March 27, 2013 7:06 PM Can the Tablet Please Take Your Order Now? As Wages Rise, Employers Consider Replacing Workers With Technology; Burger-Flipping Robot May Be on Horizon By Sarah E. Needleman Carla Hesseltine is considering buying a few tablet devices for her bakery so customers can place orders for her signature M&M cupcakes on their own, straight from the counter. The reason: She fears... [more]
March 27, 2013 7:06 PM
Can the Tablet Please Take Your Order Now?
As Wages Rise, Employers Consider Replacing Workers With Technology; Burger-Flipping Robot May Be on Horizon
By Sarah E. Needleman
Carla Hesseltine is considering buying a few tablet devices for her bakery so customers can place orders for her signature M&M cupcakes on their own, straight from the counter.
The reason: She fears the $7.25 an hour that she currently pays her 10 customer-service employees, mostly college students, could rise, perhaps to $9 an hour under a pledge by President Barack Obama earlier this month.
In order for her Just Cupcakes LLC to remain profitable in the face of higher expected labor costs, Ms. Hesseltine believes the customer-ordering process "would have to be more automated" at the Virginia Beach, Va., chain, which has two strip-mall locations as well as a food van. Thus, she could eliminate the 10 workers who currently ask customers what they would like to eat.
Small-business owners have long griped that increases in the minimum wage hurt their bottom lines by forcing them to spend more on payroll, related taxes and benefits. The president's proposal is unlikely to pass, yet many business owners nonetheless feel threatened having seen the minimum wage increase in nearly every state in the past six years.
Some owners say they now see a possible solution to the problem: replacing workers with new and cheaper technologies designed to help employers simplify operations.
Hardware and software prices have come down in the past decade, making them more affordable to small firms. For example, the average price of a tablet—the kind Ms. Hesseltine is looking into—dropped to $394 by the end of 2012 from more than $1,330 three years earlier, according to IHS, a market research firm.
The combined cost of two such tablets, plus a customized application for displaying products with descriptions and processing orders, ranges from $5,000 to $15,000 to implement. But in recent years, online app-building tools have become available at substantially lower costs.
Unlike major corporations, which can often absorb increases in labor costs, small-business owners typically have few options for coping with higher wages, particularly when the economy is weak. They can raise prices only so much without decreasing sales, and many have already done so because of higher operating costs, such as commodity and gas prices and health-care premiums.
Supporters of the president's proposal argue that the federal minimum wage is long overdue for an upgrade and that a higher rate would provide residual benefits, such as a reduction in turnover and increased productivity. Before rising to $5.85 in 2008, the federal minimum wage held steady at $5.15 for a decade.
Twenty-six states have a minimum wage equal to or lower than the current federal minimum of $7.25 an hour. And 19 states, plus the District of Columbia, require employers to pay an even higher minimum wage, with Washington requiring the greatest amount, $9.19 an hour, followed by Oregon's minimum of $8.95 an hour. Ten states index their minimum wages to keep pace with inflation; for instance, Arizona, Missouri and Vermont raised their minimum wages earlier this year.
In all, one-third of low-wage workers are employed by businesses with fewer than 100 employees, according to estimates by the National Employment Law Project, an organized-labor-backed advocacy group for low-wage workers.
Mike Reis, 43 years old, who earns $7.25 an hour as a sales clerk at Hobby Works in Rockville, Md., says he's not worried about losing his job if the minimum wage goes up. "In retail, it's not like you can get a machine to replace someone on the floor," he says. But he is worried about having his hours cut back and ending up with less cash in his pockets, he adds.
Just how many small firms will turn to technology to replace jobs in the face of a wage increase isn't clear. Many studies about the effects of higher wages on overall employment tend to be politicized, clashing over whether the benefits of higher paid workers outweigh the costs of having fewer low-wage jobs.
To support President Obama's case for an increase in the minimum wage, the White House cites a 2009 academic study that says any adverse employment effect from such would be of a small and possibly irrelevant magnitude. The president's 2013 report, released this month, further states that "even with the tax relief we've put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line."
Owners of small firms tend to wear a lot of hats, but might not have the know-how to operate complicated technologies. Even simple technologies, such as tablets, bring other costs, including implementation, maintenance upgrades and repair.
