We already knew that a minimum wage increase would be bad news for job creation, but now we have even more reason to question supporters of this misguided “plan.”
Take Panera Bread CEO Ron Shaich, for instance. A vocal supporter of raising the minimum wage, he has donated tens of thousands of dollars to candidates who support the policy and happen to be extremely chummy with Big Labor. Why is it a big deal that he backs a minimum wage hike? Because by 2016, Panera “
will have replaced all of their cashiers with kiosks.”
Well, that’s certainly convenient. Of course Shaich supports increasing the minimum wage if he’s planning to eliminate all of his cashiers in the next year and half.
While Shaich claims the move to replace workers with automated kiosks is part of his mission to lessen customer waiting times, “there is growing evidence that as pressure to raise wages builds, employers will turn to wage-free robots to avoid dramatic payroll hikes.” Is this really the future America’s workers deserve?
If you don’t think that fast food establishments won’t jump on the robot bandwagon in response to a forced increase of the minimum wage, all you have to do is look at Europe. Already, all McDonald’s locations in France “have installed kiosks to substitute and supplement human employees…to avoid some of the high payroll costs of dealing with France’s minimum wage.” It’s not just cashiers’ jobs in danger, either: “Equipment exists to replace almost all of the fast food workforce.”
This puts the recent efforts by labor-backed groups – including staged protests at fast food restaurants – in perspective. If Big Labor and other supporters of a federal minimum wage hike get their way, you can bet some of the very people they’re claiming to be fighting for will get the short end of the stick – and may even be out of a job.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.