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hiraethified
Well, that's just terrific. Get screwed over by bosses or be sacked.
More here: http://pando.com/2014/07/17/new-san...replaced-by-ipads-if-they-demand-a-fair-wage/
San Francisco campaign threatens workers with redundancy if they demand a living wage
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Well, that's just terrific. Get screwed over by bosses or be sacked.
Treacle Toes
Time
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
$15 minimum wage? It's only ten bucks here.
I don't see how an iPad can completely replace waiting staff. It may be able to take your order if it is built into your table.If it isn't it will be nicked. However someone is going to have to bring the meal to your table, unless they can incorporate a 'go and collect your meal' system. Eating out will be like going to Argos. Boycotts of such places might be the next stage.
ItWillNeverWork
Messy Crimbobs, fellow humans.
Maybe they plan on importing a few Japanese robots.
Coffee shop workers:
Bar staff:
Lathe operators:
Care workers:
Dance instructors:
Having said that, the Japanese have been working on these guys since the days when Tommorow's World was on the tellybox, and they all seem to look remarkably similar to the way they did back then. I think maybe residents of SF don't have so much to worry about.
Coffee shop workers:
Bar staff:
Lathe operators:
Care workers:
Dance instructors:
Having said that, the Japanese have been working on these guys since the days when Tommorow's World was on the tellybox, and they all seem to look remarkably similar to the way they did back then. I think maybe residents of SF don't have so much to worry about.
goldenecitrone
post tenebras lux
Maybe they plan on importing a few Japanese robots.
Coffee shop workers:
Bar staff:
Lathe operators:
Care workers:
Dance instructors:
Having said that, the Japanese have been working on these guys since the days when Tommorow's World was on the tellybox, and they all seem to look remarkably similar to the way they did back then. I think maybe residents of SF don't have so much to worry about.
Fast food retailers.
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
If they could replace them that easily and be profitable, they would have by now. They don't keep workers out of the goodness of their hearts. The minute that it become profitable to fire every one of them, they will. It has little to do with the minimum wage.
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
San Fran is one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Are minimum wages determined on the civic level in the US? Here they're province-wide; the equivalent of state-wide.
friendofdorothy
Solidarity against neoliberalism!
One thing puzzles me. If most people don't earn a living wage - then who is going to buy all those lovely products?
Robots don't need phones, gadgets or coffee.
Robots don't need phones, gadgets or coffee.
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
The owners of the machines buy all the lovely products. You'll either end up owning them or servicing them.
I've visited Canada 3 times & don't plan to go back. It's just like America but everything is about 30% more expensive.
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
All of the above. There's a federal minimum wage. Then cities and states can set their own, higher minimum.
We're working on a petition to set the minimum wage here at $9.25. That might make sense here because its almost a wage you can survive on. $10 would be more reasonable. You can buy a house here on $15 an hour.
I doubt if $15 in San Francisco buys much more than basic survival.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
That was Henry Ford's point: he paid his workers double what anyone else did, so (a) they could buy his product, and (b) they didn't want to lose the job...
J Ed
Follow Back Pro Expropriation
Since watching Trailer Park Boys my opinion of Canada has gone up a lot
7000Miles
New Member
Correlation doesn't equal causation.
The minimum wage sounds great in theory, however it doesn't result in good long term results. One example, if the minimum wage is raised and an employee's worth to a company is worth less than the new minimum wage, they'll be fired.
Lemon Eddy
Disliked by dwyer
As a non yank who's been to both the US and Canada on dozens of locations, I'd say the two are very, very different. There is a cost difference, but it's 15% not 30%, and actually rent is marginally cheaper in Canada. Of course 15% is still worth considering, but at least I can eat out in Canada knowing that the wait staff aren't almost entirely reliant on my tips if they want to live. And let's not mention healthcare, eh?
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
That's wasn't really my point though. As opposed to Henry Ford Google makes millions by giving their stuff away. Generally jobs are becoming deskilled where human skills continue to be replaced by machines, while at the same time there are fewer skilled jobs. Many of the remaining skilled jobs often involve intimate knowledge of some kind of machines and are highly paid. Where machines and robots replaced factory workers, artificial intelligence continues to replace knowledge workers and the device increases.
A global corporation doesn't need a equitable society to make the 1% filthy rich. Hence my tongue in cheek comment about you'll either own the machines or end up servicing them.
A friend living there says house prices (Victoria - Vancouver) are double or triple the US. They do have a damn good health insurance system & a lower crime rate but I still don't wanna go there any more.....it's boring......& costs too much.....& the people aren't very friendly. No offense to the neighbors up north.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Vancouver house prices are an anomaly, and are amongst the highest in the world. Doesn't apply to other Canadian cities.
DownwardDog
Riding a Brompton with a power meter.
There's a sushi place in Brisbane that does it. They give you an iPad on the way in and then you hand over the iPad when you pick your order up. Seems to work ok. Having said that MW is much higher in Australia than California so it's further along the job destruction path.
Lemon Eddy
Disliked by dwyer
The average price of homes in San Francisco is $910,000. In Vancouver, it's $788,500 (converting to USD). Anecdote != data.
Lemon Eddy
Disliked by dwyer
The idea that setting a decent minimum wage leads to job destruction is pretty laughable. As others have pointed out before, you're distributing money more evenly, leading to greater total expenditure (as people with magnitudes of wealth more than others do not spend magnitudes of money more, particularly in the local economy). Greater total expenditure leads to job creation.
There's also the slight issue that most people don't want to go to a restaurant running a skeleton staff where you place your order via a tablet. That's before we get to the health and safety issues of passing a touchscreen interface amongst people eating at a restaurant.
gamerunknown
Well-Known Member
Fwiw, I previously opposed city-wide minimum wage agreements from a(n anarchist) communist perspective - I assumed it would lead to capital flight and job losses from cities implementing the policies, but the reviews I've read indicate that's not the case. As it happens, macro-economic studies have nothing more to go on than correlation and regression analysis. Did the Great Leap Forward cause life expectancy to drop to 20 years for males in China? Or was it unusually high levels of strontium in the milk?
Also, this precise argument was used by Friedman in the 60s, claiming catastrophic job losses would result. However, unemployment rates were the same in 2010. Japan has a higher minimum wage of $8.13 (with higher costs of living) and 3.9% unemployment.
Anyway, replacement of variable capital by constant capital is a centuries old trend. The two primary spurs to industry were sabotage and striking - machines engage in neither.
Marx said:
Nor does paying workers a greater proportion of profit make sense other than in hampering attempts at unionisation (Ford was a notorious fascist). Commodities are not sold exclusively to workers, other sectors of the populace have purchasing power too (capitalists and their lackeys). Capital will have a greater return when invested in reducing the price of the product by increasing the proportion of constant capital incorporated in it.
Anyway, once we attain anarchist communism the spur to industry will be reducing the proportion of necessary labour engaged in. Such labour will be distributed across the community according to ability. Each innovation will reduce (imperceptibly graduated) such necessary labour. There will be no impediments to doing so and certainly no tremendous waste of revenue on advertising campaigns run by King Cnut.
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