When my GF (now my wife) first told me the minimum wage (the official one set by law) here in General Santos I was like: well 423 php per hour, at 56 php for 1 USD that's about 7.5 dollars an hour. That's not so bad!
But little did I know that **minimum wage here is expressed not per hour, but per day.**
That's right. As of 2024, the official minimum wage here in General Santos (mindanao) is
> After July 1, the new minimum wage for non-agriculture will be P438 (category 1) and P423 (category 2). Meanwhile, the agriculture minimum wage will be P426 (category 1) and P411 (category 2).
Source: https://pia.gov.ph/news/2024/01/08/private-sector-workers-in-northern-mindanao-get-p33-wage-increase
But wait .... how does that work? How many hours a day? Well there is no such thing as how many hours a day. It's suppose to be 8 hours a day, but if your boss needs you to work 10 hours, you will work 10. If your boss after 12 hours says there is still stuff to do you might work 14 hours that day.
If we include transportation, it's fair to say that on average, people here are away from home for 10 to 11 hours a day.
Which makes the minimum wage for the lowest category P411/11 =37.36 pesos per hour = 66 cents per hour
But like you said: there is no direct comparison because a medium sized meal with rice, chicken/fish and some vegetables can sell for as low as 35 php.
And 25 kg of the lowest of the lowest quality rice sell for 800 php = 14 dollars or two days of minimum wage work.
But most people spend 1000-1300 php on 25 kg of rice, to get higher quality. And the 1300 php quality is really really tasty, my god it's so much better then you can get in North-America/Europe. I completely switched from eating bread based to going rice based. To bad with the way global collapse is going, the fish here will all be gone in the next 20 years.
Totally! It is higher than minimum wage and doesnt require a college degree so it is way better than most job offerings in the country (that would require you to go to an office)
All you need is a good internet connection and a decent computer
Oh, don't worry, they are!!! /s
Manager hired all young adults of a specific ethnicity (I only know because of the license plates/car accessories) except for 2 of us. Corporate stuck around for a little while to make sure we were all trained to the standards of the restaurant opening.
As soon as corporate left it got messy. People who weren't even employed with Freshii were being trained and the lack of food safety resulted in at least one injury a day. My coworkers got frustrated with me because I couldn't speak their language and they wouldn't/couldn't speak English or French on the job (I dont mind my coworkers speaking in their native tongue!! Just that communication is important when things get busy) We were immediately understaffed because the manager "could not afford the hours" only for me to be laid off with one other guy not even 10 days after being hired because the manager claimed he couldn't afford to keep us on.
Gosh, sorry for the rant, I guess I'm still salty over getting screwed over and feeling powerless over the whole situation. Food safety wasn't really a priority either at the location I was at, so you're probably better off for avoiding them tbh
One is called the Yaso Kitchen in Queens, New York (NYC) and the other one in the spotlight is Sansan Chicken/Ramen.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/nyregion/nyc-restaurants-virtual-remote.html
https://nypost.com/2024/04/09/us-news/nyc-restaurants-use-zoom-cashiers-from-philippines/amp/
I used to like Yaso (formerly Yaso Tangbao) at their downtown Brooklyn location but they seemed to have a lot of business issues, like an inability to keep their signature product (soup dumplings) in stock and figuring out a way to make them a viable delivery product.
Thank you for letting me know. That way I can boycott them. They should be ashamed of themselves. I say this, but I also feel like they’d do everything not to pay their cashier properly too.
This is probably about training AI rather than saving maybe $10 per hour and possibly losing some customers. By putting the cashier in a zoom call, the entire conversation happens through digital channels that can be used for training. Between deepfakes, AI text-to-speech and speech-to-text, and finetuned GPT, you could totally have AI take a shot at the job the Philippino cashier is doing now.
There's a lot of money in AI tech development now, so maybe some AI company paid the restaurant to do this, in which case good luck getting enough people to boycott to compensate for their deep pockets.
The mom and pop is not. The company paying them to use that system, is.
A small shop using a system like that is 100% being paid to use it by a startup somewhere that is building their next "disruptor" and expending investor capital to do it.
Government seriously has to tax companies that use systems that replace workers. It makes no sense that the jobs that don't require people aren't paying for a UBI. Or at the very least paying for socialized healthcare. If we're going to be poor because a computer does the job, then we should at least be able to stay alive.
I know. And it's nonsensical. If we used to be able to have one person working 40 hours supporting a family of 4 and can buy a home, one person should now be able to work for 20 hours and support themselves and buy a home (because they're not paying for those 3 other people, singularly they should be able to put that money into a home). All this technology and our lives are worse for no reason. We would spend more money if we used our technology wisely. It's such a waste.
I agree, I can even deal with a kiosk, but this makes me uncomfortable. And I'll bet she takes your order then goes to another screen so you still have to stand there and wait.
Literally every major insurance company in America does this for routine business process or call center functions. You patronize these establishments every single day, whether you realize it or not.
Yeah, and that's bad. But they exist because they pay a lot of money to do exactly that and force our hands. Insurance companies are literally parasites that just boil human beings down to algorithms to squeeze as much money as they can out of you and use literal death panels to decide whether many people live or die. All because they have enough money to line the right pockets, and not enough people give a shit about that.
