Fast food protesters may get less than they expect
Commentary
Full confession. I really like fast food. I love McDonald's. I love Burger King. I love Wendy's. I love the newer breed of fast food too -- like Chipotle, Panera Bread and anything else, really. I realize it isn't the healthiest thing ever, and it's more money than I like to spend, so our family considers it a treat.
Therefore, on a recent trip to France, when my children begged for McDonald's it was pretty easy to get me to acquiesce. It was an easy decision, really. I like McDonald's and there was one, right there. We could get food quickly and then go to our hotel and go to bed.
The only problem is, I don't speak French, not even a little bit. So, I was thrilled when I found a touch screen computer with the option to choose my language. Not only did I not have to make a poor cashier suffer through my lack of language skills, but I could easily customize my order. My kids could even change their minds 6 times before I hit "finish and pay." Once I paid (with a credit card), we just had to wait for our number to be called.
You could, of course, order from a cashier, and lots of people did. But, the one man putting together the orders for the computer-ordering customers, was putting together at least three, if not five times as many orders as the cashiers. We joked about putting a FitBit on him and seeing how many thousands of steps he did each shift.
Yesterday, fast food workers all across the United States held protest about the low wages they receive for working these jobs. They are demanding $15 an hour.
That hourly rate strikes me as pretty awesome for putting burgers together, pushing the start button on the deep fryer timer and taking orders. I know, because in addition to my love of eating fast food, I worked for Burger King for two years in high school and college.
The problem with high wages in fast food is that it's not rocket science. Pretty much anyone can do it, with minimal training. So, in order to be worth $15 an hour to the restaurant manager, you've got to do a lot more work than you're currently doing or the restaurant has to charge more.
Now, at this McDonald's in France, the employee serving the most customers, essentially bringing the most value to the business, was the guy putting together the orders that customers made over the computer screens, not the employees taking orders one by one from humans.
So, stop and think about this for a moment. Business owners are not dumb. They aren't in business to be altruistic. They do it to make money themselves. While the corporate parents often have deep pockets, most fast food restaurants are owned by individuals. In fact, the Burger King I worked for was owned by a man in my neighborhood. His house was slightly smaller than ours, and his children attended the same public schools I did. His pockets weren't exceptionally deep.
If restaurants are forced to pay their employees more, you'll see more computer screens and fewer humans behind cash registers. In fact, you may even start to see machines putting together the actual food as well. That means some of the people who are currently making $8 may end up making zero instead of the $15 they want. The people making $15 will be the people with the most skills and experience.
The advantage of low wage jobs is that they train you for higher paying jobs. But, if the jobs aren't available, you miss out on training. Paid training at that.
Who has gone on to success after starting at in fast food? Well, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, and former White House Chief of Staff, Andrew Card all worked at McDonald's. Countless others had their start in fast food, myself included.
Protest too long and loudly about wages and the people who need the training and experience the most will be the ones out of a job altogether. But the technology workers who build the touch screen machines and design the burger flipping robots will be doing great. And they'll be making a lot more than $15 an hour.
