Comment on Restaurant in NYC offshores cashier job to Philippines so they can pay below minimum wage ($3/hr in Philippines)

• halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Also, y’all are thinking of what $3 buys in the US. The purchasing power is far different. $3 buys a lot over there.

  You misunderstand. We aren’t unaware or ignoring the purchasing power difference, that’s obvious, everyone knows currency differs. The issue is and always has been the outsourcing to increase profit in general, regardless of country or purchasing disparity. There is no reason to use a teleconferenced cashier for a retail location other than minimizing employee pay, not just by paying the minimum required here but literally taking a local job and shipping it overseas so you can instead pay what would be a clear poverty wage here, while undoubtedly having record profits like all these companies end up with.

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  • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    So, there actually is a reason to do this beyond pay, but clearly pay is the actual reason they do it.

    A restaurant has a set amount of staff. What happens if a few are sick and they have trouble finding someone to fill in?

    A remote agent like this could be from a larger organization being contracted out and you’d never have to worry about not having someone to be available.

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    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Or they just hire enough staff to run the business in the first place. Something that used to just be how you operated a business. If the business wants to gamble on regularly operating without enough employees to cover multiple sick calls then they need to deal with the results of that decision.

      Pull from other locations to cover, or God forbid, a manager actually covers a shift, or just close the location for a day if they cannot cover it. You know, what every business that operates with employees deals with.

      You’re making excuses and trying to find a justification for a fucking disgraceful, greedy choice by the owner of this business.

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      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        No I’m not, you’re just jumping to conclusions. I clearly said it’s obviously about the pay.

        The actual idea has potential merit like it or not. It doesn’t have to be scummy. It could be a US based corporation that pays US employees the same or more than what they’d get paid to be there in person.

        The employee as I said could be managing more than 1 store, thus be providing more valuable work, and thus earning even more than they’d be earning at the restaurant, or 711, or wherever.

        And they could be doing it from the comfort of their home making for a happier employee.

        It just turns out that the way this has been implemented has been terrible and exploitative.

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  • intensely_human@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    We aren’t unaware or ignoring the purchasing power difference, that’s obvious, everyone knows currency differs. The issue is and always has been the outsourcing to increase profit in general, regardless of country or purchasing disparity

    This makes it sound like your problem isn’t someone getting hurt; it’s someone doing well.

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  • aidan@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Everyone complains about small businesses being driven out, especially in NYC. Their two biggest costs are rent and labor, so of course they try to minimize both of them.

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    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You know what’s cheaper than hiring a cashier and teleconferencing them from the Philippines?

      The owner running the cash register. You know, like nearly every non-chain restaurant in the country.

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      • aidan@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Owner could be the chef, it you know, might not want to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week

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• Miaou@jlai.lu ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I mean, yeah probably. That’s not the point. The point is that it’s a race to the bottom for people living in higher cost-of-living places.

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• Zatore@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I really don’t care how much buying power they have over there. A fair days work here in the US should be paid in turn.

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  • intensely_human@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Well, if you’re gonna advocate for people, you should care what their experience is.

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    • explodicle@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      No, you can always advocate for someone to get paid more regardless of your knowledge of conversion rates.

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  • shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    And flood the islands with US currency? Seems that would lead to massive inflation and hurt the people not working “in” the US.

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    • Zatore@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      So what your saying is they should be paid less because their currency is trash? That’s a logical fallacy.

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• PunnyName@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Okay. Imagine the purchasing power of someone who made the NYC minimum wage of $16/hr.

  Maybe pay people for their time, not what the exchange rate “might” be.

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  • intensely_human@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    If I’m paying NYC minimum wages, I’m getting someone from NYC, in NYC.

    Sorry lady from the Phillipines. You’re out of a job because they put in this new “outsourcing must be at local wage rates” law.

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• Einridi@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Depends on the region, lowest is about 350 php or 6 usd per day. Most of the call centers are in the big cities however where wages are a bit higher and they well enough to be thought of as a decent job.

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