Spyke
lemm.ee

shouldn't the federal minimum wage apply to everyone who is doing work in the US? This seems like fraud

284
kbin.run

how would you distinguish this from regular outsourcing

124
Allonzeereply
lemmy.world

Outsourcing is the problem.

The owners take advantage of our commons, tear up our roads, and succeeded because of domestic infrastructure, only to refuse to pay full price for labor and allowing even those wages, in lieu of the taxes they bribe our government to enact loopholes to dodge, to "trickle down" domestically as their always bullshit yay market capitalism talking points lied?

It's absolutely clownshoes that outsourcing labor/manufacturing is allowed, not because of domestic shortages for a skill, but to explicitly pay pennies on the dollar for the employees you need and screw the country you don't want to pay taxes to despite record profits even harder.

It's insane. But we let the owner class dictate whatever they want here, and our well bribed government will even sell it for them by calling it "something something freedom" while never mentioning social consequences, accountability, or responsibility. We aren't so much a country as a piggy bank and cudgel for the global owner class.

207

I agree, and I'm for dismantling them.

But capitalism has to go with them. Because as it is, the owner class already enjoys a borderlees world, while manipulating those borders against everyone else.

Borders exist solely to maintain and enhance the power of a nation state's elite. If a people allow an elite class to rise without check, borders will always be inevitable.

5

That the neat thing, you don't.

Here, for certain industries (might be all but I don't have first hand accounts of that), the contractors must make sure that the companies/freelancers they employ pay their taxes, otherwise, they are on the hook for it.

Do the same. If a company outsource work, they should prove that they pay the same as they would in their region, and if it not, be hit hard by fines and/or jail time.

But one can only dream I guess

39
lemmy.world

Should apply to that as well if they're interacting with the US market. All the way through subcontractors to the end employee. No hiding behind contracting local companies.

29
kbin.run

i don't like outsourcing either, but realistically the machine of capitalism isn't going to allow you to be rid of it in its entirety

honestly i don't even know if getting rid of multinational organisations is on the whole a good thing, and that's the only way i can see of getting rid of outsourcing

-14
lemmy.world

Outsourcing entirely being gone isn't realistic... But there's a huge difference between moving an entire team of say developers to India and having a worker teleconference in to be a cashier. Anyone directly interacting with a customer or end user in any capacity should be paid the same as a local employee in the location they're "working".

A Telecashier is fucking stupid and ridiculous.

29

Remember when we learned that Amazon's "just put it in your cart to buy" algorithm was really just a bunch of people in India watching you shop on the store surveillance system? That was, like 3 months ago maybe??

29

yesssssss, but i don't know how you'd make a legal distinction between those two

then again i'm not a law talking guy so what do i know

2

but realistically the machine of capitalism isn’t going to allow you to be rid of it in its entirety

Who said anything about that? We're just talking about putting tariffs on outsourced labor to correct for negative externalities.

13

This practice is rampant across industries and only getting worse. We must demand an end to it through legislation.

10

We may not agree with it, but this is exactly the same thing as an overseas call center. They're not physically located in the US and are not subject to any laws here.

2

That is naive. I hope you don't have any employees

1
shalafireply
lemmy.world

$3 is loads more than the Philippines minimum wage. I think it's $8-$10 per day.

Also, y'all are thinking of what $3 buys in the US. The purchasing power is far different. $3 buys a lot over there.

I'll ask my wife when she gets home, but I bet $3 is equivalent to $10-$12 in the US.

-11
lemmy.world

Also, y'all are thinking of what $3 buys in the US. The purchasing power is far different. $3 buys a lot over there.

You misunderstand. We aren't unaware or ignoring the purchasing power difference, that's obvious, everyone knows currency differs. The issue is and always has been the outsourcing to increase profit in general, regardless of country or purchasing disparity. There is no reason to use a teleconferenced cashier for a retail location other than minimizing employee pay, not just by paying the minimum required here but literally taking a local job and shipping it overseas so you can instead pay what would be a clear poverty wage here, while undoubtedly having record profits like all these companies end up with.

74

We aren't unaware or ignoring the purchasing power difference, that's obvious, everyone knows currency differs. The issue is and always has been the outsourcing to increase profit in general, regardless of country or purchasing disparity

This makes it sound like your problem isn’t someone getting hurt; it’s someone doing well.

-1
aidanreply
lemmy.world

Everyone complains about small businesses being driven out, especially in NYC. Their two biggest costs are rent and labor, so of course they try to minimize both of them.

