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
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.
I say oversimplified as, while as a general rule I don't think anyone should be attempting to deceive anyone else, there is a line that has to be drawn between marketing and outright lying. Promotions of somewhat ambiguous qualities, such as a community atmosphere, can't really be disproved, since there is no qualitative or quantitative measure of them, so I disagree that this is a lie, maybe a misrepresentation.
The line is also blurred by the fact that people have developed to take all advertisements with a grain of salt. Anyone who truly believes in the community of McDonald's simply due to their advertising, is, well, more na
I've noticed over the years that it's the companies which have the worst real world reputation for paying a living wage and treating their employees as something other than disposable items who most often run those "warm and fuzzy" "we're a family" ads. I'd say that's because they know that people would not look kindly upon them if they were more honest about their actual attitude. This suggests to me that humans don't actually appreciate being treated like crap. Go figure.
"The line is also blurred by the fact that people have developed to take all advertisements with a grain of salt. Anyone who truly believes in the community of McDonald's simply due to their advertising, is, well, more na
But i came to these posts looking, because my girlfriend works at McDonalds, and has for somewhere around a year and a half. shes just turned 18 in October, and in Michigan, a minor's minimum wage is $6 an hour, but an adults is $7.15 an hour. she had a raise previously(at McDonalds you're supposed to get a raise precisely 1 month after starting, and they refused to give it to her until around a year) to $6.15 an hour. Now that shes 18 she should be making $7.15 an hour now, and (at McDonalds you get paid bi-weekly) her first check stub she got since she was 18 said 6.15 still, they said they hadnt gotten it switched yet (she was still 17 for part of the pay period). Her next stub said $7.15(i'm still pissed they didnt keep her raise) and now her 3rd check they lowered it back to 6.15 and said "they will reimburse her" bull, they have been a terrible company. I dont know where to report this to, i've checked the better business bureau, but it doesnt seem that they handle this type of thing, and i need some direction for this matter. thanks.