kcrussell25:
I know 2 people in my old shop alone who have said if they lose their job will learn to drive as its a quick and easy way to get a job on £30k a year.
You’d get £30k per year at McDonald’s if you worked 65 hours a week… and sleep in your own bed every night.
You would be lucky to get 65 hours every week in MacDonalds. I think most jobs are zero hours. Not very secure if you have a family at home and a mortgage to pay.
I used to average 60 hours a week as do many others. Yes I was home every day but there are driving jobs where you are as well
At least driving when I hand the keys in thats it. No worries about phone calls and emails because things haven’t been done. See you tomorrow and thats it.
Reef:
McDonalds staff can demand what they like, they are all getting replaced by these things anyway…
The machine might take you order and money, but I’ve yet to see one cook the food, bag it and hand it to you.
Give it time, everything will be automated one day, of course these machines are only replacing the front ‘till’ staff but if/when McD’s can do away with the cooks/prep staff then they will.
But they haven’t done away with the cooks/prep staff’ so there aren’t the machines available yet, so the staff can demand more money as they’re not all getting replaced in the foreseeable future.
But surely where there used to be 10 (total guess) staff per shift there are now only 5 required as there is no one ■■■■■■■ serving, so yes the workforce got its extra pound an hour but the franchise just saved £50 per hr wages (£10ph x 5) + holiday pay x 5 + work place pension and other contributions, with that sort of savings I know I’d be looking at automating at least some of the other 5 jobs pdq
Any driver working for less than £10 an hour is their own worst enemy. I get it folk have mortgages to pay etc but you don’t have to look very far to earn more.
cufcmike:
Any driver working for less than £10 an hour is their own worst enemy. I get it folk have mortgages to pay etc but you don’t have to look very far to earn more.
That depends very much on where you live, my area is notoriously low and most are paying less than £10ph, I’m fortunate that I am on quite a bit more (if you work it out against my hours worked as I’m salaried) and my work is slightly more specialised/dedicated (i.e not general haulage).
njl:
There could be a TV show in this - get 20 drivers to run a McDonalds for a fortnight. anyone fancy pitching it to Channel 5
Good lord no, it takes the majority of my willpower to not stop at the 24hr one conveniently located between work and home when I’ve finished my shift each morning, if I worked in one I’d be the size of a house in under 6 months
Just for the record in the last 6 months I haven’t succumbed… yet…
Given a choice of 60+ hours in a truck or 60+ hours in McDonalds with timed breaks and managers down your neck I know what I’d rather do.
A place I used to work for put the money of the warehouse guys up but not the drivers. One driver kicked up a fuss about it. Soon shut up when they offered him a warehouse role. Don’t think the idea of handballing 10+ containers a day suited him… didn’t help he was 20+ stone.
Given a choice of 60+ hours in a truck or 60+ hours in McDonalds with timed breaks and managers down your neck I know what I’d rather do.
A place I used to work for put the money of the warehouse guys up but not the drivers. One driver kicked up a fuss about it. Soon shut up when they offered him a warehouse role. Don’t think the idea of handballing 10+ containers a day suited him… didn’t help he was 20+ stone.
Exactly, if anyone thinks they’ll make better money and have as better time of it working in McDonald’s than driving, they’re more than welcome to go there and work.
I’ve never worked in one, looks like incredible dung compared to the perma holiday I call my job now.
I find it staggering that each time McDonalds or any other low paid job employees strike for a pay rise, that someone always shouts out why should they do this and we can’t. Then compares a lorry driver job to this, they are striking for their wages to be increased to £10 per hour not £15 per hour. If you are so cut up over someone asking for £10 per hour then your in the wrong job. We get the same response with train drivers, machine operators, in fact anyone who asks for more money. Stop comparing and go for one of these jobs if your on less. The job is what it is and is up to you as a driver to seek out the better paid work. It is out there and you really don’t need to complain about a McDonalds worker or anyone else who is in an unfortunate position. An easy solution is to stop taking these low paid driving jobs in the first place then you will have no need to compare yourself with someone else.
muckles:
But they haven’t done away with the cooks/prep staff’ so there aren’t the machines available yet, so the staff can demand more money as they’re not all getting replaced in the foreseeable future.
But surely where there used to be 10 (total guess) staff per shift there are now only 5 required as there is no one ■■■■■■■ serving, so yes the workforce got its extra pound an hour but the franchise just saved £50 per hr wages (£10ph x 5) + holiday pay x 5 + work place pension and other contributions, with that sort of savings I know I’d be looking at automating at least some of the other 5 jobs pdq
But the franchise will save £50 an hour regardless of what it pays its remaining workers, and if anything those sorts of savings just go to show that even greater demands could be made on the chain. If automation means they need half as much labour as before, then they can pay twice the wages (or convert full-time staff into part-timers, but continue to pay them the full-time wage) without affecting the sale prices.
Radar19:
Fractured industry. You can have two companies next door to each other, one pays £10 an hour, the other pays £7. If I worked at the lot paying £10 I sure as hell wouldn’t want to strike and mess that up.