-2
lemmy.world

You know what's cheaper than hiring a cashier and teleconferencing them from the Philippines?

The owner running the cash register. You know, like nearly every non-chain restaurant in the country.

1
aidanreply
lemmy.world

Owner could be the chef, it you know, might not want to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week

0
lemmy.world

Then don't open a restaurant if you can't even afford the minimal staff to run it.

1
lemmy.world

So, there actually is a reason to do this beyond pay, but clearly pay is the actual reason they do it.

A restaurant has a set amount of staff. What happens if a few are sick and they have trouble finding someone to fill in?

A remote agent like this could be from a larger organization being contracted out and you'd never have to worry about not having someone to be available.

Edit: 1 person could even be managing multiple stores where they queue the person to assist you as it detects you approaching. Less ideal would be 'someone will be available in 45 seconds' type queuing.

-13
lemmy.world

Or they just hire enough staff to run the business in the first place. Something that used to just be how you operated a business. If the business wants to gamble on regularly operating without enough employees to cover multiple sick calls then they need to deal with the results of that decision.

Pull from other locations to cover, or God forbid, a manager actually covers a shift, or just close the location for a day if they cannot cover it. You know, what every business that operates with employees deals with.

You're making excuses and trying to find a justification for a fucking disgraceful, greedy choice by the owner of this business.

22

No I'm not, you're just jumping to conclusions. I clearly said it's obviously about the pay.

The actual idea has potential merit like it or not. It doesn't have to be scummy. It could be a US based corporation that pays US employees the same or more than what they'd get paid to be there in person.

The employee as I said could be managing more than 1 store, thus be providing more valuable work, and thus earning even more than they'd be earning at the restaurant, or 711, or wherever.

And they could be doing it from the comfort of their home making for a happier employee.

It just turns out that the way this has been implemented has been terrible and exploitative.

Edit: it could even be numerous ipad based kiosks around a mall where you could talk to someone and ask questions about the mall, without having to find and go to the info booth that's in a single spot (that could also have an actual person there for those that want that). There'd always be someone available since there'd be multiple people for multiple malls all trained on each mall.

1
Miaoureply

I mean, yeah probably. That's not the point. The point is that it's a race to the bottom for people living in higher cost-of-living places.

23
Zatorereply
lemm.ee

I really don't care how much buying power they have over there. A fair days work here in the US should be paid in turn.

13
shalafireply
lemmy.world

And flood the islands with US currency? Seems that would lead to massive inflation and hurt the people not working "in" the US.

0

So what your saying is they should be paid less because their currency is trash? That's a logical fallacy.

1
lemm.ee

Well, if you’re gonna advocate for people, you should care what their experience is.

-3

No, you can always advocate for someone to get paid more regardless of your knowledge of conversion rates.

2
PunnyNamereply
lemmy.world

Okay. Imagine the purchasing power of someone who made the NYC minimum wage of $16/hr.

Maybe pay people for their time, not what the exchange rate "might" be.

10
lemm.ee

If I’m paying NYC minimum wages, I’m getting someone from NYC, in NYC.

Sorry lady from the Phillipines. You’re out of a job because they put in this new “outsourcing must be at local wage rates” law.

-2
sunzureply
kbin.run

Do you think anybody in NYC would cry over this?

I am not sure why anyone in NYC would care about

Sorry lady from the Phillipines. You’re out of a job because they put in this new “outsourcing must be at local wage rates” law.

Lol what is your angle here

4
aidanreply
lemmy.world

Why are people from NYC more deserving of a job than her?

-1
sunzureply
kbin.run

NYC more deserving

That ain't how this works. If somebody is has some sort of special skill that is needed or there is a shortage, fine.

But using foreign labor to lower wages locally, is just a bad policy for the state and for the workers, only people benefiting is the rent seeker.

Why would anyone who works for money shill for the benefit of the rent seeker?

5

Why would anyone who works for money shill for the benefit of the rent seeker?

Have you seen nearly Facebook America? They regularly vote against their own interests. Wouldn't surprise me at all that the same people are the ones barely making ends meet, are advocating against unions, being pro corporate business, and laughing all the way to bankruptcy and homelessness day by day because it makes them feel superior to just one person.

2

only people benefiting is the rent seeker.

I know this isn't what you meant. But you know de-localizing jobs would probably have the effect of lowering rents.

only people benefiting is the rent seeker.

And the people who are now employed, and their local community that they spend that money in.

Again why is someone in NYC more deserving of it than someone else?