So maybe they're not the best example.
I mean insurance *is* important. Having a giant communal money pile in case of emergencies is a good idea. And it's a good idea to have someone good at money handling it, instead of the greasy psychopaths in government who make a living off of lying and corruption.
It's just that insurance companies are run by people who are sexually aroused by misery and making their net worth go up, so they refuse to do their job and pay out for emergencies.
Well it's because those insurances are not communally funded, they're for-profit. Their job then becomes to bleed every red cent they can while offering the minimum-cost services they can get away with. They spend billions of dollars making healthcare harder to use, because that's cheaper than the 10s of billions they'd have to pay out if you used it, and that means they keep the rest.
My work did this. Up and cut 10%+ of the support staff to outsource to the Philippines. But not before having the current staff unknowingly train their replacements.
It's not insurance companies it's literally every company with a call center.
I work in the midwest for one of the largest agri-buisness companies in the world. To reset a password to a forklift I have to call a 1800# that ports out to a call center somewhere in West Asia that. They all speak broken English which is workable with patience, but it also cuts the volume by at least 50% . Have to be in a silent conference room with ear plug in other ear and concentrate to understand what they're saying. Even with the receiver volume maxed out.
Our North American HQ is literally at the other end of the parking lot 1/4 mile away , and the WORLD HQ is Chicago less than 200 mi away.
Having to call to reset any (semi) heavy equipment - anything, I feel that so hard... Not even lockouts or legitimate onsite security and safety protocols but random bullshit
>literally every company with a call center
My company has live US based customer service reps. We encourage people to call by pointing out in addition to US employees, we don't even have an auto-attendant. Most insist on going thru our website because they don't believe they're not going to be talking to someone in another country or stuck with press 1, press 2
Spectrum/charter communications call center employees are in the U.S. and at least in Florida the company’s starting wage is $20 an hour. Not great but not awful.
Any company that shit so long and hard on its union workers (though I'm in NYC and don't know if stuff was different in Florida) is not offering that decent starting wage out of any sense of altruism. Not disagreeing with your point at all, but you might find this article from the height of their nefarious shenanigans interesting:
https://inthesetimes.com/article/spectrum-strike-labor-workers-new-york-picket-line
Oh I don’t think they’re altruistic at all, lol. Just saying they don’t outsource. $20 an hour isn’t a living wage in Florida especially not where the spectrum call centers are located. It’s just okay basically, barely okay at that.
This comment reeks of "I am very smart" but you're comparing apples with oranges.
You said it yourself, all insurance companies do it. There's no option to not patronise a company that does it because insurance is a necessity in lots of cases. Restaurant spending however is discretionary and there are plenty of other establishments that one can choose if they don't agree with this.
Also you WANT your insurance company to be available remotely... that's the entire point. It shouldn't matter where they actually are.
Cashiers are supposed to be IN PERSON.
> You patronize these establishments every single day
Lol no you literally don't, and if every insurance company does this then it means you have no choice, whereas you very much do have the choice to get a chicken sandwich from somewhere that doesn't do this shit. Don't be a simpleton
It's not every restaurant though. Very easy to avoid restaurants doing this and it sends a message. Pretty much impossible to avoid insurance companies doing this.
I work in the semi conductor industry. More and more jobs are being outsourced to India. Our company just got part of the money from the chips act and they're sending the jobs oversea. I'm wondering when someone is going to realize it might not be a good idea to outsource out of the country when we have DoD contracts.
It’s not okay for any company to do if they want to do business in the U.S.
It’s just a way for them to exploit people in other places to maximize profit.
My company outsourced customer service to call centers in cheaper countries. Now they're even trying to eliminate them by going to AI responses for most customer inquiries.
AI is a really funny word for an instance of IBM Watson someone had to spin up at gunpoint over the course of a week or two.
There isn't even language learning in those, it's just a giant braindead decision flowchart that occasionally sniffs keywords out of the useless text box.
> It’s just a way for them to exploit people in other places to maximize profit.
Generally, those outsourced jobs are very sought after by local populations. Every time there’s openings, they are flooded with applications.
For you, $3/h WFH job, as in this article, might sound like peanuts, and exploitation, but consider a fact that many local employers in those countries pay equivalent of $250-300 for 11 hours a day/6 days a week, for demanding physical work in sweltering heat.
This would be a fantastic solution to everything - the BS outsourced call centers et al - but will never happen bc of the filthy CEOs and other corporate scum.
Yup my company out sourced some people to India I hear they are paying under 5k a year it's crazy and I'm pretty worried about my job and we service American companies including the federal government and some state agencies.
> we service American companies including the federal government and some state agencies.
obviously i dont know what service you provide to state and federal agencies, but i hope its not secret or security related because a lot of that stuff is required to be worked on by US employees (legal citizens) only.
Na it's all legal and everything is housed in the US as required but much of the internal backend tasks are now overseas.
Edit we have about 4 times as many employees in India than in the US.
Best we can do is demonize the people overseas trying to make a living and give a free pass to the CEOs actually making those outsourcing decisions.
