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
"Okay... This is going to sound really dumb but... How can someone outsource working the drive-through? I mean, is there going to be someone in North Dakota with their ear glued to a headset taking orders for something half a state away? Personally, I think that would make matters worse. I don't know about in other places but all the McDonalds I've ever been to have terrible communication because the microphones/speakers are so terrible."
It isn't a rumor, they really are doing it. They've got a "pilot program" going here in the Northwest with a few Mickey D's (they won't say exactly which ones). What they've done is set up a "call center" in North Dakota (you know, just like when you call Customer Service and get a guy in India).
I didn't realize that North Dakota minimum wage was the same as the Federal one, but that explains everything. I figured it was to eliminate some employees, but I didn't realize the remaining ones would be paid starvation wages. Duh, I should have realized: it's Big American Business!
do we know that they are hiring an outside firm to run the call center?
what's with the marxist rant?
aren't there plenty of people out there who are only worth $5.15 an hour?
i never go there, so they could make a billion dollars a day using remote controlled monkeys for all i care.
Not that it could never happen, stranger things have. If it were true, I would have to guess (yes, guess) that all of the involved "restaurants" were owned by the same person or people.
Any info on that, anyone?
"Yeah! Just the other day I saw a McDonalds press gang kidnapping people off the street to work in their restaurant. Then I saw a McDonalds manager forcing people at gun point to buy burgers prepared by slaves chained to a grill."
And your point is...?
"Come to think of it, this does not make a whole lot of sense to me. Each Rotten Ronnie's is an independant franchise, so it's up to the owner of each one to hire their own employees."
Not accurate. While many Mickey D's are franchises, there are also a lot which are owned by the corporation. Feel free to ask the next time you're in one; they'll tell you.
"i never go there, so they could make a billion dollars a day using remote controlled monkeys for all i care."
I rarely go to Florida so I don't care if it cracks off and sinks into the ocean. I mean, if something doesn't affect you personally, why care about it, right? Compassionate Conservatism at its finest.
Okay...from experience, I was getting paid less as shift management at a video store than the 16 yr old down the street who salted fries. $.02 less. And I had just gotten a raise. So they're not underpaid all that much, as far as I'm concerned. The only problem w/ this that I can see is that if they're doing it at a drive thru, why aren't they doing it up front? I spent 5 minutes just STANDING in the lobby of a McDonald's the other day. Not a single person made eye contact or said, "I'll be with you momentarily." There were about 6 employees chatting with each other, milling about the lobby. About 20 more employees behind the counter were laughing, joking, saying dirty words, and generally not doing their job. When I (finally) ordered my cheeseburger I told the CSR, "No onions, extra pickles, & a manager. Thanks." I told the manager that the old man behind me better not get charged for his food b/c he had been standing behind me with his cane waiting for acknowledgement...being a hell of a lot more patient than I had been, and he deserved more respect than that. Also, could he be sure to supervise his employess who apparently didn't know how to keep their traps shut & PC in front of customers.
"...more than 65 per cent of our restaurants are owned and operated by independent business people who hire locally and are committed to giving back to the communities" - The McD Canada website
See what I can find AFTER I post about something I'm not entirely positive about? I hate proving myself wrong, but hey, now I have a new useless bit of knowledge. Thanks for pointing it out.
"See what I can find AFTER I post about something I'm not entirely positive about? I hate proving myself wrong, but hey, now I have a new useless bit of knowledge. Thanks for pointing it out."
Hey, you're willing to learn stuff; that's important. I'm sure you've seen how defensive some people around here (and elsewhere) get when they make a mistake. Sheesh, learning about stuff (even trivial stuff like Mickey D's ownership) is half the fun of life. Now all I have to do is figure out what the other half is.
The meaning of life? I know what MY meaning of life is, but that's better discussed elsewhere, methinks.
And no, it's nothing gross or anything, but I think it's a subject all to itself.
As I have said before, I'll be happy if someone can prove me wrong, as long as they can PROVE it and not just say it, because then I will have learned something new.
the point is still not addressed: there is so far no justification for claiming that mcdonalds is OUTSOURCING labor. unless you don't care what outsourcing actually means -- then go right ahead and say "they're outsourcing!"
by this standard, they're already outsourcing: fries arrive at the store pre-cut and ready to toss into the fry-o-lator -- what a shame that these local people are denied an opportunity for more work peeling and cutting potatoes!
Last time I checked it was you with the class distinctions in you post..."aren't there plenty of people out there who are only worth $5.15 an hour?"
out
and you're way off in your charge of classism. it's classist to say that different workers with diffent skills and experience should get paid a different wage? let me answer my own question: perhaps from a marxist perspective, yes, that is classism at its most insidious.
my bad.
It's a sweatshop/factory farm to its employees and mass produces products to those standards.
Is this really news to anyone?
Their workers are sadly uniformed about nutrition and what they actually represent to the educated consumer. Plus McD's recruits poor minority groups as a source of cheap labor (minimum wage) within this falsely portrayed 'charitable' and 'family-like' monster of a corporation...do I really need to go on? Is this actually news to anyone?
(But they sponsors the Olympics, you anti-American freak!)
And someone was actually left STANDING in a McD's lobby, NOT greeted w/a warm smile like I saw in the McD's ad featuring the slim, well-spoken, white customer service superstar? An elderly person was ignored and probably actually charged for his delayed meal? Shocking!
For those of you that have not already done so, PLEASE RENT 'SUPERSIZE ME!, read 'Fast Food Nation,' and 'Diet for a New America' by John Robbins while you're at it.
DO SOMETHING ANTI-MC DONALDS. DON'T BUY THEIR STUFF. And if you're not vegan/ vegetarian, at least buy locally raised, organically fed lean ground beef and fry it up at home. (This way you'll be skipping the processing, chemicals, hormones, deep-fried lard, extra calories, outsourcing, and the support of unfair employee pracitices.) Or at least pick up a take-out burger at your local diner. I guarantee you it will taste better and that thestaff is actually working harder for their pay.
McDonald's: 'I'm hatin' it.'
End sermonette.
"My point, CMG, is that no one is forced to work there and McDonalds is not really obligated to employ any people if they don't want to."
In an absolute, amoral, Libertarian sense, perhaps. The thing is Mickey D's runs ads in which they attempt to portray themselves as "part of the community" (just like Wal-Mart does) and they then turn around and pay people as little as allowable under the law. Is it legal? Yes. Is it "being part of the community?" Not to me, it isn't.
Haven't you noticed that it's almost invariably companies that have been accused of taking advantage of their employees and/or ignoring the wishes of the REAL community which run ads telling you how "family-like" they are? It's a P.R.-based distraction.
"They are only doing what every other business owner on the planet is doing and that is keeping costs as low as possible. If they don't do this then maybe their competition will, putting McDonalds at a disadvantage."
That, of course, if a BIG part of the problem. It isn't only McDonalds that acts like that; it's all of big business. One company does it, so their competition does it and the wheel goes round and round.
"I guess it only makes sense that they would put it in a place that has the lowest minimum wage."
Well, yes, if you assume that they have NO obligation to do anything for the communities they operate in. Ever notice that when corporations want relief from some tax or government regulation they defend it on the grounds that they are "providing jobs to the community?" Then they take jobs OUT of the community and say, "Well, we have to do this to stay competitive." The bottom line is, they don't give a damn about the "community" and only use that when they think it will cause "warm and fuzzy" feelings toward them.
"It's up to the people in North Dakota to lobby for an increase in minimum wage if they feel $5.15 is too low. And if consumers feel the employees are being cheated they are well within their rights to go elsewhere."
On these points, we agree.
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."