0

Depends on the region, lowest is about 350 php or 6 usd per day. Most of the call centers are in the big cities however where wages are a bit higher and they well enough to be thought of as a decent job.

2
lemmy.one

I would just unplug the camera and computer. Every day. Even if I wasn't buying anything.

Fuck this business.

153
NatakuNoxreply
lemmy.world

Because a person 8000 miles away can't wipe down anything so the place has to be dirty

55
lemmy.world

Because you don't want to leave fingerprints behind when you unplug something on camera.

16

Oh sorry, I didn’t mean you, not-so-secret agent man

4
lemmy.world

Actually, it could be. That could be considered vandalism (you're intentionally making unauthorized modifications to equipment to prevent it from working as expected) which is illegal.

But this is New York, so who knows if they would even enforce that.

2

Oh, I guess if you can just plug it back in, that just invalidates the downtime that was caused or data being lost.

Being able to undo vandalism doesn't make it suddenly not vandalism.

2

So people can just unplug cables at data centers because it's "$0 property damage criminal mischief"?

Come on, their lawyers would (successfully) argue that they experienced loss of revenue for any amount of time their remote cashier system was not connected and operational...

0
lemm.ee

They use fingerprints for murder cases, not camera unplugging cases.

Also, this lady now has a job and you’re talking about ruining her job.

-3

I'd presume they have a few cashiers from the Philippines but at least one person managing the store.

1
Nelotsreply
lemm.ee

https://nypost.com/2024/04/09/us-news/nyc-restaurants-use-zoom-cashiers-from-philippines/

adding that she splits tips with her manager and kitchen staff at the restaurant.

They don't even let her keep her entire tips. The whole situation is fucked. Somebody mentioned in the article also brought up a great point...

“Today, this is a Filipino woman behind a screen, controlling a POS system — but it’s not crazy to believe that probably in the next six to twelve months, this could be an AI avatar doing all the same things,” he said.

What a shitty future we have.

65

From the article, Sansan Chicken, Sansan Ramen, and Yaso Kitchen, all in NY. (Since nobody has said it yet)

19
lemm.ee

Well yeah. When you eat at a restaurant, and tip, generally you’re not intending to tip the solely the cashier.

Before chanting along with the hate chant just think for a second. When’s the last time you tipped a cashier, with the intention of the tip going to the cashier and none of the rest of the staff?

6

Um...yes I do. If I enjoy the service of one particular waiter, I expect that the tip (at least the majority of it, let's say around 75-90% if not 100% of it) goes to the waiter who served me. If I'm tipping a cashier, I just give him a few bucks and tell him to pocket it discreetly.

2

That's right folks, this is why you don't tip cashiers or anyone else for that matter unless they get sub min wage rate.

1
Sippy Cupreply
lemmy.world

It's not only legal it's effectively encouraged. Capitalism is a race to the bottom, regardless of consequences.

96
lemmynsfw.com

When the supreme Court has their finger in the scale it makes everything feel fuckin hopeless

16
prolereply
sh.itjust.works

They don't help, sure, but this shit happens anyway in capitalism. It's an inevitability.

9
lemm.ee

Yeah it sucks how money flows to the people who can use it most under capitalism, without anyone having to force it to happen.

-11
b000rgreply
midwest.social

They're being paid minimum wage. It's not a great job.

Edit: And apparently they split their tips with the people working in the restaurant too, so I really feel like this is just exploitation.

21
aidanreply
lemmy.world

The minimum wage in the Phillipines is around $10 a day.

2

If this is right:

Looks like the absolute max is less than $10, and the absolute minimum is less than six dollars.

  • $5.24 (306 PHP)
    to
  • $9.76 (570 PHP)

How come agricultural laborers get shafted? An immediate guess is the government trying to keep food costs down.

3

Why does it seem that the ones who have everything have nothing inside, nothing inside?

4
lemm.ee

People should just not go there. But it's america and they probably have 1dollar chicken nuggets or something.

8

I would probably just turn around if I saw and understood what I was looking at. Definitely wouldn't go back a second time.

6

They are not physically in the US, and probably work listed as some sort of overseas contractor. Whatever wages they earn are from their employer who contracts for the restaurant.

That’s probably how it works.

26
lemmy.world

At that point why even have a cashier? Just put a POS and have people swype to enter like a subway.