Tarang Gosalia, of Cambridge, Mass., hopes he can get away with having fewer employees waiting on customers at the three hair-salon franchises and one frozen-yogurt outlet he owns by using Square, a three-year-old technology brand designed to streamline credit-card transactions. He is planning to test it out starting in June to see if it will make accepting payments easier and faster for his staffers—and therefore allow him to downsize. About 70% of the 35 employees who work for his combined businesses currently earn $8 an hour, the minimum pay required in his state. Raising prices to offset the higher payroll costs strikes him as too risky, because he worries his sales may suffer.
Some entrepreneurs see a promising market in selling technologies to small businesses that might help them to streamline operations and do away with low-wage workers, or retrain them for higher-skilled jobs. An automatic hamburger flipper currently in development could replace low-wage line cooks at a beachside burger joint, for example. A $22,000 six-foot-tall robot with flexible arms, a face screen and rolling pedestal might replace low-wage workers at small manufacturing firms that can't afford traditional automation. The robot would likely require an employee to program it.
There are significant downsides to using technology to replace low-wage workers, too. At small firms, many employees tend to work a variety of tasks, such as answering customer questions, mopping floors and setting up displays.
Ms. Hesseltine got the idea for using touch-screen technology to eliminate most or all of her minimum-wage customer-service staff after seeing a nearby juice business do something similar. She figures she could install tablet devices that would display photos of her cupcakes, which she sells for $3 apiece, and their ingredients.
Customers could scroll through the options and select what they want, rather than have a customer-service worker jot down their order on a piece of paper and pass that along to another employee who fills it.
Ms. Hesseltine says she hopes her son, a 27-year-old computer engineer, will be able to do some of the setup work for free.
-Emily Maltby contributed to this article.
Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com and Angus Loten at angus.loten@wsj.com
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Response by alanhart
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 12397
Member since: Feb 2007
What ridiculous nonsense. This isn't a technology story ... it's a political propaganda story.
First of all, this and many similar businesses could have had customers filling out paper (or papyrus before that invention) forms, or writing them on the back of envelopes and pushing them across the counter. From that point, whether paper or tablet, it's all the same.
But service-oriented product businesses -- whether fast food or fancy restaurants or hot dog stands -- offer the human back-and-forth as a key part of their offerings. Hence the monumental failure of the shift to vending machines for nearly everything that was foreseen in the 1950s and 1960s (at least in the United States of America). [My childhood friend's large CPW had a milk-by-the-quart vending machine in its basement. I wonder if it still does. We in my building had to suffer back-door delivery of milk in returnable glass bottles instead.]
The bottom line is that she doesn't have a viable business if Hesseltine can't handle basic increases in costs over time. Any little bump up could put her under. And most likely she does NOT have a viable business -- she has an inefficient two-location cupcake bakery/store, probably badly sited.
And reducing the people aspect of a hair salon? Get real! Back-of-house stuff like hamburger-flipping maybe, but McD's done a pretty good job of making that sort of thing as efficient as possible, so if they've passed on that, there's probably a good reason ... either operationally or from a marketing perspective.
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Response by Bernie123
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 281
Member since: Apr 2009
Agree alanhart - there is no new news here. Somebody was tasked with writing an anti-min wage increase and this is the end product. Automation trade-off considerations will continue with or without an increase in the minimum wage.
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Response by greensdale
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 3804
Member since: Sep 2012
>The bottom line is that she doesn't have a viable business if Hesseltine can't handle basic increases in costs over time. Any little bump up could put her under. And most likely she does NOT have a viable business -- she has an inefficient two-location cupcake bakery/store, probably badly sited.
Minimum wage jobs, by most definitions, are not high quality jobs. Many are not long term, many don't even offer full time employment, some are seasonal. Your POV on the quality of her business notwithstanding, it is offering a volume of employment in the marketplace. If she and other lousy business owners providing employment on the margins cease to provide such opportunities for marginal employment, preferring technology instead, there will be employment losses in the marketplace.
Technology impacts the margins. So when the margin of cost of employment increases dramatically on a relative basis, it should be no surprise that technology gains an edge over labor.
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Response by Ottawanyc
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 842
Member since: Aug 2011
Tablets have replaced immigrants as the new threat. Idiotic article.