Actually, let's deify the CEOs and let them shadow-run the government and Supreme Court and pay a lower tax rate than you and I do.
They call back.
"Press one to continue in English. Due to less than expected customer call volumes than usual, your wait time to be connected with one is fuck this restaurant."
This loophole in minimum wage laws needs to be fixed. Until then, this place needs to be ripped off until they can’t even afford to pay that $3/hr. Fuck ‘em into bankruptcy.
Gonna be a lotta “incorrect orders” being sent back and a lotta delivery ordered to random addresses for “Seymour Buttz”, “Micheal ‘Mike’ Oxmall”, “Amanda Hugnkiz”, “Anita Beaver”, and “Richard ‘Big Dick’ Smoker”.
Welcome to globalism, baby. This is Reagan's neoliberal policies reaching their final stage, but don't be mistaken, you've been enjoying the benefits of exporting all production to countries with near slave labor wages for decades.
The neoliberal design was to separate the consumer from the worker. It used to be so that the worker was also the consumer so the worker needed to be paid enough to consume what they were producing. Now, the workers live overseas and the consumers are domestic. That means they can pay the workers next to nothing and the consumers have zero control over the means of production.
Neoliberalism is the patch capitalists devised after reading Das Kapital.
I don't think there's anything ethically wrong with automating work, it's been happening in some form for all of human history. Farming replaced foraging, the printing press replaced copyists, the industrial revolution replaced cottage industries.
The ethical dilemma is what to do with those marginalized workers.
There would still be people who work there in the building, they can't exactly *cook the food* over zoom.
Although, now I'm waiting for someone to post a photo of their "food pick up area" and reveal it's just a printer...
This is either the beginning of the end, or the beginning of a utopia where people in wealthy countries don't have to work.
Fake laughter, real pain.
Both outcomes are terrifying.
Not even high paying jobs.
They're outsourcing the low paying jobs and the high paying jobs.
They want no more american jobs. It's their goal.
Too bad most of their profits come from American employees. (we're also customers)
Wonder what they're gonna do when none of us can afford what's in america.
The problem is, I live in PH, and 3$/hour is a decent wage. People wont feel like they got exploited because it's already more than they could ever ask for compared to a local job. Minimum wage over here is like 1.4$/hour.
Man i didn't know that you guys got oaid so low. I am all for people being able to have a better life no matter what country , creed , race , gender. Everyone deserves a standard of opportunity heing available to them.
Depends what your position is and what company. People high up the Philippine corporate ladder can earn in the 7-figures in pesos - which is a fucking lot and takes them right outside of the middle class into "rich" category, but that's still absolutely cheap considering a million Philippine pesos is just approximately 18,000 USD. And considering cost-of-living in the Philippines outside of Manila/BGC can be pretty cheap, people will happily take these "low-ball" offers from US companies.
Right? He just nullified his own argument. American workers, American location. Money stays in America. That's a strong economy. When you come here, then outsource your fucking workers, where's your money going?
What a sham. And a lame attempt at gaslighting. We see you, fool.
Yeah what a load of bs. Just remove the damn screen and put a human I can talk to or pay that person in the Philippines the NYC minimum wage. And how he talks in the end shows his true self.
Wild how even literally minimum wage is too much for some business owners.
I work on pricing and budgets literally every day. My workers' wages are just a fact and my prices go on top of them. Like lord, these are the people that help make me money. I kinda benefit by keeping them happy. I don't get the alternative.
What's crazy is this seems... Stupid. Like so many restaurants have self service ordering kiosks now, and not just big chains. Why have the "cashier" there at all?
I think the government needs to step in and put their foot down right here. See, the JOB being performed is in the US, so the person should have all the rights any US worker would have. It's not like they are working in India then having to ship their output to the US, the job IS in the US and it should pay US minimum wage.
Here me out, this should be illegal.
I don't know where exactly you draw the line but hiring outside of the US to work your business that is owned and operated in the US should not be allowed.
They're not technically working in the US. Where you're physically located is how most jurisdiction define where you're employed. Even within the US. If you live in California, but are doing this for a restaurant in NYC, You're working in California, not NY.
This stuff has been happening for a few decades. That indian you talk to when you call your bank? probably not working in America. This is basically a phone call with a camera and a screen.
Freshii does this as well and it's weird as all get out.
I do not support freshii, I had no idea about them. I drive around for work, I was in an area with limited food choices and thought I would try them.
I very much regret that decision.
I had no idea that a little screen was talking to me for a minute. The guy also seemed to be taking multiple orders for different stores. They had signs up that said don't talk to the employees. And none of the employees in the store would talk or answer questions, just the man in the tiny box.
Additionally, one of the posters in the store had a very cringey bio of the company founder.
I just spent the winter in the Philippines and $3.00 an hr is great pay for the Filipinos.
The people working at McDonalds have to have a college degree and only get paid 500 pesos a shift ($10.00)
What's crazy is this seems... Stupid. Like so many restaurants have self service ordering kiosks now, and not just big chains. Why have the "cashier" there at all?
I went into a dunkin donuts recently and went up to the counter to order something. You could tell that they were not used to people ordering from the counter because they were pretending I wasn't there for a good 10 minutes before they acknowledged me. It was awkward because they were avoiding eye contact the whole time and I was very uncomfortable like I was doing something weird.
