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How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

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Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#61

Post by verall »

credit_guy wrote: post #36
lancesells wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the McDs around me are already paying $17-20 (in Minnesota, including rural areas) and the menu prices reflect it McDonalds had $1.9B in profit in 2022. $1.6B in 2021. Starbucks had $3.3B in profit in 2022. $3.6B in 2021. Subway announced they had beaten sales plans by $1.4B in 2021. It's not the wages that are the issue making the prices go up. These companies aren't hurting for profit.

> McDonalds had $1.9B in profit in 2022 Out of curiosity, what does that mean? It appears to me the main business of McDonald's is to collect franchising fees. Most McDonald's fast food joints (93%) are owned and operated by independent local business owners, who have to pay McDonald's-the-company the frinchising fees, which are about $45k/year [1]. So, I can see how McDonald's, the company, can be highly profitable,…

Sure, and if those individual franchises start failing or finding other corporate overlords, then McDs profits may go down and they may have to reduce those fees in order to remain competitive. Such is capitalism.

Does this equilibrium-finding method create undo misery and stress for the franchise owners? I would say yes. If franchisees banded together to negotiate in order to extract better fee arrangements from McDs without going through individual bankruptcy, well...

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#62

Post by AussieWog93 »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #48
MR4D wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are approximately 40K McDonald’s in the world. That’s about USD 50,000 in profit per location. If you think that’s egregious, then we aren’t going to agree on much.

Note that given the franchise model, that's 50k profit on basically no expenses (i.e. you aren't looking at the profit of the stores, that's the amount of money being taken out of each store by McDonalds in addition to the profit that the owners are making). McDonalds isn't paying for the employees or the food or the buildings. That's just the tax they are charging the franchises for the privilege of calling themselv…

>basically no expenses

I could imagine marketing and PR alone on the scale of a McDonalds would be hugely costly, easily in the high hundred millions or billions.

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#63

Post by user3939382 »

credit_guy wrote: post #36
lancesells wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the McDs around me are already paying $17-20 (in Minnesota, including rural areas) and the menu prices reflect it McDonalds had $1.9B in profit in 2022. $1.6B in 2021. Starbucks had $3.3B in profit in 2022. $3.6B in 2021. Subway announced they had beaten sales plans by $1.4B in 2021. It's not the wages that are the issue making the prices go up. These companies aren't hurting for profit.

> McDonalds had $1.9B in profit in 2022 Out of curiosity, what does that mean? It appears to me the main business of McDonald's is to collect franchising fees. Most McDonald's fast food joints (93%) are owned and operated by independent local business owners, who have to pay McDonald's-the-company the frinchising fees, which are about $45k/year [1]. So, I can see how McDonald's, the company, can be highly profitable,…

1/5th of locations aren’t franchise. The fees are a market price that are coming out of the same pot that covers wages so the two are related.

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#64

Post by mattzito »

verall wrote: post #61
credit_guy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> McDonalds had $1.9B in profit in 2022 Out of curiosity, what does that mean? It appears to me the main business of McDonald's is to collect franchising fees. Most McDonald's fast food joints (93%) are owned and operated by independent local business owners, who have to pay McDonald's-the-company the frinchising fees, which are about $45k/year [1]. So, I can see how McDonald's, the company, can be highly profitable,…

Sure, and if those individual franchises start failing or finding other corporate overlords, then McDs profits may go down and they may have to reduce those fees in order to remain competitive. Such is capitalism. Does this equilibrium-finding method create undo misery and stress for the franchise owners? I would say yes. If franchisees banded together to negotiate in order to extract better fee arrangements from McD…

Since the franchisees are themselves independent businesses, wouldn’t this constitute collusion and price fixing? Something similar was raised around discussions about Uber drivers jointly negotiating rates with Uber.

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#65

Post by bjoli »

ETH_start wrote: post #40

This is written from the perspective of rent-seeking unions who benefit from laws that suppress people's right to freely contract in labor negotiations, and must vilify the principles of a free society through conspiracy theories about "neoliberalism" and "corporate greed" to maintain public support for the legal arrangement. The last 50 years of wage growth stagnation comes solely down to a declining rate of product…

Labour productivity has been developing faster than wages for the last 50 years. This is the same in most western countries, regardless of union influence. But: erosion of collective bargaining is positively correlated with higher income inequality an greater wealth inequality, also when disregarding the lowest quartile.