109
PunnyNamereply
lemmy.world

Also POS - Also Piece of shit

FTFY (sorry, just having fun 😊)

9
shalafireply
lemmy.world

$3 is good pay over there, buys way more than our $3. Bet people are scrambling for those jobs. Good money when the daily min wage is $8-$10.

For example, my wife's ex took her family and friends to the fanciest restaurant they could find. $120 (including tip) for 16 people.

Americans are the ones exploited here. McDonalds is pumping money out of the country and taking our jobs.

5
lemmy.world

There's a movie called Eurotrip. Its about 3 college aged kids taking a road trip through Europe.

I forget what country they get to, but it's a run down mostly Indian country. They stay at a hotel, and the bell hop handles their bags. They try to give him a tip, but realize they only have like 17 cents. So he gives him a nickle, and says "Its not much, but maybe having some American money is novel."

The bellhop is shocked. Made to look like he's angry. So the bellhops boss is just walking by. This is after his interaction with the main characters are done. His boss starts yelling at him. And he yells "FUCK YOU! YOU SEE THIS??? I GOT A NICKLE!!! I OPEN MY OWN HOTEL!!!" And the boss is horrified. He says something like "For a nickle, that hotel will be the nicest in (whatever country they were in)."

Your comment reminds me of that scene.

6
rekorsereply
lemmy.world

Your take away here is that Americans are the real victims? If we are talking about countries, theres not many that have caused as much suffering and death as America. We just do it for money instead of religion.

America exploits the rest of the world, full stop.

-2
aidanreply
lemmy.world

America exploits the rest of the world, full stop.

South America, west Africa, some of the Middle East, yea. Rest of the world, not that much. Out of any conquering army, the US installed regimes have been a bit above the Soviets. Japan and West Germany did great, SK had a tyrannical dictator, so was Chiang-Kai Shek- though the US nowhere near installed him. But neither the Kim's nor Mao were much better. South Vietnam was propped up by the US but created because of the French. Ho Chi Minh may not have been that bad, and his replacements were ok. Pol Pot was very bad though. Lets not talk about the Soviet invasions of Poland, Budapest, and Prague. And even before that how they forced out previous democratic governments. Basically all the Soviet regimes in Europe sucked(Tito may have been ok, but wasn't Soviet). Not to mention actions in Mongolia and Central Asia.

If we were to mention British, French, and Spanish empires too. I'd say US world order is a bit above average compared to other world orders- especially in more recent years. Definitely not defending a lot of CIA actions abroad and FBI actions domestically.

1

Plus the addition of hindsight bias being applied to what used to be morally grey actions.

I do wish we would just be more honest as a country.

2
lemm.ee

Sometimes it’s nice if someone gets a job, and sometimes people like to talk to a person while they’re paying.

-4

I would rather use a POS terminal than try to talk to someone over zoom with no headphones. If it's not a human in person who can just say "hmmm the computer is broken here's your sandwich" then it's worse.

2
lemm.ee

Good thing they build a wall so these mean immigrants are not stealing jobs.

76

immigrants are not stealing jobs.

I know you are being cheeky.. But you are using their lingo. It is strategic as it skips the the perp ie the rent seeker looking to underpay for labour.

You know how fake teevee always got NYC migrant bussing story?

But we never hear about migrants being bussed into the heartland to work in meat packing or some other hard work.

Who is paying to bus them anyway?

Asking for a friend

13

This shit has got to be outlawed. Companies are doing this across the board. Literally skirting labor laws, outsourcing jobs that should be going to us citizens, all to just continue pouring more money into the tops pockets. When will we have all had enough?

72
lemmy.today

It's a simple enough solution in this case. They are performing the work of employees, so for all intents and purposes, they are employees. They are directly interacting with US customers at a physical location within the US. Their place of work is that physical location, even if they are not physically present. They need authorization to work in the US, and the minimum wage laws applicable to that location applies to these workers.

All that is missing is the lawsuit under existing labor laws, which they will probably lose.

38

Good luck finding a judge taking such a position

Judiciary is just a rubber stamp for the corporate needs. Last 40 years of court rulings speak for themselves.

Courts ain't saving slaves

11
gerblerreply
lemmy.world

Sounds like something the Department of Labour could legislate... Or could have.

But the supreme court just ruled that this falls under the courts jurisdiction and there's a snowflakes chance in hell that a case pushed high and far enough will result in those ghouls will rule in favour of labour interests.

6

Yeah, I don't think SCOTUS would side with an IRS or Labour Department rule requiring businesses pay minimum wage. But you're forgetting the "racist" angle: the courts would love nothing more than to support a State Department determination that they are "immigrant workers" and require a work visa.

