employees have to take orders over the drive-thru mic and deliver food at the same time, they start making a lot of mistakes. So this is just an effort to make the system more efficient. Maybe. But I've read
Fast Food Nation so I know that McDonalds is one of the worst companies in terms of underpaying their employees, and I'm guessing that they are hoping this will reduce labor costs.
Comments
I never ate at McDonald's to being with, I've hated their food even when I was a kid, but after watching Super Size Me, that just sealed the deal.
And you should NEVER feel like you have to "stand around" waiting to be acknowledged. That's why the words EXCUSE ME were invented. Personally, I think if you were waiting in the lobby that long, you should have just walked out. They probably spit in your food anyway.
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1106398522172300.xml#continue
Also, the company is called SEI-CCS, not CCS-SEI, so the link in the blogcritics article doesn't work.
Their actual website is http://www.seiccs.com/
Maybe sending them email or phoning them will get some answers, and stop the debate right there.
Have fun with that.
If McDonalds wants to run fluffy ads, let them. You don't really believe them, do you? Is it wrong for them to claim to be part of the community and pay minimum wage? I don't think so. Lots of private citizens don't support charities but they consider themselves part of the community. As long as a business pays its corporate tax, it has fulfilled its obligations just like everyone else. Any contributions to charities should be considered a bonus. For many young people, a fast food job is their first. They gain valuable job skills to take with them to the next one. They were never meant to be careers. But if someone chooses to drop out of school to flip burgers, they don't have my sympathy. Amoral, libertarianism? No, just real world common sense.
The wage thing by the way, is a double-edged sword. I know a town where fast food places pay more than double the minimum wage. Why? Because they can't get enough workers. But I don't hear those employees saying. "Well everywhere else they work for minimum wage so we can only accept that amout.", nor would I expect them to.
Competition helps ensure the consumer gets the best value. Our elected officials are responsible to make sure it is done in a fair way and punish those who break the rules. If they don't, they are at fault. We should be kicking their asses, not corportation's. If employers want to outsource to get an advantage, then we shouldn't stop them. What makes a mayor in Oregon think his town is any more deserving of those jobs than a town in North Dakota?
Though, now that I wrote that I see the fault. Each individual McDonalds still probably would need the same amount of people working just to put the orders together, so it would actually cause McD's to have to hire more employees with the outsourcing.
Well, if they really want to save money, they should outsource it to Mexico! ...I was just going to make a joke by writing "Do you want fries with that?" in spanish before I realized I don't really know any spanish.....Oh well, jokes on me then.
"McDonald's has outsourced its drive-thru orders to the same communications group that operated GWBs earpiece during last year's debates. Want lies with that?"
Would you like to Super Size those lies?
So McDonald's is going to invade Iran now?
The complaint are in the thousands.
"They actually believe that someone completely undistracted and doing something they do every single day, over and over again is going to be more accurate and faster than an employee taking orders while trying to prepare massive ass orders where most of the sandwiches have to be made special, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, while being glared at by bitchy ass customers on the front counter who believe they could do better, and who will never respect him because he works fast food, all while being lectured by his manager about how he expects him to get the drive thru times down."
Well, yeah, OR they're a bunch of cheap corporate fucks who want to pay people as little as possible, regardless of whether it's a living wage of not. Yeah, there's that.
endurance, having genital herpes is no reason that you won't find a boyfriend who is a model, acne will go away, clothes will make you look good, pills will make you happy, and car dealerships want to make YOU a good deal.
Commercials are always crap. Stop babbling about how corporations are out to *gasp* make money, and start doing something about it like a) not eating mcdonalds, b) getting other people to not eat mcdonalds, c) understand why corporations have unfair advantages over other businesses, and d) organize a PAC or something to demand repeal of all the legislation that creates their unfair advantage.
Good luck, because it's going to be hard. I have 5 - 1 odds, you won't do more than 1 of those things for over a month, and be back on here bitching about the next travesty McDonald's does. The only fast food bludgeoning I can think of is "the enormous omelette sandwich"; that thing just LOOKS nasty. ugh! thus, began my boycott of BK.