Basically this, ^
and who are these drivers on less than £10ph, reading posts about money on here it would seems most are on well over £40k pa take home
Im on 9.75 per hour. My colleagues are on less as they are on mon-fri. Sub £10 is the going rate for many companies around Pontefract way.
Reed Boardall pay trampers £9.50 and day men £10.50 at boroughbridge.
Radar19:
Fractured industry. You can have two companies next door to each other, one pays £10 an hour, the other pays £7. If I worked at the lot paying £10 I sure as hell wouldn’t want to strike and mess that up.
Basically this, ^
and who are these drivers on less than £10ph, reading posts about money on here it would seems most are on well over £40k pa take home
Im on 9.75 per hour. My colleagues are on less as they are on mon-fri. Sub £10 is the going rate for many companies around Pontefract way.
Reed Boardall pay trampers £9.50 and day men £10.50 at boroughbridge.
Day drivers more profitable for big companies.Truck can work in 2 shift.But when trampers sleep truck not earn nothing.
UKtramp:
I find it staggering that each time McDonalds or any other low paid job employees strike for a pay rise, that someone always shouts out why should they do this and we can’t. Then compares a lorry driver job to this, they are striking for their wages to be increased to £10 per hour not £15 per hour. If you are so cut up over someone asking for £10 per hour then your in the wrong job. We get the same response with train drivers, machine operators, in fact anyone who asks for more money. Stop comparing and go for one of these jobs if your on less. The job is what it is and is up to you as a driver to seek out the better paid work. It is out there and you really don’t need to complain about a McDonalds worker or anyone else who is in an unfortunate position. An easy solution is to stop taking these low paid driving jobs in the first place then you will have no need to compare yourself with someone else.
Thing is though many are deluded that they are on ‘‘good money’’.
They only look at the top and bottom lines and ignore the fact that they have to work a lot of excessive hours to earn their ‘‘good money’’ …aka blissful ignorance.
I hope they get what theyre after…im fed up of saying, or hearing: I can get more stacking shelves in tesco ..I know what im gonna be hearing from now.
“I’m happy with the job I’m in thank you I’m
Just making a point that people who just start out with no experience should not be forced into these low paid jobs if they don’t get lucky with a well paid job, this industry is vetted way too much and as it is that should reflect on the pay, if we as drivers don’t stick together for something we will always be pushed over that’s why the low wages!!”
No one is forcing anyone into a low paid job, many years ago, I worked for the prison service… whilst I was on training … being from a London jail, another trainee said why do they get 33k and we only get 18k it’s the same job… trainer said move to a London jail and you will get paid the same … same as the police force, working for the London lot I was on more than Essex … as said no one is forced to do a job… driving a truck is simple and not actually hard to do … low wages are because drivers accept it and do stupid hours … yes, I do stupid 14 hour shifts then back in after 6 hours kip. I chose my line of work … and love my job and am paid well … but if I returned to the UK I would only drive a truck if I were semi retired or didn’t Need money.
Rjan:
If automation means they need half as much labour as before, then they can pay twice the wages (or convert full-time staff into part-timers, but continue to pay them the full-time wage) without affecting the sale prices.
That wouldn’t be in McDonald’s interests. If they invested in automation only to double the wage of the remaining 50% of workers, they’d be no better off financially. That’s not how big business works.
It could be in the employer’s interests to do this: especially if there’s a local shortage of labour.
Ford automated its factory in Detroit in 1914, and put the wages up to 300% of what the other car manufacturers were paying.
They had to lock the factory gates and call the police to keep the workers from other factories away.
The huge reduction in the time taken to build a car that resulted from Ford’s installation of a moving production line with each worker doing the same task over and over again (Adam Smith previously postulated the same for pin-making) meant Ford could improve the worker’s wages and still reduce cost…also his action would force other car makers to increase wages and the creation of a large working class which could actually for the first time afford to buy cars would increase the size of the potential market.
All lessons which seem to have been forgotten as bosses seek to ‘take cost out of the business’ by reducing wages and off-shoring or automating.
We need a return to Wages Councils (as introduced by that well-known lefty Winston Churchill about 100 years ago) and a tax on robots, so employers who introduce them are forced to pay for the social consequences of their introduction, and a ban on the off-shoring of jobs.
Rjan:
If automation means they need half as much labour as before, then they can pay twice the wages (or convert full-time staff into part-timers, but continue to pay them the full-time wage) without affecting the sale prices.
That wouldn’t be in McDonald’s interests. If they invested in automation only to double the wage of the remaining 50% of workers, they’d be no better off financially. That’s not how big business works.
So now you’ve cottoned on to why strong unions and there to make it in the interests of big business to reduce hours and increase pay, or else face industrial action that will serious harm profits in a way that automation and pay increases will not harm profits but simply create steady economic progress and increase productivity.
After all, if automation is so cheap and easy (as the bosses keep warning us, lest we lose our jobs to robots for asking for a penny more in wages than the bosses choose to give us), then there isn’t any good reason why bosses cannot increase take-home pay at the same time as reducing hours.
The fact that the bosses would, if left to their own devices, choose simply to sack everyone and take all the productivity gains for themselves, doesn’t matter in the slightest if workers are not willing to let them do that, either through industrial action or through laws imposed at the ballot box.