2
lemmy.ca

I would not shop here. If I saw this, I would turn around and walk out. Go somewhere that they value work.

70
errerreply
lemmy.world

Everyone in the US takes advantage of cheap overseas labor. It’s just usually not directly in your face.

4

It's usually impossible not to, because we have no visibility into the supply chain or there's no other options. In this case, it's impossible to ignore.

2
feddit.uk

This feels cyberpunk. Some netrunner will hack the system and give free meals away because fuck the corpos, right?

65
lemm.ee

I don't think you need a netrunner to plug a mouse into the pc behind the monitor and hit "Leave" on the (I assume) Zoom call.

Even easier, unplug the ethernet cable.

24

Or turn off the monitor and bounce lol. If you don't have employees to fix things, systems are hilariously easy to break.

2

plug a mouse into the pc behind the monitor and hit "Leave" on the (I assume) Zoom call.

“If someone’s consistently lucky, it ain’t luck”

-1
lemmy.world

Are there movements in the US or globally to force all business into worker coops? Unions are good but I think this is their ultimate limitation, that employers can just offshore their jobs

53
31337reply
sh.itjust.works

Argentina has somewhat of a history of workers seizing their factories. I think it would be extremely hard in the U.S. due to the well-funded police. Generally, I guess the movement would be "anarcho-syndicalism."

Edit: misremembered worker factory takeovers in the past as occurring in Venezuela instead of Argentina.

19

Thanks. I didn't know about Venezuela's history at all. But I meant not more on a policy level to mandate that all companies must be owned equally by employees instead of shareholders

6
Aceticonreply
lemmy.world

By that hyper-simplistic "logic" people shouldn't be forced into prison if they murder someone.

Clearly some kinds of forcing in some situations are "good", and if some are good but other not, that means the real discussion is all about "when is forcing right and when is it not?" something that childlike "logic" of yours doesn't even begin to address.

17
aidanreply
lemmy.world

Forcing to defend the lives of others, is very different from forcibly taking what belongs to others

-4
hglmanreply
lemmy.ml

The meme is right, the claim of belonging is complete bullshit. Your toothbrush and your home belong to you, a business involving multiple people belongs to everyone involved. The idea that it doesn't is narcissism and evil.

9
aidanreply
lemmy.world

Your toothbrush and your home belong to you, a business involving multiple people belongs to everyone involved.

You're free to believe what you want, I'm personally a Lockean property rights enjoyer.

-7
hglmanreply
lemmy.ml

Funny bc thats in agreement with what I just said. Unless you think your home and toothbrush are not yours bc you didn't make them.

1

It rightfully belongs to the workers. The firm is basically a vehicle for appropriating the positive and negative product of production. The just basis of property is getting the positive and negative fruits of your labor (i.e. the labor theory of property). In a capitalist employer-employee relationship, the employer gets solely holds the whole product while workers are denied their claim to it despite it being a result of their labor.

@aboringdystopia

1

Forcing is absolutely good. We force companies to do all kinds of things, in terms of corporate governance (publicly traded companies must have their finances audited, for example), ownership (banks used to be prevented from buying stock so that they would not avoid calling in bad debt), and how they do business (collusion between big tech to keep salaries down for example).

14

Yeah because private Enterprise will be guided by the invisible hand to do the right thing

4
lemmy.world

Having no actual person guarding your business is a recipe for theft. If this catches on it will be so much easier to steal from places. I'm ok with this

49
Catmareply
lemmy.world

You shouldnt ever try to protect the cash register at your place of work. They give 0 fucks about you and will have a job posting up before your body is cold.

33

Fact but it does not negate that physically present employees deters some crime.

High traffic grocery stores who put in self check outs are staffing several guards now and put in some clown fences and gates...

But hey guy who put in self check and guy fired cashiers both got bonus...

Guy hiring security and putting fences also got bonus. These clowns will pay anyone any amount of money as long they don't pay the worker for the actual job.

14
lemmy.ml

I remember working in a store and a guy walked through the scanner at the door and it went off, the other employee looked at me and was like "that guy stole something, hey?" And I was just like "yep" and we went back to whatever we were doing lol

11

This is the way. Ive seen the "security" do the same shit, they don't get paid enough to throw down over a can of doritos either lol

2

Retail jobs will tell you this too as they want as little liability as possible.

Plus the registers only usually have a couple hundred bucks max at one time.

