Tag: Labor

A Put Up/Shut Up Moment For McDonalds

The competition’s tough. Baby, that’s a pity.

Plain-McDonalds-LogoMickey D’s just announced a horrible quarter. Profits are down 30%. According to Reuters it’s because of “a food scandal in China and tough competition in the United States.”

The competition’s tough. Baby, that’s a pity.

Where were we?

How will McDonalds go about building its profit? Will it raise its prices? This is what the fast food industry has screamed any time the subject of raising wages comes up.

My guess is price raising is the last thing they’ll do. And, in spite of their kvetching, it would also be among the last things they’d do if forced to pay a more reasonable wage to the McDonalds crew.

I get it. Underpaying employees is fabulously profitable. It’s also reprehensible.

Let’s see how McDonalds goes about dealing with this crisis. It will tell us a lot about their honesty on the wage front.

McDonalds made over a billion dollars in this past quarter on revenue of seven billion.

Letter To The Editor

registerlogo2013blackserviceI just wrote a letter to the editor. It was about a column in today’s Orange County Register.

It made me angry. Incensed. A lie masquerading as truth.

It was about fast food workers, McDonald’s in particular and the push for a higher minimum wage. The argument was made using the wrong data. With real world numbers it quickly falls apart.

Devious or dumb? Who knows? Both make me sad.

Alas, newspapers don’t have the impact they once had. My daughter will never buy a paper. She still consumes news, her own curated version. We all have that power today.

Columnists have fewer potential readers than ever before. It’s an older crowd that gets the paper. Competing content is everywhere.

Whatever reach he has, my letter (if published) correcting his misguidance will have even less!

It’s Labor Day

Here’s the problem with the whole corporate tax equation. Our tax structure was set up with the idea business would be the driver of employment. Business has decided that’s not part of the deal anymore. Companies offshore and automate and do so to save every penny.

George Jetson at WorkIt’s Labor Day.

I grew up in an apartment complex financed and built by Local 3 of the Electrical Workers Union. I joke now about its Soviet style architecture and warmth, but places like Electchester were needed. The workforce in post-WW2 America was growing like crazy.

Our softball league used to march down 5th Avenue in the Labor Day Parade. It was a big deal in New York City.

It’s not even held on Labor Day anymore.

Labor is vilified today. Unions, more evil still.

All this has come to mind after seeing a Facebook post (then online shouting match) about American corporate taxes. My blood began to boil. Instead of joining the flamewar, let me vent.

Here’s the problem with the whole corporate tax equation. Our tax structure was set up with the idea business would be the driver of employment.

Charles Wilson, a nominee for Secretary of Defense in the early 50s and former GM executive famously said, “I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.”

He was right… sixty years ago.

Business has decided that’s no longer part of the deal. Companies offshore, centralize and automate and do so to save every penny.

At your place of employment are there now fewer people doing the same work as a few years ago? My guess is yes. You’re not alone.

When I was a kid, George Jetson drove to work and immediately put his feet on his desk. Wasn’t that our expectation? The future would be less work and more comfort.

That’s not how automation has worked. We have not been augmented. We have been replaced.

The list of non-human jobs grows by the day. Versatile robots and driverless vehicles? Certainly within our lifetimes.

What truly wasn’t expected was the optimization of tasks. Computers have made this possible. Companies learned how to make workers much more productive. None of this is done to the laborer’s benefit.

There was once a class of middle managers who ran departments within stores. WalMart, Home Depot, Target and all the rest have learned how to massively manage from a central location. When stores like Caldors and Zayers closed, that level of job disappeared too.

I grew up in the age of strong labor. The middle class was a good place to be. Hourly employees owned homes.

Our current economic and tax structure can only support a nation of haves and have nots. There are already not enough jobs to go around. And it’s like that in nearly all the industrialized world.

We need to make a decision. What kind of society do we want and how will we make that happen? What level of need and poverty will we accept and for how many?

Whatever the answer is, it’s certainly not what we’re doing now.

Comcast And AT&T: Gobble, Gobble, Gobble

Comcast wishes to become a vertically integrated behemoth. They will dictate programming and technology because their fingers are in every pie.

