Domino's Pizza CEO says U.S. needs more immigration to address nationwide worker shortages

[applegrove]

Domino's Pizza CEO says U.S. needs more immigration to address nationwide worker shortages

PUBLISHED FRI, OCT 15 2021 12:36 PM EDTUPDATED FRI, OCT 15 2021 2:32 PM EDT

Kevin Stankiewicz at CNBC

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/10/15/dominos-ceo-us-needs-more-immigration-to-address-worker-shortages.html

KEY POINTS

Domino's Pizza CEO Ritch Allison told CNBC's Jim Cramer the American restaurant industry is being hurt by a slowdown in immigration."

In the U.S. with minimal population growth organically, we do — we need immigration in our industry to continue to have enough team members," Allison said.

Cramer on Friday called his conversation with Allison "sobering" and "shocking."

"SNIP.......

Domino's Pizza CEO Ritch Allison told CNBC's Jim Cramer the American restaurant industry is being hurt by a slowdown in immigration to the country.

"It's a challenge. In the U.S. with minimal population growth organically, we do — we need immigration in our industry to continue to have enough team members," Allison said on "Mad Money."

"Folks who want to work hard, want to stay with the business for a long period of time, can end up being owners and entrepreneurs," he added. "As I travel around the country and talk to our franchisees, so many of whom followed that [immigration] path, it's inspiring. ... It truly is."

Allison's comments Thursday came after the pizza chain reported third-quarter results, beating Wall Street's expectations on earnings per share but falling short on revenue and same-store sales. The company's U.S. same-store sales actually declined for the first time in a decade, falling 1.9% on a year-over-year basis.

......SNIP"

[Thomas Hurt]

1. Blasphemers! LOL.

Putting the lie to the christofascists'....they took our jobs.

&ab_channel=SouthParkStudios

[PoliticAverse]

2. Needs more immigrants to address the problem of having to pay people more...

to get them to take the job apparently.

[CanonRay]

3. Yup, keep people coming in on the bottom rung.

[CrackityJones75]

26. There is truth to that as well however...

We do need immigration. But I always hate when people say we need immigration to fill the jobs that “Americans” will not do. Basically what people mean when they say that is that we need a second class citizen to be “the help”.

It disgusts me because it seems like a form of servitude where we pay them just enough to house and clothe themselves and keep themselves just happy enough to keep showing up and keep them in that economic bracket.

[Demsrule86]

34. No, they just want to lower wages.

[Hoyt]

4. So, are we for immigration or not?

[Polybius]

9. At some point we have to slow down

329.5 million is way too much.

[Hoyt]

10. So, what do we do to limit people coming here for a better life to meet your quota?

Immigration is a big issue for me. I’m not much on America First, and that kind of stuff.

[Fullduplexxx]

18. I'm not much on driving down wages.

[Act_of_Reparation]

21. This can be fixed without limiting immigration.

[Devil Child]

27. As a US Citizen I will advocate for the advancement of our living conditions

Nothing I will feel ashamed of or take on guilt for advocating.

A jobless citizen in the US is of greater need for assistance than Dominoes need for cheap immigrant labor pipeline.

[Hoyt]

33. Or, a family with absolutely nothing coming here for a better life?

[Devil Child]

40. Yes n/t

[Hoyt]

43. That's sad. Next, I guess we'll deport people who have been here for years to raise wages.

[Devil Child]

45. Ok

Sounds better to me than living in a slave-wage dystopian hell envisioned by CEOs at Dominoes and the like.

[CrackityJones75]

28. We could stop

We could stop fucking with other countries and making life unbearable for them to live there.

Our involvement in central america for decades has created a lot of the problems we have now. Our involvemt in the mid east has created some of the same problems for europe.

[Hoyt]

46. Agree with that completely. But, what do we do about poor folks at the border now?

[Polybius]

57. Well, are we talking legal immigration?

We can start by limiting the number, something we should have done 100 years ago IMO. Imagine how great we would be with a population of 100 million. No traffic, cheap land, etc.

[Amishman]

16. I think we need to be very careful with it

Why?

We need a fairly tight labor market for an extended period to allow workers wages to catch up to the growth denied over the past 20+ years. Wages are close to a record low as it's share of GDP, corporate profits close to a record high.

The other big reason is what is to come. I work in software development, and have done a lot of work in process automation. There are tons of back office clerical jobs that are going to be eliminated in the next decade just from the types of systems I implement.

Automation is coming in other areas. Kiosk / app ordering in food service, automated warehouses, drone delivery of orders, self driving trucking, store inventory and shelf stocking robots, fruit / vegetable picking robots. All these things are at the prototype stage or even further.

As wages catch up, businesses will accelerate automation plans. It's happening already.

The current labor market rightness won't persist long term, low skill and/or repetitive jobs will be eliminated. Which might be a good thing long term, stacking cans in a supermarket is not a job that provides any fulfillment for the person doing it.