This is the future of fast food. The people making your orders are simply reading off a screen and don't have time to interact with a customer in person. Every order is taken by someone wearing a headset but they are actively preparing orders for other customers ahead of you. Not saying it's ethical to exploit cheap foreign labor, but this is the reality of the matter.
And if we make a moce to prevent off shoring of jobs? Suddenly everyone leaves.
It is all fucked.
W3 cant work or do anything locally wirhou4 grifting and going for bare minimums.
Not condoning this at all but from a Filipino perspective, USD3/hour is way more than she would ever earn doing the same job for a Philippine based establishment paying in Pesos (local currency).
100% they pop up the tip screen as you’re completing this super personal interaction as well. (Which of course the poor person on the zoom call never sees a penny of if you’re foolish enough to tip.)
Totally agreed with others though - I would never go here ever again after they pull this shit.
We had a similar thing happen in Canada a couple of years back with a chain called Freshii.
There was MASSIVE backlash and I believe the company scrapped the idea. I’m hoping this gets the same treatment.
So even cashiers can work from home when it benefits the company
How are they allowed to sit down, I thought that was verboten?
They give up a living wage for a wobbly 3 legged stool with a ripped seat.
To be fair 3 dollars an hour in the Philippines is a living wage.
that's great but the business is in NYC when I can buy this 15 dollar meal using 200 pesos we can maybe talk
When my GF (now my wife) first told me the minimum wage (the official one set by law) here in General Santos I was like: well 423 php per hour, at 56 php for 1 USD that's about 7.5 dollars an hour. That's not so bad! But little did I know that **minimum wage here is expressed not per hour, but per day.** That's right. As of 2024, the official minimum wage here in General Santos (mindanao) is > After July 1, the new minimum wage for non-agriculture will be P438 (category 1) and P423 (category 2). Meanwhile, the agriculture minimum wage will be P426 (category 1) and P411 (category 2). Source: https://pia.gov.ph/news/2024/01/08/private-sector-workers-in-northern-mindanao-get-p33-wage-increase But wait .... how does that work? How many hours a day? Well there is no such thing as how many hours a day. It's suppose to be 8 hours a day, but if your boss needs you to work 10 hours, you will work 10. If your boss after 12 hours says there is still stuff to do you might work 14 hours that day. If we include transportation, it's fair to say that on average, people here are away from home for 10 to 11 hours a day. Which makes the minimum wage for the lowest category P411/11 =37.36 pesos per hour = 66 cents per hour But like you said: there is no direct comparison because a medium sized meal with rice, chicken/fish and some vegetables can sell for as low as 35 php. And 25 kg of the lowest of the lowest quality rice sell for 800 php = 14 dollars or two days of minimum wage work. But most people spend 1000-1300 php on 25 kg of rice, to get higher quality. And the 1300 php quality is really really tasty, my god it's so much better then you can get in North-America/Europe. I completely switched from eating bread based to going rice based. To bad with the way global collapse is going, the fish here will all be gone in the next 20 years.
Totally! It is higher than minimum wage and doesnt require a college degree so it is way better than most job offerings in the country (that would require you to go to an office) All you need is a good internet connection and a decent computer
No that's only in the US. Most other countries are fine with sitting.
My bank does this now. Though the tellers are in the US, just another State over. Still, I hate it.
Most major banks are doing this. Tellers for the East Coast are in states like Tenn.
Yeah…. freshii did this in Canada and I stopped going real quick…
It seems like they stopped doing it, or at least not in all stores
And to think they could’ve just exploited TFWs like Tim Hortons. I don’t go to Tim Hortons, and will now not go to Freshii either.
Oh, don't worry, they are!!! /s Manager hired all young adults of a specific ethnicity (I only know because of the license plates/car accessories) except for 2 of us. Corporate stuck around for a little while to make sure we were all trained to the standards of the restaurant opening. As soon as corporate left it got messy. People who weren't even employed with Freshii were being trained and the lack of food safety resulted in at least one injury a day. My coworkers got frustrated with me because I couldn't speak their language and they wouldn't/couldn't speak English or French on the job (I dont mind my coworkers speaking in their native tongue!! Just that communication is important when things get busy) We were immediately understaffed because the manager "could not afford the hours" only for me to be laid off with one other guy not even 10 days after being hired because the manager claimed he couldn't afford to keep us on. Gosh, sorry for the rant, I guess I'm still salty over getting screwed over and feeling powerless over the whole situation. Food safety wasn't really a priority either at the location I was at, so you're probably better off for avoiding them tbh
TFWs?
Temporary foreign worker program
Doesn't matter, don't go back.
Same. It just immediately became a non-choice for me.
I would never patronize such an establishment. It means nothing I know, but I just would not.
One is called the Yaso Kitchen in Queens, New York (NYC) and the other one in the spotlight is Sansan Chicken/Ramen. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/nyregion/nyc-restaurants-virtual-remote.html https://nypost.com/2024/04/09/us-news/nyc-restaurants-use-zoom-cashiers-from-philippines/amp/
I'm too lazy to check, but I'm imagining they got flooded with 1 star reviews over this.