Anyway, Spurlock said it in SS Me, you're not going to change corporate behavior, unless you can change consumer behavior. Thus your angst should be less dedicated to the board and CEO of McDonald's, but rather to the entire population of America, including our government officials.
Ah, i get so frustrated with this mentality. Ok, I used to know a guy who managed a McDonald's. He said that their margin of profit isn't that great. That's why they're only supposed to give you ketchup packets if you ask, because they destroy the profit margin when they give everyone 4 or more packets of ketchup. Now imagine what giving every minimum wage employee 2 extra dollars an hour would do? There would be less mcdonalds, and certainly fewer employees. Even still, there are fast food employees I encounter who I feel aren't worth 5.15 an hour for their service. Paying them 7.15 won't make them into better workers magically; however, I would assume their would be less of these positions; so now the incompetant worker you wanted to see "fairly treated" is now in the unemployment line, milking up tax money ineffeciently.
Here's a better idea, everytime YOU go to McDonald's, give the workers and extra $20 tip for their invaluable service they so sweetly earned.
I would also like to point out that the government is historically the worst business in history.
"Ok, I used to know a guy who managed a McDonald's. He said that their margin of profit isn't that great. That's why they're only supposed to give you ketchup packets if you ask, because they destroy the profit margin when they give everyone 4 or more packets of ketchup."
I find that to be highly unlikely. At the prices they charge, they're THAT close to losing money on each burger? In other words, even at a volume of billions, their WHOLESALE cost is only about three cents below their RETAIL price? If I was a McDonalds stockholder (and if that were true), I'd be very concerned about it.
"Paying them 7.15 won't make them into better workers magically."
However, on the other hand, somehow paying them the lowest wage allowable by law gives them LOADS of motivation?
Do you remember the "sub-minimum wage" that was proposed several years ago by the Republicans? They referred to it as a "training wage." It was going to be a reduced rate of pay for the first six months of a person's employment. Mickey D's was very much in favor of that. Guess why. It had a LOT to do with the fact that the average McDonalds employee doesn't last more than six months.
Their employee turn-over, like Wal-Mart's, is huge, in some stores exceeding one hundred percent annually (in other words, some positions turn over more than twice per year on average).
Is it just possible that, with an actual living wage, they might not have so much turn-over? Wouldn't that lower their costs? Maybe they could even afford to not ration the catchup packets. Gee, you might even see some more competant workers since they would actually have been at their jobs for more than a few weeks.
"I would also like to point out that the government is historically the worst business in history."
Government is not a business. It doesn't exist to make a profit, just for starters. Duh.
2) There clearly is a debate, as the last two pages show. Whether or not there needs to be one is a different matter.
3) It's hardly the first time jobs have been outsourced.
4) We'd be in exactly in the same place, but possibly less cholesterol-riddled.
There may not need to be one, but since I can see the proof at this very moment, it's ludicrous to say otherwise.
And again, it's considered rude to type in all caps - the online equivilant of shouting - and people are more likely to take you seriously if you don't.
PS: GET OVER YOURSELF WITH TYPING IN ALL CAPS, MY PP IS SET TO ALL CAPS AND I AM NOT CHANGING IT TO APPEASE YOU!
Which has been going on for the last two pages.
You may be right, but that doesn't mean that there has been no debate.
Get over myself? I'm just speaking for all the people who appreciate not being 'shouted' at over the internet.
I've been nothing but polite to you, so I can't help thinking that my thinking of you as rude has just been confirmed.
I understand your point, but that's no excuse.
The reason for doing it is NOT to save money on labor. Although they can spread out the talking to customers bit so that they don't need one person per store, It still takes somebody at the store to actually hand-out food, etc. Plus, there are expenses involved in running a call center, such as the location of the employees and infrastructure to make the connection, computers, and software to transmit orders back to the store (where the food is prepared and served). All things considered, it might cost slightly more to do it with a call center. Foremost among the reasons, is the desire to provide a CONSISTENT customer service experience. Imagine, one place where several people are taking all of the orders and being supervised in their work.
