SF billboard threatens to replace workers with the ipad if 15 minimum wage is passed.

[betterdemsonly]

Surprise! Surprise! The effort is funded by Silicon Valley CEOs.

Its message — that minimum wage increases will lead to service workers being replaced by apps — is continued on an accompanying website — BadIdeaCA — which claims to be “holding activists accountable for minimum wage consequences.”

So who the hell pays for billboards threatening waitstaff with redundancy if they demand a living wage? A bit of digging and clicking reveals that the campaign is backed by Employment Policies Institute, the conservative lobbying group which regularly campaigns on behalf of the restaurant industry.

Followers of Pando’s Techtopus might remember the Institute for one of its key advisers, Kevin Murphy, aka “the man Silicon Valley’s CEOs turn to when they want to justify screwing workers“. As Mark Ames explained back in February…

[W]hen the heads of companies like Apple, Adobe, Google, Intel, Intuit, Microsoft and others, are called upon to explain why it’s okay to screw over employees—or their consumers—they know exactly who to call…

http://pando.com/2014/07/17/new-san-francisco-billboard-warns-workers-theyll-be-replaced-by-ipads-if-they-demand-a-fair-wage/

It is probable Silicon Valley jerks plan to do this irrespective of whether minimum wage is raised, since ipads are less demanding than even workers making the present minimum wage, but threats unfortunately work with many people. Fear is irrational.

One reply to this article says this will make workers aspire to improve themselves. That presumes many Silicon Valley execs started out as minimum wage workers. I am deeply skeptical about that.

[hobbit709]

1. Will the iPad kiss their asses like they want the workers to do?

[betterdemsonly]

5. They are making bluetooth driven sex toys so it will fuck and suck them. n/t

[JI7]

2. wouldn't they already do this if they thought it saved money ?

[winter is coming]

19. Yes. n/t

[Barack_America]

26. Exactly. I don't imagine iPads are very good cooks.

Last time I won't to a fast food restaurant, the cashier was responsible for getting drinks and assembling my order. The iPad does this how?

Oligarch fail.

[treestar]

27. This ^^^^

[ret5hd]

3. Go ahead motherfuckers...let's see where it getd you.

[betterdemsonly]

7. Socialist Alternative should rent a billboard

illustrating how replacing all workers with bots, will mean capitalism is over. After all who buys food and ipads that doesn't have a decent paying job?

[yeoman6987]

4. I think the counter folks will be replaced with I-Pads

I can see a bunch of I-Pads at the various restaurants especially fast food. However, keep in mind that their used to be tons of folks working at gas stations too but now everyone does their own gas so we do evolve and survive and we will with this too.

[bigwillq]

8. I only remember pumping my own gas

And I like it that way.

But I guess I didn't realize that the advent of self-service stations took away a lot of jobs.

Hmm..gave me something to think about. Thanks!

[Downwinder]

15. How are the self checkout grocery lines doing?

They took them out here.

[madville]

20. About half the stores have them here

My grandmother insisted today that I drive her to the Walmart a mile away, they had two regular checkouts open and ten self checkout lanes open. The self checkouts actually had some people waiting while we walked right up to an empty regular checkout.

[Starry Messenger]

18. lol

Is the food going to walk out to diners' tables?

[madville]

21. Eventually, one day

It will be delivered by a walking/talking lifelike robot or maybe even a drone, probably have several decades before that happens though.

"Oh I need another drink", transmit the order to the bar, little drone flies it over, not very far-fetched.

[Starry Messenger]

23. Nah, people will hate it.

Too many people like fussing with different things when eating out to give up having a human to interact with.

Restaurants are more than just a place to fill your food hole. People like the interaction with staff.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

6. As if they weren't planning to do that anyway.

My old boss owned a drive in restaurant and a coffee shop as well as the software company I worked for, and one of the projects we discussed even a decade ago was moving our menu software (we already did cash registers for restaurants and concessions) onto mobiles so that people could place their orders at their tables and only have waitstaff delivering to the tables, not taking orders. We only never got around to it because we hadn't yet figured out how not to have the mobiles get stolen short of having them encased in some case bolted to tables/walls.

(Edit: with the way things have gone, the solution to that would be to make it just an app that downloads onto the customers' own mobile devices.)

[tularetom]

9. Let the iPads put up the fucking billboards then

Yep, robots can do anything low paid worker bees can do.

And they're getting more sophisticated by the day. Pretty soon they will produce robots that can do what CEO's get a bazillion dollars a year to do. And they won't have to pay them one dime. Then we'll see the end of all this robot shit.

If it isn't too late. Within 100 years we may have a droid president.

[blkmusclmachine]

10. Eat the rich

[PowerToThePeople]

11. walk into McD's and get yourself a free iPad or 4.

Who is going to stop you?

[TheKentuckian]

12. Perhaps a few CEOs having their bodies replaced by pikes will increase empathy levels

[BrotherIvan]

25. Winner!

[GeorgeGist]

13. Cheapskates

[DirkGently]

14. Good luck with that, restaurants.

About time these bluffs were called. The premise is labor like cooks and waitstaff is -- and I have seen it,put this way "virtually worthless." Just the opposite is true, and these smug creeps know it. No humans serving other humans; no big fat profits.

[All_Corners]

16. They've got em here at the Sheetz chain...

Make it exactly how you want... Love it...

[DAMANgoldberg]

24. Yes, but

There are still at least 2 food preparers at any shift in every Sheetz I have been in. The number is also 2 at Royal Farms and 3 at Wawa, all of which use touch screen ordering for their convenience restaurant items.

[Brickbat]

17. If that's actually do-able, why not do it now?

[jeff47]

22. Cost of minimum wage employee: $18k/year in CA right now.

Cost of the most expensive iPad: $929.

If these moron's claim was correct, they could save $17k per employee for the first year, and $18k per employee for the next, let's say 3 years.

Yet they haven't done it yet....almost like their claim is bullshit.

[onethatcares]

28. I've never seen

an Ipad order a meal or drink.

these assholes are insane. They haven't a clue that it takes buyers to keep their own businesses model running.

[sendero]

29. If that were feasible..

.. they would have already done it. No sale.

[Roy Serohz]

30. Resistence Is Futile

[WillyT]

31. Here Ya Go: