"Fight for Fifteen!"

Remember a couple of years back when the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) launched its "Fight for Fifteen?"  You know, that effort to force, FORCE fast food joints, and McDonalds in particular among them, to pay their employees, ALL of their employees, $15.00 an hour.

Now, it might be worth mentioning that the national Minimum Wage is about $7.50 per hour.  And thus, a bump to $15.00 would be an overnight DOUBLING of the employers' labor costs, however injurious to them it might be.  

(Now, In interrupt myself to insert here a comment right here:  Where does the Gubmint get off, I ask rhetorically, telling any private bizz who it can hire or what it has to pay?  Imagine how much fun it would be if you could collect 35 - 40% of a business's profit without taking any of the risk or making any of the investment?  That's what happens when you have the Gubmint as your not-so-silent partner.)

It's also worth mentioning that the only reason the SEIU is sniffing around MickeyD's and all the other fast food outfits is because the number of private-sector labor union employees has fallen so far and so fast in 'Murica that only about 6.7% of our entire private labor force is unionized.  And fewer union members means less union dues in the pockets of the Fat Cat union bosses.  And that means fewer trips to the Bahamas in January and Vail in April to and Maui in August to blow off a little high-quality steam.

So this union, the one that employs all those poor, $10.00 an hour folks who make your bed at the Holiday Inn, unveiled their New Plan to raid Big Fast Food for new members.  And, even after spending more than $50 Million of their members' dues to finance this little multi-year media war, they've been spectacularly unsuccessful at moving public opinion their way.  

Why?  Because MickeyD's is a franchise operation.  And so is Wendy's, and Burger King, and Chick-fil-A and all the others.  And that means the franchiser cannot, CANNOT tell its franchisees who to hire or how much to pay them.  So, they were basically engaging in a circle jerk as they paraded and protested and stamped their little feet in front of the adoring MainstreamMedia TV coverage outside the McDonald's Corporate Headquarters in Oak Park, Illinois.  For weeks.  Without end.

What did it accomplish?  So far, nothing.  Oh yeah, except the fact that Mickey and Wendy and Chickie and the others got tired of being threatened.  So they opened their doors to technological solutions to their age-old problem; the high cost of labor.  And "tech" answered.

Voila!  The automated kiosk!  Now the get it 'n go outfits are investing hand-over-fist in these things.  At an average cost of $1,500 - $2,000 each, they can take your order upon entering, direct you to the cashier to pay and then have your meal brought to you when ready.  Boom!  At least 10% of their FTE's (full-time employees) go away!  And these shiny new robots don't take breaks or vacations or get sick or need maternity leaves.  They don't make mistakes or come in late or have bad hair days or spread disease or need time off to go protest.  And so the investment in such automation can pay for itself very quickly, and continuing paying for itself for years to come.

Mickey tells us they're converting 1,000 restaurants to automation a quarter, and will continue at that rate until all 36,899 of them are updated.  

What's next?  We're already told of the new automated burger-flipper in beta testing that can turn out 250 perfect burgers an hour, error-free, no breaks, no vacations, nothing but cooking.  Non-stop.  Cost?  $250,000.  Payoff schedule?  Less than two years for the average MickeyD's.  One must ask, how long will it be before there's no more min-wage-types at your local fast food emporium?  The answer should be chilling for the union which made a very, very bad bet...

So, in closing, I might mention that a MickeyD's franchisee, already likely a millionaire before opening one of these things, isn't likely to roll over when these union stick-up artist thugs come to town.  It's far better business strategy to defuse the threats by completely doing away with the jobs at center of the fight.  

Me thinks the SEIU got outfoxed.  That's what happens when you bring a knife to a gun fight.  Well that's done.  I'm headed out for a Quarter Pounder...