On a side note, keep in mind that McDonalds is one of those "for profit" companies and will probably abandon the idea if it doesn't seem to be working. As far as paying employees less, a similar project I know of is paying its employees the same rate as the store employee(which is low anyway, we're not talking about skilled labor).
i have bee here a year and make already 10thou more a year than when i started.
if people would stay you would have faster service, ignoreing the need to outsoruceing(for the store that may do it) so....if the workers stayed longer, they would make more money and we would not have to outsorce.
DOES THIS MAKE SENSE PEOPLE or do i need to break it down further.
(and we do serve real beef 😊)
"McDonalds has excenllent benefits."
Which apparently don't include paying for literacy lessons.
Are you claiming that NO McDonalds is using this long-distance drive-through thing? The fact is that at least a few Mickey D's in the Portland, OR area ARE using it (and possibly others elsewhere, too).
33. It'll be even clearer when the accents are from Bangalore.
Several McDonald's outlets in the Pacific Northwest begin outsourcing drive-through functions to remote call centers staffed by "professional order-takers" with "very strong communication skills." Says CEO Jim Skinner, "If you're in L.A. and you hear a person with a North Dakota accent taking your order, you'll know what we're up to."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/01/27/drivethru.evolution.ap/index.html
"Who ever said these people were being paid 5.15 and hour? We don't know that."
Well, are you saying that the people at the remote location are making MORE money than people at a local restaurant would make? If you know how much the people at the remote location make, please inform us.
"And if you want to go on with this "big businees" trying to saving money gag, it's a load of crock. Mcdonald's spends a lot of time and money on the service and just because one store can't get their act together does not mean that all of them suck."
Do you honestly think that McDonalds has set up a remote location operation along with the electronics needed to make that work for the sake of a single location? My guess is that this is a pilot project to determine if this can be rolled out on a national level.
One of my objections to this is that McDonalds likes to run ads portraying them as a member of the local community; this project takes jobs OUT of the local community, hardly what I'd expect from a sincere member of the local area.
"Outsourcing gives people jobs that cannot work at manual labor and who knows, maybe it is faster as long as the people are trained well."
Are you saying that you think that McDonalds is employing the handicapped to work at the remote order-taking center? Do you know that for a fact? I would also point out to you that there are government subsidies available to companies that employ the handicapped. That means that McDonalds is using tax dollars--YOUR money, not theirs--to pay part of those employees' salaries. In other words, if they ARE using handicapped people at the remote order-taking center, they ARE doing this to cut expenses to themselves.
"Just because you know nothing about the company that is providing the service does not mean that it is bad. Know your facts before you put something down."
What facts have YOU offered to us in defense of McDonalds?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/technology/11fast.html?ei=5065&en=176335a14994b9d4&ex=1145332800&adxnnl=1&partner=MYWAY&adxnnlx=1144725478-vt6FdOoO2Tjowsw+J0aK7g&pagewanted=print
Check out the second-to-last paragraph. Yup, they'd doing it to cut jobs. I rest my case. NEXT!
BORN IN BOSNIA
"No, these people are not making more than the people in the store. No, I am not going to tell you what they make because all u are going to do is find excuses to badmouth this. The people in the stores are making more per hour."
Um, that would be the point of the criticism, Amber. They're doing this to eliminate jobs and pay the people still working for them less money. They're taking jobs OUT of the LOCAL communities even as they try to portray themselves as members of the local community. Seems more than a bit hypocritical to me.
By the way, I'd say it isn't an accident that the "pilot program" is taking place in the Portland, OR area. Oregon and the state directly across the river from Portland, Washington, have about the highest minimum wages in the U.S. McDonalds is too cheap to pay its employees a living wage.
Think of McDonald's...they have a product line that has been maligned for being unhealthy for several years. Their stock value has dropped. People aren't visiting their franchises like they used to, and investors are afraid to invest due to fiscal uncertainty.