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Response by greensdale
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 3804
Member since: Sep 2012
Tablets=Immigrants
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Response by columbiacounty
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 12708
Member since: Jan 2009
what won't you do for a reaction?
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Response by greensdale
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 3804
Member since: Sep 2012
Good point.
So should the minimum wage in a low cost / low intellect environment like C0lumbia C0unty be the same as the minimum wage in NYC or Ottawa?
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Response by columbiacounty
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 12708
Member since: Jan 2009
really?
now?
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Response by greensdale
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 3804
Member since: Sep 2012
Now, later, whenever you want you can answer the question.
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Response by columbiacounty
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 12708
Member since: Jan 2009
does this make you happy?
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Response by Ottawanyc
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 842
Member since: Aug 2011
In Ontario minimum wage is 10.25. Model for bakery's is to now have customers prepare their own cupcakes in easy bake ovens. Environmentalists are of course concerned.
As a grizzled veteran of many high-minimum-wage-state jobs ($5.05 in New Jersey in the '90s after a sidden jump from about $4.50), I favor a minimum wage that's as low as possible. If it's too high, business owners will hire fewer people and make them work harder. Wouldn't it be better for teenagers, who aren't yet productive enough on the job to earn $9.00 (or whatever is being proposed), to have low-stress, low-pay, high-experience jobs where they can learn how to work and how to function as adults without the exhaustion that comes from the high-impact working environment that they'll have to face if they're overworked?
Or, to simplify: I'd rather see a store staffed by ten smiling, non-overworked teenagers earning $5 per hour than five harried, miserable, exhausted teenagers running themselves ragged to earn $10 per hour.
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Response by AvUWS
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 839
Member since: Mar 2008
What I always love is how Manhattan residents who do not own or work in businesses with any low-skilled or new-to-the-job-market workforce, nor know anyone who does, wax on and on with such great supposed depth of knowledge about the topic.
Greensdale - the country is full of "lousy business owners providing employment on the margins". The local diner you love is more likely to be like that than the McDonalds and the local pizzeria more so than Dominos. When you make it harder for the smaller businesses to survive you are perforce making it easier for the large organized companies. And, among other changes this could bring on, the suburbanization of NY will continue.
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Response by greensdale
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 3804
Member since: Sep 2012
> When you make it harder for the smaller businesses to survive you are perforce making it easier for the large organized companies.
Okay, and
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Response by alanhart
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 12397
Member since: Feb 2007
Just wait ... the hamburger-flipping robots will rise up and revolt against the burger-franchisee humanoids. Much better to pay the hapless lower-class working poor a dollar or two more.
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Response by AvUWS
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 839
Member since: Mar 2008
greensdale - You are also, at the margin, costing jobs. And you are lowering the bar at which automation becomes cost effective. All at a time when job creation is supposed to be primary goal.
But by all means, let's continue the argument. Why stop at $9.00. Make the minimum wage $40,000/year, heck, $75,000. Heavans knows it is hard to live in NY on much less. Average salary will most assuredly go up. Even the lowliest janitor will make good money.
Alanhart - Minimum wages don't actually go to the "working poor". The vast VAST majority of working poor already make more than minimum wage. Those you hurt tend to be people trying to get onto the first rung of the employment ladder, the ones who are making minimum wage because they just aren't of much benefit yet to any employers. Even the unskilled don't STAY at minimum wage, not if they show some bare modicum of useful skills (like showing up on time every work day).
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Response by columbiacounty
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 12708
Member since: Jan 2009
so your argument against a $9 minimum wage is that begins the slippery slope of $75 K annual minimum wage? or better yet that a $9 minimum wage will incentivize business owners to replace these workers with robots?
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Response by greensdale
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 3804
Member since: Sep 2012
AvUWS are you arguing with me or with someone else that you think is me. I'm confused. Not quite C0lumbia C0unty demential level of confused, but still.
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Response by greensdale
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 3804
Member since: Sep 2012
Sorry. Meant C0C0 dementia.
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Response by Socialist
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 2261
Member since: Feb 2010
the minimum wage should be raised because low wage employers get massive govt. subsidies in the form of Medicaid, food stamps, Section 8, etc. for their workers. The minimum wage should be high enough so that workers are self efficient.