Even today they double dip, charging Netflix for services I’m already paying for. That’s what monopolies do! How can you say no to the company that stands between you and your customers?

New Haven Comcast officeComcast is in the process of swallowing Time-Warner. AT&T has just announced they’re purchasing DirecTV. Maybe I just haven’t looked closely enough, but where is the benefit to citizens?

The biggest trend in American business over the past few decades has been consolidation. Much of it is subject to regulatory approval. It should be subject to regulatory scrutiny. That part seems sorely lacking.

Comcast wishes to become a vertically integrated behemoth. They will dictate programming and technology because their fingers are in every pie.

Even today they double dip, charging Netflix for services I’m already paying for. That’s what monopolies do! How can you say no to the company that stands between you and your customers?

Comcast as every incentive to do more of the same, protecting their legacy businesses through the terms they offer consumers.

Will programming and distribution deals be structured, as many are now, to protect Comcast’s cable TV business? Why do I even ask?

There was a time in America when bigger was better. Charles Erwin Wilson, nominee for Secretary of Defense in the early 1950’s famously tried to hold onto his GM stock while in office&#185.

Because for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.

att_logoAnd maybe, sixty years ago, it was. Employment scaled up as company’s did.

Is there anyone who actually believes the Comcast or AT&T acquisitions will have a positive outcome for America? More choice? More employment? More investment? Better technology?

“This compelling and complementary combination will bring significant benefits to all consumers, shareholders and DIRECTV employees,” said Mike White, president and CEO of DIRECTV. “U.S. consumers will have access to a more competitive bundle; shareholders will benefit from the enhanced value of the combined company; and employees will have the advantage of being part of a stronger, more competitive company, well positioned to meet the evolving video and broadband needs of the 21st century marketplace.” – AT&T press release

The important part is there in the last sentence:

a stronger, more competitive company, well positioned

We’re already dealing with companies treading very close to the anti-trust line. Take the bundling of cable TV services, where I have to buy loads of channels I don’t want to get the ones I do.

Typically, the “tied” product may be a less desirable one that the buyer might not purchase unless required to do so, or may prefer to get from a different seller. If the seller offering the tied products has sufficient market power in the “tying” product, these arrangements can violate the antitrust laws. – Federal Trade Commission

The system is being gamed and these mergers and acquisitions will only make things worse. It’s time to put a stop to it.

&#185 – He sold his stock before his appointment, but after his confirmation hearing.

How Do We Save Labor From Labor Saving?

Growing up I watched The Jetsons. Mr. Spacely did well, but the labor saving devices also helped the workers. George’s feet were up on his desk. He still had a desk!

In the real world the bulk of labor savings have gone to the top. George Jetson would have been downsized out by now. It’s the bottom and middle that have suffered.

Watch pols speak and you quickly notice a universal theme–jobs! We need more jobs. Thank you non-hiring politicians, masters of the obvious!

You don’t hear business owners say that. Business owners want (who can blame them) increased productivity. A 20% increase in orders leading to a 5% increase in jobs, or maybe no increase in jobs is much more employer friendly than upping employment proportionally.

Productivity isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We can buy more when goods cost less. Eliminate labor costs and everyone benefits… well, except for those who used to do the labor.

That’s the rub, right? There’s a conflict. What businesses want and our society needs have moved out of alignment.

Growing up I watched The Jetsons. Mr. Spacely did well, but the labor saving devices also helped the workers. George’s feet were up on his desk. He still had a desk!

In the real world the bulk of labor savings have gone to the top. George Jetson would have been downsized out by now. It’s the bottom and middle that have suffered.

Is it time to reexamine the 40 hour/5 day week? We’ve just got too many skilled and semi-skilled workers for the world’s available work?.

From GoBankingRates.com: In the Middle Ages, people were obligated to work eight hours a day, six days a week, excluding holidays. A saying from King Alfred the Great of England was “Eight hours work, eight hours sleep, eight hours play, make just and healthy day.”