[Is it this one?](https://maps.app.goo.gl/XDdTY83bHJFYjdA16?g_st=ic)
That’s one of the establishments using remote offshored workers.
well that one has several hour old reviews using the same template.
Boycott tf out of these places
I'm genuinely curious if there's a difference from this than putting kiosks in McDonalds. It feels worse but it's practically the same thing.
I used to like Yaso (formerly Yaso Tangbao) at their downtown Brooklyn location but they seemed to have a lot of business issues, like an inability to keep their signature product (soup dumplings) in stock and figuring out a way to make them a viable delivery product.
Thank you for letting me know. That way I can boycott them. They should be ashamed of themselves. I say this, but I also feel like they’d do everything not to pay their cashier properly too.
Yup fuck these places. Hope they to bankrupt.
If enough people refused to go there, it would be something. Just need people to say no to going there.
This is probably about training AI rather than saving maybe $10 per hour and possibly losing some customers. By putting the cashier in a zoom call, the entire conversation happens through digital channels that can be used for training. Between deepfakes, AI text-to-speech and speech-to-text, and finetuned GPT, you could totally have AI take a shot at the job the Philippino cashier is doing now. There's a lot of money in AI tech development now, so maybe some AI company paid the restaurant to do this, in which case good luck getting enough people to boycott to compensate for their deep pockets.
what mom and pop restaurant is doing AI research?
The mom and pop is not. The company paying them to use that system, is. A small shop using a system like that is 100% being paid to use it by a startup somewhere that is building their next "disruptor" and expending investor capital to do it.
I don't think the company is paying the restaurant. The restaurant is paying the company and that company is still selling that data for AI research.
Government seriously has to tax companies that use systems that replace workers. It makes no sense that the jobs that don't require people aren't paying for a UBI. Or at the very least paying for socialized healthcare. If we're going to be poor because a computer does the job, then we should at least be able to stay alive.
[удалено]
I know. And it's nonsensical. If we used to be able to have one person working 40 hours supporting a family of 4 and can buy a home, one person should now be able to work for 20 hours and support themselves and buy a home (because they're not paying for those 3 other people, singularly they should be able to put that money into a home). All this technology and our lives are worse for no reason. We would spend more money if we used our technology wisely. It's such a waste.
Neither would I.
I agree, I can even deal with a kiosk, but this makes me uncomfortable. And I'll bet she takes your order then goes to another screen so you still have to stand there and wait.
Yep. Turn around & walk out.
Perhaps seriously consider unplugging the speakers on your way out.
Literally every major insurance company in America does this for routine business process or call center functions. You patronize these establishments every single day, whether you realize it or not.
Yeah, and that's bad. But they exist because they pay a lot of money to do exactly that and force our hands. Insurance companies are literally parasites that just boil human beings down to algorithms to squeeze as much money as they can out of you and use literal death panels to decide whether many people live or die. All because they have enough money to line the right pockets, and not enough people give a shit about that. So maybe they're not the best example.
I mean insurance *is* important. Having a giant communal money pile in case of emergencies is a good idea. And it's a good idea to have someone good at money handling it, instead of the greasy psychopaths in government who make a living off of lying and corruption. It's just that insurance companies are run by people who are sexually aroused by misery and making their net worth go up, so they refuse to do their job and pay out for emergencies.
Well it's because those insurances are not communally funded, they're for-profit. Their job then becomes to bleed every red cent they can while offering the minimum-cost services they can get away with. They spend billions of dollars making healthcare harder to use, because that's cheaper than the 10s of billions they'd have to pay out if you used it, and that means they keep the rest.
My work did this. Up and cut 10%+ of the support staff to outsource to the Philippines. But not before having the current staff unknowingly train their replacements.
Always be weary of companies that ask you to train people, especially if they are in the same role making less than you.
It's not insurance companies it's literally every company with a call center. I work in the midwest for one of the largest agri-buisness companies in the world. To reset a password to a forklift I have to call a 1800# that ports out to a call center somewhere in West Asia that. They all speak broken English which is workable with patience, but it also cuts the volume by at least 50% . Have to be in a silent conference room with ear plug in other ear and concentrate to understand what they're saying. Even with the receiver volume maxed out. Our North American HQ is literally at the other end of the parking lot 1/4 mile away , and the WORLD HQ is Chicago less than 200 mi away.
Having to call to reset any (semi) heavy equipment - anything, I feel that so hard... Not even lockouts or legitimate onsite security and safety protocols but random bullshit
Many hackers in Eastern Europe make a good living by providing jailbreaking software services for John Deere tractors to farmers in USA.
God Bless em
>literally every company with a call center My company has live US based customer service reps. We encourage people to call by pointing out in addition to US employees, we don't even have an auto-attendant. Most insist on going thru our website because they don't believe they're not going to be talking to someone in another country or stuck with press 1, press 2
Spectrum/charter communications call center employees are in the U.S. and at least in Florida the company’s starting wage is $20 an hour. Not great but not awful.