Now think about the typical drive through employee at McDonald's (my neighbor works as a drive through employee at my local Mickey D's, so I'll use her and her comments about her co-workers as an example)...Age ranges between teenager and late thirties, high school dropout (maybe a GED), no plans for the future, knows she can get a job doing the same thing elsewhere for the same pay, and therefore isn't too interested in providing the best fast food experience for the customer (which is what makes people WANT to come back). Can serve 160 customers per eight hour shift, and makes four mistakes during that time, all for $5.15 per hour. All around, doesn't really care about the job itself, the company or the customers.
Given this scenario, McDonald's comes across a service that provides a polite person who can serve 210 customers per eight hour shift (a 30% improvement), and makes one mistake during the same time (a 75% reduction in waste), and is paid $6.50 per hour (a number I have read somewhere). From a business standpoint, it only makes sense to outsource this function, even if it does cost slightly more. Given the increase in customers served, and the amount of waste saved, not to mention money lost due to the hassles of having to deal with late/sick/absent employees, training, payroll, taxes, and all of the other stuff that goes with having a real live person doing a job, it only makes sense.
Outsourcing is everywhere, and it's here to stay. As long as companies can find someone else to do a job more efficiently or for less money, the practice will continue.
If you want more information, I strongly suggest you read "The World is Flat", by Thomas Friedman. It's long, but excellent, and is where I first heard about Mickey D's outsourcing drive-through operations.
Peace out, and be nice to each other
Remember that McDonalds likes to protray itself as a member of the communities in which it operates. Many of their ads try to imply that Mickey D's "cares" about the towns and cities it is located in. I think it is perfectly reasonable for people to judge companies by their ACTIONS rather than their WORDS. If the two seem to be in opposition, I think it is also reasonable for people to come to the conclusion that the business does NOT actually care about them and that they should patronize someone else.
When big chains like McDonalds and Wal-Mart come into local communities, they tend to drive out locally-owned businesses. If the net effect of this is to make fewer jobs overall, I submit that the net effect is negative.
It's irrelevant that there is a net negative effect on the community thanks to large business, because, so long as the community continues to spend money with that business, they turn a profit, and that is all that matters. All companies are simply engines for deriving profits, and there is nothing wrong with that. After all, what is it that you are talking about by paying more than minimum wage - deriving higher profits for the employees. Everyone wants more profit, what's the distinction between an employee and a company?
On another note, the idea that McDonald's shouldn't pay minimum wage, even when they can get all the employees they need at said wage, is ludicrous. You're suggesting that, instead of people making themselves valuable to the community, and as such earning a higher wage, the system in which they work should give them a higher wage simply because they have some sort of right to be paid well. I do remember a country popping up once that claimed that people shouldn't have to work hard to earn a higher wage, that they should simply be given it off the bat. Which country was that, again? Oh, yeah, right, the USSR.
"I do remember a country popping up once that claimed that people shouldn't have to work hard to earn a higher wage, that they should simply be given it off the bat. Which country was that, again? Oh, yeah, right, the USSR."
Do you honestly not know the difference between people needing to earn a living wage and communism? Wow.
You sound like a libertarian. Can you point to any country that has ever been run on libertarian principles? In my opinion, libertarianism is one of those things that sound nice, but can't work in the real world--like communism, oddly enough.
Yeah, it would be great if people automatically got higher wages because they are good, conscientious, workers. With the rise of very large corporations like McDonalds and Wal-Mart, however, that can no longer be assumed.
A Wal-Mart internal memo surfaced recently in which they talk about how more experienced workers are undesirable because they make more pay. Basically it discussed ways to get rid of people who have worked for Wal-Mart for some time in place of new workers who make less. That of course is the direct opposite of the way you suggest things should work.
Libertarian theory sounds nice, but it doesn't work in the real world we live in.
All of your arguments state that people deserve to earn a living wage, they have some inherent right to it. On that point we differ. So far as I'm concerned, it's up to the employee to make themselves valuable enough to pay well. I think the world works best when everyone only looks out for their own best interests, because that's what we as humans are best at - looking after ourselves.