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Response by greensdale
almost 13 years ago
Posts: 3804
Member since: Sep 2012
>the minimum wage should be raised because low wage employers get massive govt. subsidies in the form of Medicaid, food stamps, Section 8, etc. for their workers. The minimum wage should be high enough so that workers are self efficient.
If we raise it to whatever $ amount you believe would make workers self-sufficient, are you advocating then that we eliminate Medicaid, food stamps, Section 8, etc?
McDonald’s Workers Demand Higher Pay in NYC Strike
By Leslie Patton - Apr 4, 2013 4:31 PM ET.
.
About 400 workers from McDonald’s Corp. (MCD), Wendy’s Co. (WEN) and Yum! Brands Inc. (YUM) are striking today in New York City as they call for higher wages.
.
The minimum wage in New York is $7.25 an hour. The strike, which also includes workers from Burger King Worldwide Inc. (BKW), Domino’s Pizza Inc. (DPZ) and Papa John’s International Inc. (PZZA), follows a similar one in New York in November, where about 200 workers walked off the job.
Employees from about 60 restaurants are striking, which may force some locations to close, Westin said.
“At several of the stores we will have the majority of the workforce in the stores out on strike,” he said. “It will be difficult for businesses to continue as usual.”
A Burger King store in Brooklyn opened late today because of the strike, Miguel Piedra, a company spokesman, said in an e- mail. Burger King restaurants offer pay and benefits that are consistent with the industry, he said.
‘Fed Up’
Tabitha Verges, 29, who has worked at a Burger King in Harlem as a cashier and cook for about four years, was among the company’s employees to walk off the job today.
“I’m fed up and I’m asking for $15 hour and to create a union without intimidation,” said Verges, who makes $7.25 an hour. “I can barely get by,” she said, speaking in a telephone interview. “I borrow from people to pay my bills. I’m trying really hard not to get on welfare.”
McDonald’s rose 1.4 percent to $100.63 at the close in New York. The shares have gained 14 percent this year. Burger King shares were unchanged today and also have advanced 14 percent this year.
“Employees are paid competitive wages and have access to a range of benefits to meet their individual needs,” Heather Oldani, a McDonald’s spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement. The majority of McDonald’s stores are owned and operated by independent business people, she said.
In February, President Barack Obama announced a plan to raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour from $7.25. He also proposed tying the minimum wage to the cost of living. While the current federal minimum wage has been in effect since 2009, some states have mandated higher wages.
Wage Raised
New York lawmakers last month passed a budget that includes raising the state’s minimum wage to $9 an hour over three years.
“With the city’s high cost of living, the effective minimum wage here is less than $4,” John C. Liu, New York City comptroller, said in an e-mailed statement. The fast-food workers who are striking need a raise, he said.
Last year, Liu proposed raising the city’s minimum wage to $11.50 an hour.
McDonald’s, which has about 14,100 U.S. locations, is the world’s largest restaurant by sales. Globally, about 81 percent of McDonald’s stores are franchised.
Yum Brands owns the KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut chains.
To contact the reporter on this story: Leslie Patton in Chicago at lpatton5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kevin Orland at korland@bloomberg.net
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Response by marysummers
about 10 years ago
Posts: 0
Member since: Dec 2015
There should be proper agreement between workers and employers in order to protect workers minimum wages right like in France, workers have to sign minimum wage agreement with employers which is really good for especially those working in high risk industries. I think every nation must have such type of laws. If anyone wish to know more about such laws, they can refer http://www.convention-collective-metallurgie.fr
What ridiculous nonsense. This isn't a technology story ... it's a political propaganda story.
First of all, this and many similar businesses could have had customers filling out paper (or papyrus before that invention) forms, or writing them on the back of envelopes and pushing them across the counter. From that point, whether paper or tablet, it's all the same.
But service-oriented product businesses -- whether fast food or fancy restaurants or hot dog stands -- offer the human back-and-forth as a key part of their offerings. Hence the monumental failure of the shift to vending machines for nearly everything that was foreseen in the 1950s and 1960s (at least in the United States of America). [My childhood friend's large CPW had a milk-by-the-quart vending machine in its basement. I wonder if it still does. We in my building had to suffer back-door delivery of milk in returnable glass bottles instead.]
