11 ms·
‘No Poach’ Deals for Fast-Food Workers Face Scrutiny
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoCompanies have way too much power these days. What kind of person comes up with this? How can you treat low wage employees like this? Have these people no couth?
- Gibbon1 8y agoMy Grandmother would mention what things were like in the 1920s and 1930's and none of this surprises me at all.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- berbec 8y agoAs bad as things are, we don't have employees working insane hours, in horrible conditions, for poverty wages and being rewarded by losing limbs now a days. OH wait.... [1] 1: https://www.propublica.org/article/trashed-inside-the-deadly-world-of-private-garbage-collection https://www.propublica.org/article/trashed-inside-the-deadly...
- awinder 8y agoAlso https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/08/exploitation-and-abuse-at-the-chicken-plant https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/08/exploitation-a...
- InclinedPlane 8y agohttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-03-23/inside-alabama-s-auto-jobs-boom-cheap-wages-little-training-crushed-limbs https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-03-23/inside-al...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jjeaff 8y agoThis is despicable. It's one thing for firms to do this for high paying white collar jobs (like the SV no poaching scandal), but to do this to people making poverty wages is just awful.
- blahblahblogger 8y agoIt's really odd too - what's the advantage? Not to be offensive but these people do low skilled work. You can onboard another employee relatively quickly. A part of me would think it's there to avoid turnover costs because I imagine these businesses have decent turnover given the low quality job and pay, why not bounce to a new job if this one sucks or is too stressful?
- dlp211 8y agoIt prevents wage competition.
- mabbo 8y agoThe unemployment rate is below 4%. I'm not saying you can't find someone, but the labor market is tightening and eventually gasp employees may demand more than minimum wage. By removing their ability to change jobs, you prevent them from even threatening to quit.
- Zanni 8y agoExcept they're not prevented from quitting. If they work at McDonald's, they can walk down the street to Burger King, just not another McDonald's location. To me that seems like enough freedom for employees that I'd want to see compelling evidence that being unable to switch to another location of the same fast food place (which would presumably offer identical wages) actually harms employees.
- bcassedy 8y agoThey don't offer identical wages. The McDonald's by my house offers $17/hr starting pay. The McDonald's by my work ~7 miles away offers $13/hr starting pay. That's about a 30% raise for an extra 15 minutes of commute each day.
- wmf 8y agoLegally, two different Arby's locations are independent competing companies, but in practice they act as extensions of the parent company. (Similar to the "independent contractor" nonsense going on in the "sharing economy".) So we're really talking about poaching within a company and there's pretty good precedent that companies are allowed to have these kinds of internal rules.
- wavefunction 8y agoAs you noted there is a legal slant to this and that's all that matters if we're hand-waving away ethics and morality.
- wmf 8y agoFrom an ethical perspective, the fact that all Arby's locations pay the same doesn't sound that outrageous, but I don't work in fast food so maybe it's really a tragedy.
- azernik 8y agoThe whole point is that they don't; that workers have been barred from seeking jobs that would pay better at another franchise.
- wmf 8y agoUnfortunately every company operates that way; once you accept a lowball offer (which you usually don't even know is low due to salary secrecy) you can never get out of the hole except by quitting.
- zacherates 8y ago... or getting a competing offer.
- wavefunction 8y agoWhat if one is closer to your residence? What if it is closer to your kid's school? What if you have an abusive or terrible boss at one? And nobody mentioned a tragedy but you.
- gok 8y ago> The restrictions, often referred to as no-poach clauses, do not stop workers from switching from, say, an Arby’s store to a Wendy’s, but can keep an employee of one Arby’s location from taking a job at another. That’s an interesting twist.
- donbright 8y agoespecially since alot of fast food spots are not owned by the fast food company, they are owned by the franchisee who in all senses of the word, except for meeting xyz standards of the brand, operates an independent business entity. next thing they will do is say that employees of one franchise of a conglomerate brand cannot leave and go work for another franchise of the same conglomerate brand (which happens to own 5 different brands, including ChickenLicious, BuildaBurger, SteakMachine, FreshCrunchy, and SugarCoffee)
- kevmo 8y agoThis sort of systematic wage suppression is why America is cruising towards socialism. You can crush the workers only so much, then they rebel.
- djrogers 8y agoNot surprised - poaching is a very slow way to cook compared to frying or griddling. Oh wait - not that?
- Eridrus 8y agoSo, these terms are horrible for low wage workers, but these are also bad for tech workers. Does anyone know any any groups in NY agitating to ban these terms for all workers? I would be quite interested in participating in such a group. Bonus points if anyone knows groups interested in restricting the rights employers have to IP employees create outside of work hours/scope.
- knuththetruth 8y agoI dunno about this specific issue, but the DSA are probably among the most active proponents for labor rights issues and could definitely connect you with other people working to combat this. I’d hit up the local chapter.
- fabianhjr 8y agoOnly one I can think of is NYC-DSA ( https://www.socialists.nyc/our-strategy/ https://www.socialists.nyc/our-strategy/ )
- iambateman 8y agoa question arose in a couple places about the difficulty of onboarding. I worked at a fast food restaurant for 4.5 years (roughly 3K hours) during high school and college. When I started, I was asked directly not to switch to another store without letting them know. It wasn’t a threat, just a courtesy. I believe the given reason had something to do with anti-poaching. Just a guess, but I could see a group of 6 people at one store saying “let’s go over to the other store” together. Losing one person isn’t a big deal, losing 6 people from a shift is an expensive pain. I doubt it happens often, but it doesn’t feel like a stretch to me. As far as onboarding goes, my job performance continued to improve for at least 2 years. They were getting one hell of a bargain at $8.80 back in 2007. When I started, it was mostly washing dishes. A few years in, our team could push 130 cars and $1,400 through our drive thru in an hour.
- s73v3r_ 8y agoYeah, but those 6 people from one shift aren't all going to up and jump ship at the same time for shits and giggles. If they're doing that, then it's because they're feeling mistreated.
- dev_dull 8y agowhen I worked in fast food, many employees already worked two jobs at two separate restaurants.