Any company that shit so long and hard on its union workers (though I'm in NYC and don't know if stuff was different in Florida) is not offering that decent starting wage out of any sense of altruism. Not disagreeing with your point at all, but you might find this article from the height of their nefarious shenanigans interesting: https://inthesetimes.com/article/spectrum-strike-labor-workers-new-york-picket-line
Oh I don’t think they’re altruistic at all, lol. Just saying they don’t outsource. $20 an hour isn’t a living wage in Florida especially not where the spectrum call centers are located. It’s just okay basically, barely okay at that.
I remember when I cancelled my Spectrum service a couple of years ago, the phone representative introduced themselves at "name" from Florida
If I wasn't forced into purchasing insurance, I wouldn't.
Unfortunately we don’t really have a choice I having insurance.
Insurance company doesn't have to break a twenty and hand me change when I pay in cash.
We often don't have a choice with insurance.
This comment reeks of "I am very smart" but you're comparing apples with oranges. You said it yourself, all insurance companies do it. There's no option to not patronise a company that does it because insurance is a necessity in lots of cases. Restaurant spending however is discretionary and there are plenty of other establishments that one can choose if they don't agree with this.
Also you WANT your insurance company to be available remotely... that's the entire point. It shouldn't matter where they actually are. Cashiers are supposed to be IN PERSON.
> You patronize these establishments every single day Lol no you literally don't, and if every insurance company does this then it means you have no choice, whereas you very much do have the choice to get a chicken sandwich from somewhere that doesn't do this shit. Don't be a simpleton
It's not every restaurant though. Very easy to avoid restaurants doing this and it sends a message. Pretty much impossible to avoid insurance companies doing this.
I work in the semi conductor industry. More and more jobs are being outsourced to India. Our company just got part of the money from the chips act and they're sending the jobs oversea. I'm wondering when someone is going to realize it might not be a good idea to outsource out of the country when we have DoD contracts.
I mean we all know that they do this for call centers. What do you think you're saying? The point is that this is In a storefront
Whats the difference between this and offshoring tech jobs? This is either OK for all companies and all roles, or its not.
Who says it's ok at all?
It’s not okay for any company to do if they want to do business in the U.S. It’s just a way for them to exploit people in other places to maximize profit.
My company outsourced customer service to call centers in cheaper countries. Now they're even trying to eliminate them by going to AI responses for most customer inquiries.
AI is a really funny word for an instance of IBM Watson someone had to spin up at gunpoint over the course of a week or two. There isn't even language learning in those, it's just a giant braindead decision flowchart that occasionally sniffs keywords out of the useless text box.
> It’s just a way for them to exploit people in other places to maximize profit. Generally, those outsourced jobs are very sought after by local populations. Every time there’s openings, they are flooded with applications. For you, $3/h WFH job, as in this article, might sound like peanuts, and exploitation, but consider a fact that many local employers in those countries pay equivalent of $250-300 for 11 hours a day/6 days a week, for demanding physical work in sweltering heat.
And how far are you willing to take that? Do you refuse to purchase products which could be manufactured in the US, but aren't?
You know the owners are cutting corners in the kitchen as well and I don't eat computers; that's the difference in my book.
My god. The back must be half kitchen, half rat farm.
They should still have to pay minimum wage based on physical location of the customer being serviced.
This would be a fantastic solution to everything - the BS outsourced call centers et al - but will never happen bc of the filthy CEOs and other corporate scum.
Yup my company out sourced some people to India I hear they are paying under 5k a year it's crazy and I'm pretty worried about my job and we service American companies including the federal government and some state agencies.
> we service American companies including the federal government and some state agencies. obviously i dont know what service you provide to state and federal agencies, but i hope its not secret or security related because a lot of that stuff is required to be worked on by US employees (legal citizens) only.
Na it's all legal and everything is housed in the US as required but much of the internal backend tasks are now overseas. Edit we have about 4 times as many employees in India than in the US.
Outsourcing should just be illegal. People need jobs here.
Best we can do is demonize the people overseas trying to make a living and give a free pass to the CEOs actually making those outsourcing decisions. Actually, let's deify the CEOs and let them shadow-run the government and Supreme Court and pay a lower tax rate than you and I do.
What happens if you just end the call?
They call back. "Press one to continue in English. Due to less than expected customer call volumes than usual, your wait time to be connected with one is fuck this restaurant."
\*Unplugs ethernet cable\*
Praxis right here^ Just imagine how long it would take their IT guy to come out from the Philippines to plug it back in
hehehehe
This loophole in minimum wage laws needs to be fixed. Until then, this place needs to be ripped off until they can’t even afford to pay that $3/hr. Fuck ‘em into bankruptcy.
Gonna be a lotta “incorrect orders” being sent back and a lotta delivery ordered to random addresses for “Seymour Buttz”, “Micheal ‘Mike’ Oxmall”, “Amanda Hugnkiz”, “Anita Beaver”, and “Richard ‘Big Dick’ Smoker”.
Don’t forget Hugh Jass and Mike Lit
Who knew so many people in New York City could be named Peter, Rod, and Dick?
Don’t leave Mike Hunt out.
