Edit: Before someone says something dumb. How did people survive before franchises again? Did everyone starve and die?
Not every restaurant survived then, either. If you got rid of franchises, you still wouldn’t be getting rid of everyone who wants to run a restaurant. People will still choose one over another and the one people aren’t choosing to patronize will go under.
Just because it’s independent doesn’t mean the owner isn’t just as greedy. Remember: every major corporation started off as a small, independent business. No business starts off as a megacorp.
I’ve lived through the same conditions myself, but I still have the advantage of being able to look at history and see that from 1955 when it started until the 80’s, the average McDonald’s franchise worker still was paid a living wage for their respective time periods.
The problem isn’t the model of business. It’s the greed of the people who run the business. The only laws necessary to fix this problem are keeping minimum wage up with inflation and the cost of living. If $16/hour isn’t a living wage (such as it is in California), the minimum needs to be higher. If the business can not provide that, they can not afford the cost of doing business and deserve to go out of business.
The wage problem is not caused by the franchise model. It’s not even exclusive to franchised businesses; it’s practically every single business across all sectors. From retail and customer service, to tech and medical care positions. If they’re not compelled to pay you enough to survive, they won’t. The libertarian idea that businesses will self-regulate is a delusion that doesn’t happen in reality. They must be compelled through law to be safe and fair or they’re just going to do whatever they can get away with.
“If you can make $20/hour at Taco Bell, with no experience, how much money do you think I’m going to have to pay a cook, who actually has experience?” Stedman continued. “I have to compete with that. Worse, I have to compete for somebody who has zero cooking experience. None, none at all!”
OH GOD, WE CAN’T EXPLOIT THE LABOR ANYMORE. WOE IS US. PLEASE GOD SHOW SOME SYMPATHY FOR OUR GREAT BURDEN OF NOT BEING ABLE TO EXPLOIT THE DESPERATE ANYMORE!
Most other countries pay their servers a decent wage and don’t make them rely on tips to survive and those countries have a shit ton of great restaurants that I’ve eaten at.
I mean the difference between them and they employees is that they can sell their restaurant when they want to quit at a good profit while their employees have to leave with only the clothes on their back.
Not necessarily. Many restaurants lease the space and profit margins can be tight. It’s not some golden goose to own a restaurant, unless it’s super popular and you always have customers… Or sell lots of beer/liquor.
For the past two years, the Stedmans have had their restaurant—which they opened 18 years ago—up for sale. The couple says dinner has been, and will continue to be, what drives the restaurant, whether it’s under their ownership or the next.
They have no rights to basically enslave people? Is that what they’re bitching about? Businesses who can’t/won’t their employees a living wage shouldn’t exist in the first place. They’re normally those that life can go on without anyway.
If you can make $20/hour at Taco Bell, with no experience, how much money do you think I'm going to have to pay a cook, who actually has experience?
— Che Stedman
Well Che. It looks like if you did stop working a Taco Bell will replace you. So your jobs disappear, correct, but it absolutely opens it up for someone else to move in. Also, the reason Taco Bell requires zero experience is because they have sat there for the last umpteen years streamlining their process which came at a non-zero cost.
Innovate Che. That's the name of the game. Being an entrepreneur means thinking fast on your feet and having to adapt to a landscape that is tilted against you. Yes, the big players have had decades to consolidate their power and create a business world that makes breaking into the Restaurant business near impossible. Join the crowd of Ma and Pa gas stations, grocery stores, computer shops, and so on that the lack of enforcing anti-competitive laws has wrought.
Don't make it sound like we're terrible because we're undervaluing people's work. I think it's time for us to understand that our work is being undervalued, and that we're being told that we are terrible people because we are not giving enough
— Che Stedman
No, Che you seem to be missing the point. The problem is the folks you need to compete with having unfair advantage and you wanted to undervalue peoples' work to play your advantage. What this law is doing is removing that from the play book of ANY company altogether. Seeing how that was your ONLY play in your playbook, you are out of "innovation" that other companies still have three billion more plays to try. Your beef is mostly with the big boys getting unfair advantage.