3

Can confirm, if they give any appearance of being human, even for years on end, it's a lie, they are complete psychopaths and will throw you into the fire not even to save themselves, just to feel slightly less insecure.

3
Maggotyreply
lemmy.world

The recommended course of action in a robbery is to follow instructions and hand over anything they ask for. If they grab product and walk out of the store, don't try to stop them. This is actually less of an insurance liability than having an actual person there.

8

Yes but in general people are less likely to steal if there is a person standing in front of them watching. I'm not even talking about robbery just people stealing a candy bar or whatever. If it's just sitting out with no one around people will take it.

5
uisreply
lemm.ee

Stealing and robbery are different

-1

I'm sure there's a technical difference but I really don't care about it.

2

Depends on whether they put the order in correctly or the kitchen staff didn't follow it, doesn't it Jim bob?

2
lemmy.world

Japanese Fried Chicken? JFC

Looks like this is "Japang". Terrible reviews online and described as actually a "ghost kitchen".

45
lemmy.blahaj.zone

Ghost kitchens for those who don’t know are basically “restaurants” for online takeout orders. They don’t do in person service.

25
kbin.earth

It’s more they use spray existing kitchens to do so.

The Denny’s around here is a ghost for like 3 different places

15
uisreply

Right, Corpomerica will corpomerica

2

They do have a kiosk. Just one that’s supervised by someone in the Philippines

16
pawb.social

Ah yes, it's the minorities who are stealing jobs. Not the lack of regulations blocking corpos from outsourcing work.

40
lemmy.world

Working as a graphic designer in the US since the early 2000's, every employer I ever worked for eventually used Fiverr to pay someone overseas a fraction of what they paid me to do the same work. This doesn't seem meaningfully different.

Not saying this is okay, just that it's not even remotely (no pun intended) a new problem.

40
sunzureply
kbin.run

This whole thing is a to send a message to begin with as with AI, actually more so.

Most of the "AI job losses" are this sort of offshoring actually... Joke is on the wage slaves.

11
sopuli.xyz

This is pure Astronaut meme with “wait, AI is just 3rd world wage slaves?”

10

There was an article that exposed Amazons cashier-less stores were just bunch of Indians overseas reviewing footage because their classification algorithms failed half the time

2
lemmy.world

I’m honestly surprised the corps haven’t done this to all of their drive-thrus.

26
lemmy.world

No, that is just a pre-recorded message. I once went through a mcdonald's drive thru that had just closed. They asked me for my order and after I gave it, I realized no one was in the restaurant. I pulled around and they asked me again every time I stopped at the order point, but there was no cars in the lot.

5
IIIreply
lemmy.world

Maybe someone will catch on to who the actual enemy is here...

30

The host denies you access. I just tried, waited for 5 minutes before being denied access.

33
lemmy.world

Okay but like... how are they gonna count out my change?

21
slrpnk.net

In Japan, you order from a vending machine, pay the machine, get a slip of paper, and hand it to the cook.

I think that system is fantastic.

12
The_Jitreply
lemmy.world

We have this in the US to. Even McDonalds does them!

4
MeanEYEreply
lemmy.world

For different reasons though. In japan it's for small restaurants which don't employ many people or don't have a lot of space or both. For McDonald's it's for pinching a dollar more for their empire.

3

In japan it’s for small restaurants which don’t employ many people or don’t have a lot of space or both.

So about saving money, which is the same reason

For McDonald’s it’s for pinching a dollar more for their empire.

McDonald's is franchised

0

Ya I hate that. I have walked out of a McDonalds and went to the drive thru just so a person would take my order.

1
MeanEYEreply
lemmy.world

I also love the amount vending machines Japan has. I'd love to have machine for tea or late night ramen around every corner.

2
aidanreply
lemmy.world

Not what you want to hear, but it sounds like you just want a kettle

1

Haha. If those two were the only things offered in vending machines in japan, then yes. But they don't.

-1

Those are awesome for the 7.2 minutes in a row they work without some intervention.

Source: McDonald's drive-[through].

4

In the Netherlands you have self checkout with cash. No cashier involved.

2

Cashless payment, or those machine that will count the money, sorta like vending machine.

2
lemm.ee

I'm almost certain this has been tried before multiple times and always ended badly. I see no reason to think it would be different now.

18
lemm.ee

“Please don’t destroy my job to satisfy your desire to virtue signal”

— the person who now has a job as a cashier

-3
sunzureply
kbin.run

Critical thinking spotted!