As time moved on, the work schedules actually increased a bit, especially in the United States. In around the year 1800, a 14-hour work day was customary in the U.S. for men, women and children. This was largely due to the Industrial Revolution. Then in 1840, President Martin Van Buren issued an executive order that laborers and mechanics be limited to working 10 hours in a day.

But it wasn’t until the International Labor Organization held its first conference in Oct. 1919 that “Hours of Work” convention established an 8- or 9-hour work day, which constituted a max of 48 hours worked per week.

First manual labor was automated. Intelligent labor is quickly following. Nowadays we often interact with a businesses and never deal with another human!

Last week Google began bragging its autonomous driverless vehicles have gone 300,000 miles without an accident. When self driving cars and trucks are perfected (not too far away) who will win? Who will lose?

Increased productivity has created a society with more workers than are needed. How will we fix that? It needs fixing. Job talk alone isn’t the answer.

On Taxes And Jobs

Our governmental policies and tax laws reflect an earlier, simpler time Back then more income meant more employees. Now not so much.

I’m not an economist. Duh!

Still some of what I hear over the federal budget battle seems a little hard to swallow. Specifically I’m talking about raising taxes and how that affects job creation. The mantra from Republicans is lower taxes go directly into more jobs.

As it turns out there was a tax decrease on airline fares this weekend. When the FAA charter wasn’t refunded the taxes and fees it collected expired. Let’s see how that worked out.

Airlines are tossing consumers aside and grabbing the benefit of lower federal taxes on travel tickets.

By Saturday night, almost all the major U.S. airlines had raised fares to offset taxes that expired the night before.

That means instead of passing along the savings, the airlines are pocketing the money while customers pay the same amount as before.

American, United, Continental, Delta, US Airways, Southwest, AirTran and JetBlue all raised fares, although details differed. Most of the increases were around 7.5 percent. – San Francisco Chronicle

Maybe the airlines looked at this tax decrease as too temporary to use as a hiring trigger, but using it as an opportunity to charge more seems unconscionable.

Unfortunately, I also understand why it happened.

Businesses are there to make money. I can’t say I blame them. They’re doing what they’re supposed to do. But we can’t look at them as what they are and through rose colored glasses simultaneously.

Our governmental policies and tax laws reflect an earlier, simpler time Back then more income meant more employees. Now not so much.

One of the major reasons for a spike in unemployment is fewer people are needed to produce the same work product. When you call a company for service or help and have your problem fielded by computers (or lower paid workers somewhere halfway around the world) you’re seeing a cause for unemployment firsthand. Companies are benefiting from this increase in productivity. They’re keeping that gain all to themselves.

A company’s interest is best served by producing a good or service for the minimum price. Maybe their interests and our society’s interests aren’t aligned anymore?

If we want more employment we’re going to have to add incentives that recognize full employment isn’t the employer’s natural goal. Certainly we’re going to have to take another look at incentives that actually work against full employment.

When banks swallow banks or AT&T swallows T-Mobile will layoffs follow? Unemployment costs our economy. Who’s paying for it? I sense it’s not the swallowing bank or AT&T. In the end our economy picks up the tab. The cost is shifted from them to us.

I agree with Republicans who say we shouldn’t penalize job creators. We shouldn’t. So maybe it’s time job creation itself was part of the equation in who got tax breaks. Not everyone deserves a break.

Prove you’re a creator and I’ll do what I can to help you. Otherwise, pound sand.

Like I said, I’m not an economist. However, I recognize BS when I see it.

The Child Gets A Job

Actually we were worried about her getting there at all since Stef can’t parallel park and her contact had told her, “there’s plenty of on-street parking.”

Stefanie had an interview in Burbank at 10:00 AM today. I assume she got there early because by 10:01 she was on the phone–employed! Actually we were worried about her getting there at all since Stef can’t parallel park and her contact told her, “there’s plenty of on-street parking.”

OK, it’s California so employment is a little different. She’s got three days of work on what sounds ‘pilotish.’ It’s four episodes of a reality show.

I know there’s some TV involved, but probably a lot more fetching and driving and holding and helping. That’s exactly where she should be, at the bottom feverishly climbing up.

It’s a great start. We’re very excited.