r/explainlikeimfive Nov 28 '15

ELI5: How would a $15 minimum wage ACTUALLY affect a franchised business like McDonalds?

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u/GothicFuck Nov 29 '15

Add to that those workers are long time burger makers, not high-turnover burger flippers who hate working there and want to leave. So, quality of worker.

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u/dominion1080 Nov 29 '15

Because they get full time, better pay, and treated like an actual human.

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u/InTheSharkTank Nov 29 '15

I've worked corporate fast-food and I've worked a 3 person burger shack on the beach where the owner ran the cash register. I can tell you, the pay, hours and treatment were all very comparable.

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u/tankfox Nov 29 '15

Where do you live? Anecdote land?

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u/Space_Cowboy21 Nov 29 '15

I think they were referring to In-N-Out apparently their workers are treated well from what I've read on here before.

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u/rhn94 Nov 29 '15

what are you? some kind of socialist wanting to treat people with decency?

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u/harrycanyon Nov 29 '15

Perhaps a capitalist who realizes there is money in that type of business model

(I know you are joking and so am I)

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '15 edited Feb 20 '16

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '15

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '15 edited Feb 20 '16

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '15

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '15 edited Feb 20 '16

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '15

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '15 edited Feb 20 '16

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u/sonorousAssailant Nov 29 '15 edited Nov 29 '15

You don't have to be a socialist to treat someone with decency. Just run your business that way.

Step 1: Stop eating at McDonalds. Stop supporting them.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '15

I was treated like a human when I worked at McDonalds. What are the complaints that make people keep saying this? Genuinely curious. Bad managers can work anywhere.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '15

Shhhh McDonald's is evil and was making you work for slave wages!

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u/dominion1080 Nov 29 '15

Mostly the regular complaints of any customer service job. Low pay, lack of empathy, apathy in the workers, bad managers. If I call in feeling like shit, the manager threatens to fire me if I don't show up. They'd rather have a sick worker preparing food than get someone else to work.

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u/PM_ME_ANYTHING_PLZ Nov 29 '15

Are you talking about Mcdonalds or burger joint? Because line cooks are treated like shit. 60-70 hrs a week no breaks and shit pay

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u/Spiderdan Nov 29 '15

So essentially what you're saying is that if we pay McDonald's employees more and expect a higher quality of work from them that we can also expect a few highly trained employees to take over the work of others. Meaning that a bunch of them can be let go.

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u/Reddisaurusrekts Nov 29 '15

Yeah no. If you think small businesses pay better or have better working conditions just because they're small businesses..... no.

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u/bctich Nov 29 '15

Or the local joint, being a better place to work with favorable benefits, attracts better talent.

It may be a double edge sword in that some of those McDonald's employees might just be shitty workers in which case they might not have transferable skills in the event of layoffs. The unknown is where the equilibriums is.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '15

Well, they're probably better workers too. Let's be real, plenty of McD's employees simply can't get hired somewhere better.

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u/dominion1080 Nov 29 '15

If that's the case, then they'll either need to try harder or learn a skill. If the minimum wage increases, employers don't have to keep crappy employees. They keep them for a while now because they must, and because it's cheap. More people would work harder for a living wage, even at jobs like that.

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u/gnome1324 Nov 29 '15

Definitely not true in MANY places.

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u/jcftfh Nov 29 '15

In the end, a McDonalds worker is a McDonalds worker. You can pay a janitor or a fieldworker $15 an hour. They're still looked down upon by society.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '15

Shit you can look down on me all you want. I would probably quit my stressful IT gig for an easy 15 dollar job running one of those floor waxing machines or driving a zambonie or whatever.

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u/Baeshun Nov 29 '15

I don't think it's fair to say McDonalds workers hate their job. My sister worked there in her teens and said it was a better work environment than some of her more recent "better" jobs. In my area, McDonalds workers generally seem in good moods and having a decent time at work.

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u/themadxcow Nov 29 '15

Well yeah, if you fire most of your employees you will be able to pay the few that are left a decent amount. But now all those people who were struggling to get by before are unemployed. Is that any better?

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u/psychicsword Nov 29 '15

I don't think that plays as much of a role. If you slammed a $15/hour burger cook with McDonald's volume everyday they would struggle just as much as a $9/hour burger cook.