Whoever clicked the link drop the name of that shithole so NYC shitposters know to avoid.

11
sunzureply
kbin.run

damn fed... can't folk just not spend their money at a place that devalues their labour tho

1
lemmy.world

That only works if consumers organize and have discipline. Like a boycott. Were talking about americans here, they wont bother unless its a trans woman

1
sunzureply
kbin.run

You very likely very right but it does not mean that people should not do it and spread the word. Hopefully one day we can hit critical mass.

Vote with your money people, it is the most effective way to exercise of power you have. You must consume but some choices are better than others.

1

me too but but got to fight the good fight.

denying corpos profits does bring some joy in life tho, the last bit of agency before the cyberpunk future.

1
lemmy.world

Cashiers fought for WFH?

If you're talking about other sectors, it's been done before (off-shoring in the 2000s).

5

Yeah but he reminding us "that daddy can do it anytime to you"

U feel me?

1

Always dear... otherwise owner's children will starve ;)

11

Not knowing the law in the US I guess it is fully legal. Given that there is no union or chain responsibility in the supply chain or similar to GDPR in EU you guys are fucked until someone abuse the system one way or another.

On the other hand it shows work from home is feasible even with these kind of things.

9

Does this mean I can give the cashier a 50 cent tip and I can get her number for laters?

7

I hope it's just supplemental. Like have one cashier and when it's busy have one remote in to help for a period of time (card only payments) then log out. Could have a 3rd party company manage a group of online employees to rotate between places worldwide.

Still don't think I'm cool with it but seems inevitable unless AI just replaces all of them quicker than expected

3

This is a particularly suited post for this magazine and the image just completes it

3

I have bad eye sight...I read the screen behind her as "Japanese fried children" suddenly I knew I had misread that. Like there's no way New York would stoop that low and be that cruel to children. I corrected myself before any other thought occurred actually. But it was momentarily disturbing.

2

If a remote worker can actually do the job at a high enough level, then the writing is on the wall.

Globalization will eventually take over those roles and laws that try to prop up a local worker will end up like Oregon's old law that says you can't pump your own gas.

The only way to 'win' is to equip the local guy with skills that absolutely cannot be done remotely, or educate him to do things at a level unmatched by the remote worker coming from another culture.

1
sh.itjust.works

If my initial reaction is “that’s too bad”, does it make me greedy?

Like, I don’t think US workers are more deserving as human beings than anyone else… but a part of me knows hardcore globalization would hurt people geographically close to me… I’m like some national relativist or something?

I feel like I should want everyone to win regardless of where they were born. And $3/hr is huge vs. the $6/day min wage in parts of PH. Know friends’ friends are farming rice for six bucks a day.

-4
Fedizenreply
lemmy.world

the problem is it circumvents minimum wage laws. They're employing a person so they should be paying them the appropriate wages to do business in new york or the US. They're also benefitting from payroll/income taxes but not paying into the programs.

17
brbpostingreply
sh.itjust.works

Good point!

Are call centers the same way? And any company relying on Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firms?

Would be a lotta layoffs overseas if we restricted all foreign labor making less than local minimum wage. Is that a fair trade off? (Not being facetious, genuine question again)

Oh one thing that’s kinda messed up is when tech companies go through consultancies to hire workers in India, the consulting companies take HALF!! Wild!

5

Yes it is a fair tradeoff. Any time we make a law we're raising the cost of goods and services here. If there's no regulation or import taxes to balance prices with outside the jurisdiction, then the "race to the bottom" de facto negates the law in question.

So if we ban XYZ here, but allow untaxed imports from countries with XYZ, then we haven't really banned it - we just moved it.

2
lemmy.world

Everything in the US is already expensive, that "great wage going to a Filipino/a" is at the expense of a person in their own hometown not having a job.

Too bad? Put the shoe on your other foot. If we in the US ban imported rice to protect our farmers, would you and friends feel comfortable in that time things take to adjust? The loss of income?

How far does $6/day go in the Philippines? I can tell you how far it goes in NYC.

2
rekorsereply
lemmy.world

Things in america should be more expensive. We do not pay for the full cost of what all of our goods and services cost, mainly due to exploitative measures like in this post.

You can double down all you want but the real answer is that we just shouldn't be able to buy nearly as much stuff as we do. We love being consumers anf watching the trash heap grow, while we take advantage of anyone smaller than us in any remote corner of the Earth.

1
lemmy.world

At no point have I ever said our excessive consumerism is good, only that people shouldn't be competing internationally for an in-person job.