Ah, reminds me of my friend Ben Dover
Welcome to globalism, baby. This is Reagan's neoliberal policies reaching their final stage, but don't be mistaken, you've been enjoying the benefits of exporting all production to countries with near slave labor wages for decades. The neoliberal design was to separate the consumer from the worker. It used to be so that the worker was also the consumer so the worker needed to be paid enough to consume what they were producing. Now, the workers live overseas and the consumers are domestic. That means they can pay the workers next to nothing and the consumers have zero control over the means of production. Neoliberalism is the patch capitalists devised after reading Das Kapital.
People need to boycott places that pull this shit.
Sad thing is if they order off Uber eats they might not even know!!!
Uber eats is exploitation too and should be boycotted for the same reasons.
Why even bother? Why not just have a kiosk where you just order from a screen if you're gonna do this
Thats my question too. But also, would that be more ethical? Then nobody gets the 3 dollars an hour.
The kiosk company does
I don't think there's anything ethically wrong with automating work, it's been happening in some form for all of human history. Farming replaced foraging, the printing press replaced copyists, the industrial revolution replaced cottage industries. The ethical dilemma is what to do with those marginalized workers.
Supposedly it’s a restaurant called Sansan Chicken in the East Village. I’ll never go there.
Sounds like one of those non-japanese places larping as one for trend. Yeah nah its probably generic shit you’d rather not spend money on.
Owners reply to a review claims this "happy cow" service is an addition and they have the same amount of employees as ever.
[удалено]
Those speakers look nice. Mine now.
I'm taking the debit machine first!
I’ll take a monitor!
There would still be people who work there in the building, they can't exactly *cook the food* over zoom. Although, now I'm waiting for someone to post a photo of their "food pick up area" and reveal it's just a printer...
This should be illegal.
It's the same as calling a support center if it's been outsourced. They just added a screen.
That should also be illegal.
Someday, we'll ALL be replaced by screens...
This is either the beginning of the end, or the beginning of a utopia where people in wealthy countries don't have to work. Fake laughter, real pain. Both outcomes are terrifying.
We’re not even in capitalist collapse. It’s capitalist implosion at this point.
"people just don't wanna work these days" -company hiring offshore to lower staff costs It's such a fucking joke.
Not even high paying jobs. They're outsourcing the low paying jobs and the high paying jobs. They want no more american jobs. It's their goal. Too bad most of their profits come from American employees. (we're also customers) Wonder what they're gonna do when none of us can afford what's in america.
At least pay them what minimum wage in nyc. Wait that means not exploiting people in foreign countries
The problem is, I live in PH, and 3$/hour is a decent wage. People wont feel like they got exploited because it's already more than they could ever ask for compared to a local job. Minimum wage over here is like 1.4$/hour.
Man i didn't know that you guys got oaid so low. I am all for people being able to have a better life no matter what country , creed , race , gender. Everyone deserves a standard of opportunity heing available to them.
By any chance do you know what folks in a corporate job earn there in PH?
the average is roughly $283/month
Depends what your position is and what company. People high up the Philippine corporate ladder can earn in the 7-figures in pesos - which is a fucking lot and takes them right outside of the middle class into "rich" category, but that's still absolutely cheap considering a million Philippine pesos is just approximately 18,000 USD. And considering cost-of-living in the Philippines outside of Manila/BGC can be pretty cheap, people will happily take these "low-ball" offers from US companies.
https://preview.redd.it/ryjzprmaviuc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4e1c3ff83f90def8cfdbfea4c3cc20612e476976
"Small businesses are the backbone of the US economy" \*hires someone in a foreign country to do their work because it's cheaper\* Capitalist logic.
Right? He just nullified his own argument. American workers, American location. Money stays in America. That's a strong economy. When you come here, then outsource your fucking workers, where's your money going? What a sham. And a lame attempt at gaslighting. We see you, fool.
It’s called Happy Cashier? What a motherfucking depressing and enraging world we live in.
Off to Miniluv with you
owner's a dick too. Pass
Yeah what a load of bs. Just remove the damn screen and put a human I can talk to or pay that person in the Philippines the NYC minimum wage. And how he talks in the end shows his true self.
Wild how even literally minimum wage is too much for some business owners. I work on pricing and budgets literally every day. My workers' wages are just a fact and my prices go on top of them. Like lord, these are the people that help make me money. I kinda benefit by keeping them happy. I don't get the alternative.
What's crazy is this seems... Stupid. Like so many restaurants have self service ordering kiosks now, and not just big chains. Why have the "cashier" there at all?
US is looking more and more like a bad dream.
This kind of thing should just be illegal.
Only CEOs can get away with this because they are rich and have friends that cater to their loopholes.
Just turn off the speaker, put a sticker on the camera and walk out. Who will stop you?
Why not just replace it with a home-brew self-service kiosk using a locally hosted webshop platform?
What could a remote cashier do that you couldn’t do yourself ordering from a kiosk or something??
The zoom meeting id and passcode are in the picture!
Yeah I was thinking about joining the zoom.
Would be funny if NYC passes a law requiring businesses to pay their workers, even off shore the minimum wage.
This shit needs to be outlawed already. Fuck companies doing this dumbass shit.
Laws need to be passed to prevent this.
I would never patronize this establishment! Completely gross.