We need to be very careful to balance present needs with future pressures.

Plus let's face it, there are a lot more people who want to come here than we can take in.

[CrackityJones75]

29. Very good points

[Devil Child]

25. Fiercely opposed to immigration used by corporations

For the sole purpose of marginalizing the American worker.

[Hoyt]

35. I have heard that argument before. I'm a little surprised at the anti-immigration sentiment here.

[Devil Child]

44. Life long union Democrat household

I am more surprised by the ambivalence towards the current state of the US worker here.

[mathematic]

49. When immigrants come here they become american

Corporations hiring immigrants are not marginalizing the american worker, they're employing them.

[Devil Child]

50. Was that quick hot-take fresh off the Dominoes CEO press release?

Corporations hiring immigrants to undercut efforts at wage reform, living wage, wage disparity etc... is marginalizing the American worker and setting the stage for further marginalization and irrelevance.

As you assist dominoes in saving their bottom line you are killing the collective bargaining power of the US worker, a demographic which used to be considered sacrosanct.

[mathematic]

54. IMMIGRANTS ARE AMERICAN WORKERS

You keep saying they're not. They are. You keep saying you support american workers. You don't.

Immigrants, by definition, are people that come here to be permanent residents and, in a just immigration system, citizens.

Immigrants do not TAKE from the community. They ADD to the community.

[Devil Child]

56. When corporations source immigrant labor to undercut the collective bargaining power and wellfare

of the US worker, they are disenfranchising them, not empowering them as you assert. What we need is corporate America participating in crucial reform and support of the US worker. Things like alleviating wage disparities, worker benefits, conditions, WAGES, etc.. not allowing corporations an easy out in fresh import of labor to maintain the status quo or further marginalize the US worker.

Your other assertions are straw-men unconnected to the issue of how dominoes is going to utilize immigration (legal and illegal) labor to keep their boots on our collective laboring necks.

[Demsrule86]

36. I have mixed feelings about this...honestly. I want to provide opportunities to those in other

countries that have no chance at a decent life. But immigration has been used to drive down wages and I don't want to see that happen either. Those that are already here should remain including but not limited to dreamers.

[NickB79]

51. We're about to be deluged with millions of desperate climate refugees

Tens of millions heading north, fleeing devastating heat, drought, floods, storms and food shortages in the next 20 yr. At the same time, we'll be struggling with American climate refugees moving internally.

We need a plan on how many, and which ones, we're going to let in.

And a plan on how we're going to keep most of them out, as sad as that may be.

[Hoyt]

52. Well, glad we beat trump, but sounds like many are adopting his immigration policy.

I find that sad, even if the reason is to prop up American wages -- which I'm not sure border patrols told to keep them out will actually accomplish.

[Sympthsical]

58. Controlled immigration is not anti-immigrant

Which seems to be the huge honking straw man people are working with here.

You know who loves uncontrolled immigration?

Corporations.

Do you think that's for our benefit?

[Hoyt]

60. Do you know who make immigrants the scapegoat?

I’m astonished, honestly.

No one escaping from Haiti, Columbia, Mexico, etc., is going to take your job or reduce your wages.

[Sympthsical]

61. Certainly not my job

But the lower rung? Sure. Increasing the number of the exploited class? Absolutely.

Immigration cannot be unchecked. And it isn't only for the protection of American workers, it's for the protection of the immigrants themselves, so they're not ruthlessly taken advantage of.

Scapegoat? Seriously? Corporations are part of the Republican Establishment. They play failure theater on immigration. They claim they want to do something about it, then do little to nothing. That's why Trump's populism succeeded. Because he actually meant it. That Wall shit was precisely because the Republican Establishment had very little intention. When Trump told right-wingers, "I will actually do something here," it resonated hugely. He owes much of his primary win to it.

And people keep only talking about refugees coming across the border. What about the H1 visas companies use to replace skilled workers? Tech companies love these things. They find any excuse. Remember this shit?

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html

Instead, about 250 Disney employees were told in late October that they would be laid off. Many of their jobs were transferred to immigrants on temporary visas for highly skilled technical workers, who were brought in by an outsourcing firm based in India. Over the next three months, some Disney employees were required to train their replacements to do the jobs they had lost.

“I just couldn’t believe they could fly people in to sit at our desks and take over our jobs exactly,” said one former worker, an American in his 40s who remains unemployed since his last day at Disney on Jan. 30. “It was so humiliating to train somebody else to take over your job. I still can’t grasp it.”

Disney executives said that the layoffs were part of a reorganization, and that the company opened more positions than it eliminated.

But the layoffs at Disney and at other companies, including the Southern California Edison power utility, are raising new questions about how businesses and outsourcing companies are using the temporary visas, known as H-1B, to place immigrants in technology jobs in the United States. These visas are at the center of a fierce debate in Congress over whether they complement American workers or displace them.