How do you mean that there has been a decline in market liberalism? I am pretty sure that the US market especially could need both one and two regulation pushes with regards to reigning in the influence of huge corporations and strengthening labour rights.

I think blaming unions for brain-dead housing policies is disingenuous. What needs to be done is government programmes for increased building, just like last time a lot of houses were built (at least in my home country). Otherwise no new housing will be built that will lower the prices of the current market. I don't even understand how you believe the role of the unions can be so big.

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#66

Post by badpun »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #48
MR4D wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are approximately 40K McDonald’s in the world. That’s about USD 50,000 in profit per location. If you think that’s egregious, then we aren’t going to agree on much.

Note that given the franchise model, that's 50k profit on basically no expenses (i.e. you aren't looking at the profit of the stores, that's the amount of money being taken out of each store by McDonalds in addition to the profit that the owners are making). McDonalds isn't paying for the employees or the food or the buildings. That's just the tax they are charging the franchises for the privilege of calling themselv…

> Note that given the franchise model, that's 50k profit on basically no expenses

Profit is already past expenses.

> That's just the tax they are charging the franchises for the privilege of calling themselves a McDonalds store.

McDonalds does plenty for the franchise restaurants:

1. Brand recognition and marketing which bring in tons of customers, without the franchise owner having to spend a cent.

2. Recipes that will sell. Franchise owners does not have to know anything about cooking, people's tastes etc. It's all covered by McDonald's R&D.

3. Efficient operations. Similar to the above, franchise owner's does not need to know anything about running an efficient restaurant. All equipment design as well as day-to-day operational procedures are standardized, highly efficient, and provided by McDonalds.

4. Employee training.

5. Restaurant interior design. Again, provided by McDonald - no need to think about it, no area to make costly mistakes by inexperienced owner.

6. Supplies. No need to worry about managing supplies and suppliers - it's all provided by McDonalds.

In fact, McDonalds does so much for a franchise owner that he's somewhat closer to a glorified manager with a profit sharing agreement, that to a real business owner.

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#67

Post by dartos »

garciasn wrote: post #9
OfSanguineFire wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that the USA has higher salaries overall than Norway or Switzerland and comparable cost of living, it seems like the USA is just catching up and being on the level one would expect it. In those countries, a fast-food meal is around US$20. Traditional restaurants and/or fast casual spots in the USA involve “mandatory” tipping, so even if menu prices are lower, I would assume that the total meal price is hi…

Fast casual does not have 'mandatory' tipping, but traditional restaurants do. Fast casual and fast food have started to include the tip options on credit card POS machines, but it's running into some public backlash.

Yeah I mean tipping is weird.

At least in Florida, if you’re an employee that makes tips, your employer can pay you less than min wage as long as the tips bring you to at least min wage.

I never understood why this was a thing. If you just charge more for the food, you don’t need to put the onus of paying your staff literally directly on the customer

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#68

Post by gruez »

c420 wrote: post #39
fragmede wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it just a general fear of technology as to why or is there some other reason why you don't want to install an app?

Check out the permissions and trackers that the Wendy's app requires. They'd ask for root if it was possible.

You realize you can deny those permissions?

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#69

Post by c420 »

gruez wrote: post #68
c420 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out the permissions and trackers that the Wendy's app requires. They'd ask for root if it was possible.

You realize you can deny those permissions?

I do know that and I do. I use App Manager in adb mode to freeze it (and all the other fast food apps) when I'm not using it as well.

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#70

Post by singleshot_ »

jimmaswell wrote: post #49
garciasn wrote: post #2

Most of the McDs around me are already paying $17-20 (in Minnesota, including rural areas) and the menu prices reflect it. We recently have begun to pay >$50 for a family of four. For context: the two cheeseburger meal is now just under $11. Subway is the same thing, with most sandwiches topping $10/ea and totals coming out around $50 for four of us. What is interesting, however, is that we're not witnessing this wit…

$11 seems fine to me for a two cheeseburger meal today.

I’m under fifty and cheeseburgers at McDonald’s were seventy nine cents when I was a kid.
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