The bottom line is that she doesn't have a viable business if Hesseltine can't handle basic increases in costs over time. Any little bump up could put her under. And most likely she does NOT have a viable business -- she has an inefficient two-location cupcake bakery/store, probably badly sited.
And reducing the people aspect of a hair salon? Get real! Back-of-house stuff like hamburger-flipping maybe, but McD's done a pretty good job of making that sort of thing as efficient as possible, so if they've passed on that, there's probably a good reason ... either operationally or from a marketing perspective.
Agree alanhart - there is no new news here. Somebody was tasked with writing an anti-min wage increase and this is the end product. Automation trade-off considerations will continue with or without an increase in the minimum wage.
>The bottom line is that she doesn't have a viable business if Hesseltine can't handle basic increases in costs over time. Any little bump up could put her under. And most likely she does NOT have a viable business -- she has an inefficient two-location cupcake bakery/store, probably badly sited.
Minimum wage jobs, by most definitions, are not high quality jobs. Many are not long term, many don't even offer full time employment, some are seasonal. Your POV on the quality of her business notwithstanding, it is offering a volume of employment in the marketplace. If she and other lousy business owners providing employment on the margins cease to provide such opportunities for marginal employment, preferring technology instead, there will be employment losses in the marketplace.
Technology impacts the margins. So when the margin of cost of employment increases dramatically on a relative basis, it should be no surprise that technology gains an edge over labor.
Tablets have replaced immigrants as the new threat. Idiotic article.
Tablets=Immigrants
what won't you do for a reaction?
Good point.
So should the minimum wage in a low cost / low intellect environment like C0lumbia C0unty be the same as the minimum wage in NYC or Ottawa?
really?
now?
Now, later, whenever you want you can answer the question.
does this make you happy?
In Ontario minimum wage is 10.25. Model for bakery's is to now have customers prepare their own cupcakes in easy bake ovens. Environmentalists are of course concerned.
Environmentalists are always concerned.
Deal Reached to Force Paid Sick Leave in New York City
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/nyregion/deal-reached-on-paid-sick-leave-in-new-york-city.html?hp&_r=0
As a grizzled veteran of many high-minimum-wage-state jobs ($5.05 in New Jersey in the '90s after a sidden jump from about $4.50), I favor a minimum wage that's as low as possible. If it's too high, business owners will hire fewer people and make them work harder. Wouldn't it be better for teenagers, who aren't yet productive enough on the job to earn $9.00 (or whatever is being proposed), to have low-stress, low-pay, high-experience jobs where they can learn how to work and how to function as adults without the exhaustion that comes from the high-impact working environment that they'll have to face if they're overworked?
Or, to simplify: I'd rather see a store staffed by ten smiling, non-overworked teenagers earning $5 per hour than five harried, miserable, exhausted teenagers running themselves ragged to earn $10 per hour.
What I always love is how Manhattan residents who do not own or work in businesses with any low-skilled or new-to-the-job-market workforce, nor know anyone who does, wax on and on with such great supposed depth of knowledge about the topic.
Greensdale - the country is full of "lousy business owners providing employment on the margins". The local diner you love is more likely to be like that than the McDonalds and the local pizzeria more so than Dominos. When you make it harder for the smaller businesses to survive you are perforce making it easier for the large organized companies. And, among other changes this could bring on, the suburbanization of NY will continue.
> When you make it harder for the smaller businesses to survive you are perforce making it easier for the large organized companies.
Okay, and
Just wait ... the hamburger-flipping robots will rise up and revolt against the burger-franchisee humanoids. Much better to pay the hapless lower-class working poor a dollar or two more.
greensdale - You are also, at the margin, costing jobs. And you are lowering the bar at which automation becomes cost effective. All at a time when job creation is supposed to be primary goal.
But by all means, let's continue the argument. Why stop at $9.00. Make the minimum wage $40,000/year, heck, $75,000. Heavans knows it is hard to live in NY on much less. Average salary will most assuredly go up. Even the lowliest janitor will make good money.
Alanhart - Minimum wages don't actually go to the "working poor". The vast VAST majority of working poor already make more than minimum wage. Those you hurt tend to be people trying to get onto the first rung of the employment ladder, the ones who are making minimum wage because they just aren't of much benefit yet to any employers. Even the unskilled don't STAY at minimum wage, not if they show some bare modicum of useful skills (like showing up on time every work day).
so your argument against a $9 minimum wage is that begins the slippery slope of $75 K annual minimum wage? or better yet that a $9 minimum wage will incentivize business owners to replace these workers with robots?
AvUWS are you arguing with me or with someone else that you think is me. I'm confused. Not quite C0lumbia C0unty demential level of confused, but still.
Sorry. Meant C0C0 dementia.
the minimum wage should be raised because low wage employers get massive govt. subsidies in the form of Medicaid, food stamps, Section 8, etc. for their workers. The minimum wage should be high enough so that workers are self efficient.
>the minimum wage should be raised because low wage employers get massive govt. subsidies in the form of Medicaid, food stamps, Section 8, etc. for their workers. The minimum wage should be high enough so that workers are self efficient.
If we raise it to whatever $ amount you believe would make workers self-sufficient, are you advocating then that we eliminate Medicaid, food stamps, Section 8, etc?
Wall street journal has gone down hill
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/34581-hidden-costs-of-nys-new-minimum-wage-hike
McDonald’s Workers Demand Higher Pay in NYC Strike
By Leslie Patton - Apr 4, 2013 4:31 PM ET.
.
About 400 workers from McDonald’s Corp. (MCD), Wendy’s Co. (WEN) and Yum! Brands Inc. (YUM) are striking today in New York City as they call for higher wages.
.
The minimum wage in New York is $7.25 an hour. The strike, which also includes workers from Burger King Worldwide Inc. (BKW), Domino’s Pizza Inc. (DPZ) and Papa John’s International Inc. (PZZA), follows a similar one in New York in November, where about 200 workers walked off the job.
Employees from about 60 restaurants are striking, which may force some locations to close, Westin said.
“At several of the stores we will have the majority of the workforce in the stores out on strike,” he said. “It will be difficult for businesses to continue as usual.”
A Burger King store in Brooklyn opened late today because of the strike, Miguel Piedra, a company spokesman, said in an e- mail. Burger King restaurants offer pay and benefits that are consistent with the industry, he said.
‘Fed Up’
Tabitha Verges, 29, who has worked at a Burger King in Harlem as a cashier and cook for about four years, was among the company’s employees to walk off the job today.
“I’m fed up and I’m asking for $15 hour and to create a union without intimidation,” said Verges, who makes $7.25 an hour. “I can barely get by,” she said, speaking in a telephone interview. “I borrow from people to pay my bills. I’m trying really hard not to get on welfare.”
McDonald’s rose 1.4 percent to $100.63 at the close in New York. The shares have gained 14 percent this year. Burger King shares were unchanged today and also have advanced 14 percent this year.
“Employees are paid competitive wages and have access to a range of benefits to meet their individual needs,” Heather Oldani, a McDonald’s spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement. The majority of McDonald’s stores are owned and operated by independent business people, she said.
In February, President Barack Obama announced a plan to raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour from $7.25. He also proposed tying the minimum wage to the cost of living. While the current federal minimum wage has been in effect since 2009, some states have mandated higher wages.
Wage Raised
New York lawmakers last month passed a budget that includes raising the state’s minimum wage to $9 an hour over three years.
“With the city’s high cost of living, the effective minimum wage here is less than $4,” John C. Liu, New York City comptroller, said in an e-mailed statement. The fast-food workers who are striking need a raise, he said.
Last year, Liu proposed raising the city’s minimum wage to $11.50 an hour.
McDonald’s, which has about 14,100 U.S. locations, is the world’s largest restaurant by sales. Globally, about 81 percent of McDonald’s stores are franchised.
Yum Brands owns the KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut chains.
To contact the reporter on this story: Leslie Patton in Chicago at lpatton5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kevin Orland at korland@bloomberg.net
There should be proper agreement between workers and employers in order to protect workers minimum wages right like in France, workers have to sign minimum wage agreement with employers which is really good for especially those working in high risk industries. I think every nation must have such type of laws. If anyone wish to know more about such laws, they can refer http://www.convention-collective-metallurgie.fr