But we cannot carve out an except for you because, aforementioned big boys have also abused their position to make the cost of living insane. As opposed to trying to argue your old play maybe… petition your local government to tell fast food chains to leave? So long as there are Taco Bells that can fall back on their parent company Yum Brands, small business and the everyday man will never win.
That's the really cool thing. In an actual free market, paying that $20/hr doesn't hurt you. Even better, in an actual free market, we don't even need the $20/hr to keep our heads above water.
We, as business owners, do not feel that we are the ones exploiting people. We pay huge taxes, fees, licenses, inspections, Workman's Comp, insurance, you name it. We do this for the right to work really hard, and to create jobs. Yet...we are being told that WE are the reason why people can't afford their rent
— Che Stedman
No Che. You're correct that your don't feel like you are exploiting people. However, paying people less than a living wage is just that. However, you aren't the one setting that cost of living and that's the bigger point here. You're upset that your current game plan is no longer valid, but you're so salty that you don't want to come up with a better game plan. Us small people, we feel this every day. Not having control, watching shadowy conglomerates dictate our day to day lives, and what not. It's so ingrain at this point, I'm having trouble articulating all the ways we're being screwed by large businesses much in the same way I'd have difficulty explaining what breathing actually feels like.
Che the thing is, that pain, that sting in your heart. You're just now feeling it. I know buddy. Hell someone decided that some generation was killing off diamonds and Applebee's so mutual feels on that having someone tell you that you are the reason for something.
So I guess best I can tell you Che is that, grab you a pitchfork and join the crowd who want the billionaires of this planet to stop making this world shitty. I mean I don't know really. It just seems like its always going down the shitter every fifteen seconds. I've been on this train going down so long, I couldn't possibly know which direction is up at this point.
But pay your people a living wage, that's core. Post that, start fighting for lowering that cost. Stop trying to cling to your old playbook of under paying people. You're not looking entrepreneurial. Oh and also.
Tanya and I, as most other business owners, are tired of hearing how it's our fault people can't afford their lives; tired of being told we need to work harder so other people can have more; tired of being told we should be happy with having less, working more, being liable and responsible for everyone and everything, so other people can have a better life
— Che Stedman
Buddy, that's Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and sometimes a Sunday for us. If you're just now getting upset about being told that… I mean, you can come over and I'll give you a cookie. It helps my mood. But definitely not my waistline.
“We, as business owners, do not feel that we are the ones exploiting people. We pay huge taxes, fees, licenses, inspections, Workman’s Comp, insurance, you name it. We do this for the right to work really hard, and to create jobs. Yet…we are being told that WE are the reason why people can’t afford their rent. We are told we should pay everyone more, while we work harder, and for less. Employers are unprotected. We have no rights. We don’t get overtime or breaks. The only thing we get is what’s left over after everyone else takes their cut. At some point, the risk outweighs the reward.
For us, we cannot accept more liability and expense. We have to pay our rent, too. So we are reducing our costs. Reducing our liability. We are concentrating our efforts on the area that is most successful. Tanya and I, as most other business owners, are tired of hearing how it’s our fault people can’t afford their lives; tired of being told we need to work harder so other people can have more; tired of being told we should be happy with having less, working more, being liable and responsible for everyone and everything, so other people can have a better life.”
Boo-fucking-hoo. Just do it and don’t grandstand about it, nobody fucking cares how hard you think it is to be upper middle class.
I'm definitely not upper-middle-class, but I have attempted to run a one-man business before. I used semantics to dodge certain state licensing requirements (I was a "consultant" instead of a "technician") which would have cost me more than 50% of my annual profit. The state definitely adds a lot of nonsense costs to running a business that do little more than protect existing businesses from new competition and discourage lower-income people from attempting to start businesses of their own.
Yeah, so they should be complaining about that. People would support them. Not complain about workers making more money and sounding like entitled brats.
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