The refugee question is a smokescreen to cover up a metric fuck ton of problems our current policies generate. It works on people's guilt while the corporations and the wealthy exploit the working and immigrant classes with impunity.

"Why don't you feel bad, you (probably racist) monster?!"

But the low wages, shitty living situations, and limited access to healthcare? Criiiiiiickets.

[Hoyt]

62. Sounds like a return to discrimination, but against people South of Border. Not for that, Sorry.

I remember unions in the 1960s and early 70s -- think Archie Bunker's unions -- were just another obstacle to keep Black people from getting a decent job.

Sorry, I'm not going to make immigrants a scapegoat.

Like I said, I doubt there is one person coming here looking for a better life from south of the border who is going to take anyone's job. It bothers me when people try using that fear.

[Solly Mack]

5. So, "Close the border!" - until you need cheap labor to exploit because you won't pay a living wage?

[Renew Deal]

17. I don't know this guys history but business typically likes more immigration.

Last edited Mon Oct 18, 2021, 08:33 PM - Edit history (1)

Mostly for cheap labor

[Solly Mack]

22. True.

I don't know either.

Making an assumption because it's Domino's and they are heavy republican donors.


https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/domino-s-pizza/totals?id=D000025535

[sakabatou]

6. "We can't give better pay, working conditions and benefits to our employees," says Dominos

[jcmaine72]

14. This

[CrackityJones75]

30. of course we could

of course we could -should- do both.

Rising wages still isn’t helping to fill positions in some industries.

[RockRaven]

7. "We won't pay wages which allow our employees to live with dignity; we need a more

marginalized workforce."

[jcmaine72]

12. And This

[Binkie The Clown]

8. "We need more people that we an exploit, so we don't have to pay decent wages." nt

[jcmaine72]

13. And This Too

[Devil Child]

24. Most accurate quote.

[Wanderlust988]

11. I'm all for immigration! More Dem voters in the future

Bring 'em on! Lots of Africans, Asians, and South Americans would be very welcome indeed.

[jcmaine72]

15. And what if they don't vote Dem?

Would you send them back?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

19. Good idea, but we'll need to inspect their votes ...

... before they become citizens. Afterwards, it's more difficult to deport them.

[Johnny2X2X]

20. We do need immigrants to work

But for more than just the labor shortage, we need immigrants to pay taxes to fund our nation's retirement benefits.

[CrackityJones75]

32. This.

[inthewind21]

64. Our nations...

Our nations retirement benefits would be just fine if congress would stop "borrowing" from it. Want to make it flush in an instant? Take away the cap. EVERYONE pays SS on EVERYTHING they make. Period. Anyone making over 113K gets a free ride on everything after that, while everyone under 113K (which is a boat load more) pays SS on every penny they make. Also, immigrants that work, unless they are being paid cash under the table, if they are receiving a paycheck, even with a false SS# they ARE PAYING TAXES! SS and all. They just can't collect said benefits.

[Devil Child]

23. No, pay native citizen workers fair living wage and they will show up to work

Of course they would seek the immigrant pipeline as a cost cutting solution.

[fescuerescue]

38. So you are against immigration?

Just asking.

[Devil Child]

42. Im against immigration as a tool to oppress US workers

Which is what Dominoes is advocating for and will unironically use good-hearted progressive values to subvert and appropriate in the name of profit.

[Elessar Zappa]

41. Even if the unemployment rate was 0%

we would still have a shortage. We need to up the legal immigration quotas. One example is construction. We’re 400,000 jobs short now and if infrastructure passes our construction worker deficit will be over a million. Now of course any immigrants should be treated just as a citizen would be in regards to wages and benefits.

[bullwinkle428]

31. For RWers, beating up on immigrants is all fun and games until it begins

to affect the bottom line.

[fescuerescue]

37. Right Wingers are FINALLY starting to understand

amazing.

How rare is it for the left and right to agree on something?

Yes we need more immigrants!

[marmar]

39. Immigration AND better wages and work conditions.

[inwiththenew]

47. Translation: Americans will no longer work for our low wages so we need to bring in people who will

[Greybnk48]

48. How about we reinstate slavery in the U.S.?

That'll get you lots of profits!

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

53. Because most people don't want to add mileage to their personal vehicle delivering pizzas

For shitty wages

[Initech]

55. How about this: PAY YOUR DAMN WORKERS AN ACTUAL LIVING WAGE!

Or would that eat too much into your precious profit margins?

[pecosbob]

59. Increased immigration AND a mandatory living wage

Boy, wouldn't that piss off the Chamber of Commerce?

[Deep State Witch]

63. F*ck Domino's

Their founder was a Catholic RWNJ who gave money to anti-choice causes. That's probably why they're anti-choice. They want more people so that they can work for slave wages.