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tonight’s feature presentation: Rise of the machines
We’ve been hearing lately that some companies, faced with having to pay workers a minimum wage of $15/hour, are throwing a hissy fit and threatening to replace those workers with automation. Wendy’s comes to mind, with it’s stated plan to put customer-operated kiosks in place, because of the minimum wage requirements.
I call bullshit.
Such companies are using the wage as an excuse, plain and simple. They have been long planning this move. You don’t just suddenly catch on to the idea of kiosks in the stores, snap your fingers, and they magically appear. Pinning changes that they were going to do anyway on a new wage law is just an all-too-convenient excuse.
“We have to pay our workers more? Well screw them, they’re fired. Bring in the machines” (paraphrased, naturally). It’s not like the magic kiosk fairy showed up with a truckload of them one day. Somebody was thinking about them, designing them, testing them, consumer group testing them, going through iterations, getting contracts in place, manufacturing them, and then finally installing them. Don’t believe for a minute that all this happened just because of $15.
Exhibit A: Foxconn, the (in)famous supplier to Apple and others. This Chinese company isn’t beholden to U.S. labor laws. But it recently announced the already completed replacement of 60,000 factory workers with robots.
There’s no $15/hour to pin this on. They planned it, they resourced it, they implemented it. They did it.
Since September 2014, 505 factories across Dongguan, in the Guangdong province, have invested 4.2bn yuan (£430m) in robots, aiming to replace thousands of workers.
It’s not about one specific intent to raise wages. It’s on ongoing plan to get rid of humans in favor of automation, wherever possible. Ultimately, goes the argument, the machines are cheaper. But putting thousands of workers out of work may mean, eventually, that nobody can afford to buy your products.
I don’t have any answers here. Automation exists, it’s a fact of life. As the computer technology making it possible gets more and more sophisticated, machines will take over more and more jobs currently held by humans. It’s not easy, and probably not possible, to stop it.
But excuses like Wendy’s and McDonald’s are making, are just bullshit.
And eating bullshit is bad for us.
Top comments for wednesday may 25, 2016
From a2nite:
This is a comment from brooklynbadboy in Greg Dworkin’s “Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Who’s a Democrat? Who’s a Republican? Are they who you think they are?” about the history of the loss of white working class voters from the Democratic Party.
From CwV:
In Laura Clawson’s diary “Trump works to alienate every woman in America with attacks on Clinton and Warren”, Rikon Snow nails it.
Highlighted by NeoLiberalTrash:
Is this comment by jfromga, discussing some historical considerations about Roosevelt's New Deal.
Highlighted by keeplaughing:
Is this comment by MargaretPOA on the School of Hard Knocks and reality, as it pertains to blogging on Daily Kos.
I am nominating this comment from first-time Daily Kos commenter, SashaKeen, because of the blog posting to which the comment links: a call from a right-winger to alternately troll Hillary and Bernie supporters, pretending to be the other, to foment rabid reactions in both camps. Worth considering, I think.
Thanks to BeninSC for the additional contributions.
top mojo for tuesday may 24, 2016
top photos for tuesday may 24, 2016