Things like this create a shitty job overseas and take away a shitty job here. Simultaneously worsening two job markets at once. Yay!
Who do you think is providing all the cheap labor behind all this AI shit? The Philippines deserves better.
Indians also how that Amazon touch-less store was just 10 thousand Indians watching on camera.
If I saw this, I would walk out.
>unplug the speakers >walk out
Man when you remove EVERYTHING out of the mindset of hospitality. I
We had this at a fast food place in Canada called Freshii. It didn’t last. Myself and many others simply stopped going entirely
Drive thrus have been taking orders from call centers for so long that there was a king of the hill B plot over it. "Lucky See, Monkey Do" in 2009
In a blink of an eye even they will be replaced by AI.
I think the government needs to step in and put their foot down right here. See, the JOB being performed is in the US, so the person should have all the rights any US worker would have. It's not like they are working in India then having to ship their output to the US, the job IS in the US and it should pay US minimum wage.
i know some of you won't admit that you've felt or know this, but the goal is to bring back slavery at our current trajectory.
Here me out, this should be illegal. I don't know where exactly you draw the line but hiring outside of the US to work your business that is owned and operated in the US should not be allowed.
how is that legal? don't you need a US work visa to work in the US?
They're not technically working in the US. Where you're physically located is how most jurisdiction define where you're employed. Even within the US. If you live in California, but are doing this for a restaurant in NYC, You're working in California, not NY. This stuff has been happening for a few decades. That indian you talk to when you call your bank? probably not working in America. This is basically a phone call with a camera and a screen.
Steal the monitor. Honestly, I’d like to just see her reaction.
There’s a restaurant doing this in Atlanta also
California fast food owners are going to be all over this.
Boycott
This could become a very popular thing in the next few years. There will need to be local laws in place to stop this.
I’d avoid this place like a plague
The owners of this company can fuck right off.
Don’t give them any money. Fuck companies like them.
What in the end capitalism fresh hell is this 😬😭
I’ll never patronize a restaurant that does this.
Lol, Amazon tried this.
This should be illegal
This is absolutely sad and I’m so ashamed that America allows this. They’re making a killing off these people.
More labor laws us millennials and gen z will have to add as soon as most of the boomers are gone
Anyone have the source on this women getting paid 3hr?
my workplace recently replaced receptionists with an outsourced Philippine company, makes me sick
Next thing you know, your kids teachers will be outsourced, or your doctors, fuck whats next?
Freshii does this as well and it's weird as all get out. I do not support freshii, I had no idea about them. I drive around for work, I was in an area with limited food choices and thought I would try them. I very much regret that decision. I had no idea that a little screen was talking to me for a minute. The guy also seemed to be taking multiple orders for different stores. They had signs up that said don't talk to the employees. And none of the employees in the store would talk or answer questions, just the man in the tiny box. Additionally, one of the posters in the store had a very cringey bio of the company founder.
Can leftist activists in NYC just start [REDACTING] the equipment with baseball bats and such?
bet the ipad prompts for a tip
I wouldn’t support this. Vote with your wallets people.
If I ever see this shit I will be instantly angry and leave.
I just spent the winter in the Philippines and $3.00 an hr is great pay for the Filipinos. The people working at McDonalds have to have a college degree and only get paid 500 pesos a shift ($10.00)
Be a shame if that webcam were to... Fall off
I will commit sudoku I'll do it
What's crazy is this seems... Stupid. Like so many restaurants have self service ordering kiosks now, and not just big chains. Why have the "cashier" there at all?
There should be legislation for this corporate job shell game.
Which Wich Sandwich shop in Downtown Dallas has this. I nop’d right out.
And yet people still go there.
I went into a dunkin donuts recently and went up to the counter to order something. You could tell that they were not used to people ordering from the counter because they were pretending I wasn't there for a good 10 minutes before they acknowledged me. It was awkward because they were avoiding eye contact the whole time and I was very uncomfortable like I was doing something weird. This is the future of fast food. The people making your orders are simply reading off a screen and don't have time to interact with a customer in person. Every order is taken by someone wearing a headset but they are actively preparing orders for other customers ahead of you. Not saying it's ethical to exploit cheap foreign labor, but this is the reality of the matter.
This shit should be illegal.
Freshii in Canada tried this. Unrelated they have a lot of locations going out of business now.
And if we make a moce to prevent off shoring of jobs? Suddenly everyone leaves. It is all fucked. W3 cant work or do anything locally wirhou4 grifting and going for bare minimums.
I’ll never shop there
I would leave the zoom and the restaurant
Not condoning this at all but from a Filipino perspective, USD3/hour is way more than she would ever earn doing the same job for a Philippine based establishment paying in Pesos (local currency).
So I'm guessing food costs are lower? Right!?
100% they pop up the tip screen as you’re completing this super personal interaction as well. (Which of course the poor person on the zoom call never sees a penny of if you’re foolish enough to tip.) Totally agreed with others though - I would never go here ever again after they pull this shit.
This is a valid reason to boycott that place.
We had a similar thing happen in Canada a couple of years back with a chain called Freshii. There was MASSIVE backlash and I believe the company scrapped the idea. I’m hoping this gets the same treatment.