Having been raised in NYC, I can tell you directly that the job market is a bit fierce, and I think offshoring basic service jobs is terrible for everyone involved, owner included.

2
rekorsereply
lemmy.world

I agree with your post but wanted to add that I think we are starting to realize the effects of cutting out relationships with people in our community.

I suppose thats just another aspect of offshoring that is problematic.

2

It's a race to the bottom, which I'd call a systematic bug.

Who's buying anything fun when nobody has a job? So yeah, I agree with what you're saying too.

1
brbpostingreply
sh.itjust.works

I don’t know what to think because I want everyone to win, but it’s hard to deny I’m biased towards my countrymen here stateside.

Re-reading my comment, did it sound like I meant:

it’s too bad this job is being outsourced

or

psh, too bad, this is the reality of a global world!

I did mean the first one.

I should want everyone to win but I’m biased towards Americans in situations like this - and I don’t know if I can justify it, if I can universalize the maxim.

1

I understood you meant the first one. I'm also biased towards the people of my former home city.

There are several sources that collude to raise prices for the average New Yorker, rent and food amongst them. I'm not at all blaming the lady taking the job remotely, there is pain in financing & operating the business, for the employees in getting to and from, and getting paid close to what their work is actually worth.

The bitch is that none of this system is voluntary. Work or starve, how inhumane.

2

What you shluldve wanting is some Phillipino employer to pay the lady what shes worth, and the American business to hire an American

1
lemmy.world

I'm not a fan of this, it's definitely not great, but I've tested the AI drive through lanes, not the worst possible future.

-14
lemmy.world

Sure, it might be convenient, but our society is not structured in a way that allows this to work. We need deep, deep social support or people will suffer greatly

4

I don't think anyone ever said anything about it being convenient. I'm pretty sure I specifically said it was bad just not as bad as it could be.

-4
lemm.ee

Yeah it’s definitely dystopian that someone in the Philippines gets to earn a living 🙄

-50
rozodrureply
lemmy.world

hope your job never gets offshored

you: "Yeah I lost my job, but hey, now someone in India gets to earn a living...can you help me prop up my cardboard box to keep the rain out? thanks."

11
Lyrlreply
lemm.ee

Jobs are not a finite resource. If there is a pool of people who want to work, someone will find stuff to pay them to do.

I seriously would love for my entire current set of job responsibilities to be automated. There are a couple of value-adding full-time jobs' worth of work I could be doing for my employer that are just being left on the table right now.

-1
rozodrureply
lemmy.world

Well this is just absolutely untrue. If there's a pool of people who want to work then someone will just give them a job? what kind of magical unicorn world are you living in? So in your world unemployment rates just...don't exist or are a fabrication? those people are just lazy?

If you got fired from your job and you couldn't find another one, in your head, whose fault is that? yours? the mythical job provider who hasn't blessed you with another?

If I ran a business and was provided the option of hiring you or someone in another country for peanuts, I'd tell you to kick grass.

But you want to work I hear you say! someone HAS to pay me to do something! nope, I'm not going to pay you, I'm going to pay this kid in India or his brother that just got off the plane half of what I would have to pay you.

Welcome to the real world.

3

it is not the way the world has to work just because it's the way the world currently works

2
Lyrlreply

There will always be some level of unemployment (a percentage of people who want job a won't have found one), but if automation made the unemployment rate permanently go up, all the people who used to hand knit socks who lost jobs to powered looms, all the people who used to drive plows with oxen who lost jobs to combines, all the blacksmiths who lost jobs to powered forges, and equivalent percentage of the population for subsequent generations forever would remain unemployed. And yet, somehow, subsequent generations have managed to mostly find jobs.

-1
aidanreply
lemmy.world

I agree it sucks that anyone would lose their job, but why is the default of people in the "west" having well paid, air conditioned jobs, and other people getting those jobs stealing from them.

-3
explodiclereply
sh.itjust.works

Because the surplus from this change is going to the owner and not the workers.

3
aidanreply
lemmy.world

It's in NYC, I would not assume the owner is financially stable. Small businesses struggle because of two main costs, rent and labor

-1

How is this my problem?

Nobody ask how my budget at home work when I negotiate my salary.

Financial viability of a shiti business is the "owners" problem.

They never include me when they accounting them profits tho ;)

I wonder why dear?

1

Since we're discussing the default, I'd assume average NYC everything. If a restaurant can't afford to pay minimum wage for the area, then I wouldn't assume their business is a good use of space.

0