It seems reasonable that Wal-Mart would want to avoid experienced workers, after all, they are being paid more to do work that could easily be done by someone without the experience. It's similar to the argument that people should be replaced by machinery, it's simply more efficient. Cost-cutting is vital to any organisation, and it's unreasonable to expect them to stop, since they only, and should only, have their interests in mind.
Asking corporations to avoid their cost-cutting, a major section of which would occur in personnel, would be akin to asking you to pay as much tax as you can muster. Sure, you could do it, and society would benefit as a result due to the extra tax dollars available to spend, but I can't see you agreeing to it.
Then you say, "It seems reasonable that Wal-Mart would want to avoid experienced workers, after all, they are being paid more to do work that could easily be done by someone without the experience."
Um, see a contradiction there? I do.
Since, as you say, people tend to watch out for their own self-interests, why should any Wal-Mart employee expend more than the minimal effort at their job, knowing that the company will want to lay them off once they start to make more money?
Before you say, "So what, it's only Wal-Mart," let me point out that Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in America and second overall only to the government. Their policies directly affect millions of Americans and indirectly affect millions more. Since so many other companies do business with Wal-Mart, it's reasonable to think that some of them will follow Wal-Mart's lead in this policy of letting go longer-term workers.
Through its low wages, Wal-Mart forces many of its employees to apply for public assistance. In fact, the company hands out pamphlets on how to apply for food stamps, etc. to employees. This would be the "working poor" you occasionally hear about. By paying as little as possible, Wal-Mart is ultimately subsidized by your tax dollars.
The trouble here is that experience doesn't make people valuable members of the Wal-Mart employ. Simply advancing yourself in an arbitrary direction, such as gaining experience, isn't what I'm talking about, I'm saying you need to consider what your employer is likely to want, and develop those skills. Tangentially, note that it isn't actually experience that Wal-Mart wish to avoid, it's the higher wages that experience incurs. If those employees didn't demand higher wages (and why should they need to, they're doing the same amount of work), they shouldn't lose their job.
You ask: "Why should any Wal-Mart employee expend more than the minimal effort at their job?", in response to my comment about protecting your own interests. Quite simply, I don't think they should. I think they should work hard enough that they don't lose their job, while not so hard that the experience gained loses it for them.
I don't see any reason to work harder for your employer than is absolutely necessary to keep your job, after all, the job market isn't the place to do favours for people, unless it will benefit you in the long run.
Often, it is beneficial to do more work than is necessary, as it promotes your image and you would be considered a more important member of staff, resulting in greater job security, but this isn't necessarily the case.
Finally, in regards to the fact that employees end up taking government welfare payments, I do find the situation unfortunate as it drains from the funds that the government could spend on other projects, and, personally, I would prefer that Wal-Mart paid their employees more, preventing this from occurring. However, as I've mentioned in my previous messages, it's not Wal-Mart's place to care about my well-being, only its own, and I don't expect it to, nor think it should, do otherwise.
http://consumerist.com/consumer/walmart/confessions-of-a-former-walmart-manager-207196.php
"However, as I've mentioned in my previous messages, it's not Wal-Mart's place to care about my well-being, only its own, and I don't expect it to, nor think it should, do otherwise."
That's a lovely little Darwinian world you're
espousing there. Sorry, but I think that human rights supercede corporate rights.
No-one forced an employee to work 22 hours straight (Also, the fact that it was directly after their maternity leave carries no weight, it is reasonable to expect an employee to work as hard on any given day of their employ, if it were during her maternity leave, that would be a different matter), the employee simply decided that her job at Wal-Mart was important enough to her to work for 22 hours. She could have left, that is her right, but she didn't.
So far as I'm aware, while most people believe that slavery is a violation of human rights, the right not to work overtime has a smaller following.
"What is this obsession that McDonald's has to do right by the community? McDonalds has no obligation whatsoever to the community. Of course they advertise a friendly and community-based atmosphere, they do need employees, after all, and they have to make the jobs appear rewarding."
In other words, McDonalds (and by extension, every other company) owes NOTHING to it's community or country even thought they lie to the public to make it look as if they believe that they should and do contribute to society.
Lying and deception is perfectly acceptable because it's needed to be as profitable as possible.
Wow.