Pizza Hut franchises in California lay off all delivery drivers ahead of $20 minimum wage increase
Pizza Hut franchises in California lay off all delivery drivers ahead of $20 minimum wage increase
Pizza Hut franchises in California are laying off their staff delivery drivers in anticipation of a new state law raising the minimum wage.
The new law, a modified version of the FAST Act proposing a minimum wage increase for fast-food workers to $22 an hour this year, has faced resistance from major chains such as McDonald’s, Chipotle and Chick-fil-A. These chains said they plan to raise menu prices to offset higher operating costs.
Can't trim executive pay or profits. Must cut out services. All hail the mighty dollar.
Same reason my bank branch has tons of empty stations and only two tellers and a long line. Same reason they're closing the drive-through lanes where my mom banks in the midwest. Convenience for customers is now the enemy getting in the way of higher profits.
I recently introduced my partner to The Sopranos. It opens with Tony Soprano commenting that he feels like he got into the scene (the mob) at the end of its heyday. I feel that way about capitalism.
It would take a lot to convince me that they haven't been discussing this for years and have been waiting for the right time. The market is now loaded with others to do the delivery, which was probably one of the considerations. I'm sure another was how to announce it where they can blame someone else; at least to the point of ensuring some will defend them.
The minimum wage increase is their excuse. What they are doing is outsourcing their delivery to a 3rd party (GrubHub, Uber eats, etc). They wont have to pay them anything, the customer will. They are decreasing their head count, payroll, insurance, taxes, benefits, etc. They will lose some sales, but that wont even be close to their cost savings. They will easily make more money while selling their product at the same price. Any business would love to be in the same position.
Is no one else going to blame an overly specific minimum wage? I couldn’t find anything too specific but in California, it looks like:
- fast food minimum wage: $20/hr, going to $22
- gig drivers: $15/hr
Of course they’re going to outsource drivers, This looks like a nice Christmas gift to UberEats/DoirDash
Didn't Pizza Hut use to be a high quality sit-down restaurant that didn't even do delivery and had a big salad bar? At least, that's how I remembered it, because I don't think I've thought about Pizza Hut in years.
Also, it is worth noting that these are companies that franchises Pizza Hut, not Pizza Hut owner Yum Brands. This is more of a case of companies being horrible in general instead of a large company being horrible.
The 20 dollar minimum wage is however well deserved, and probably should be higher considering the cost of living here in California.
Damn for a company that's been shutting down locations I'd think it be cheaper to pay their employees better than lose all those customers. My state alone has seen them shut down nearly every location.
We repurchased 10 million shares totaling $1.2 billion at an average price per share of $119.
They are just greedy. They have the money, but giving the money to the rich is evidently more important.
The C-level staff are just going to use this to justify bonuses in the face of poor quality and faltering sales. They never pass up a scape goat. Bastards.
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Not to be too cynical, but like is Uber going to be delivering Pizza Hut? Are there 'gig economy' laws in place in California? How's that going to work? Are workers going to be forced into an even less regulated labour market?
Good, their pizza is shit anyway.
It's not delivery. It's Pizza Hut.
To be fair, it’s wild that anyone still employs full time delivery drivers. Every pizza place I’ve worked at either had an employee doing double duty, or used a third party that got paid per delivery. Paying someone an hourly wage to do a job that isn’t even guaranteed to be required (depending on the night) is some franchise-only shit, and I’m not surprised to hear even they’re moving away from it.
This is an outrage.
They will continue to not get my business. But now it's on moral grounds and not just because they have the shittiest pizza I've ever had the displeasure of eating.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Not a great move honestly.
In 1990 NYC they started dumping pizzas in the sewers and got a huge boost from the underground ninja scene. Maybe they’re betting on guerrilla marketing again instead of respecting their employees or developing a product worth leaving the home about.
@return2ozma Pizza Hut: Instead of worms in burgers (at 6x the price of ground beef), they must have worms in management's brains.
New name for them: Pissa Hut-the outhouse of a restaurant
How much business do they expect to get as a pizza delivery company without delivery drivers? I'll bet this goes really poorly, the franchise shuts down, and then the owner goes on Fox News talking about how "the new wages in Commiefornia forced me out of business!"
People are still under the illusion that businesses would eat the cost without layoffs or rising prices.
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I often forget Pizza Delivery services even exist simply because I transitioned over to carry-out to keep pizza affordable like a hundred years ago.
Pizza Hut is throwing away financial independence. Get locked into the one or two private delivery companies. End up like vendors on Amazon. Oh well.
Oh no! Whatever will these minimum wage employees do now that literally anywhere else will pay them more?
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Saw this coming from a mile off. It's just common sense. . employers won't have their bottom line cut that far. Force them to pay more and they'll look for other options. You have got things like grubhub. Pizza hut can fire their people and still sell just as many pizzas. This could literally translate into more profit if you think about it.