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Pizza Hut franchises in California lay off all delivery drivers ahead of $20 minimum wage increase
(www.sfchronicle.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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They could have just focused on providing a better delivery experience, instead they're going to let uber drivers deliver cold pizza with the wrong soda.
With higher delivery fees! Why on earth would anyone even order Pizza Hut after this? If I'm paying obscene delivery fees and jacked up menu prices through doordash or whoever anyway, I'm getting better food than that. Or just eating at home like I end up doing every time I look at the total from one of those services.
It doesn't even make sense as sure, Uber doesn't pay drivers much and Pizza Hut won't have to employ them, but customers will have to pay more. So Pizza Hut could have just said "due to increases in wages we have to implement a delivery fee", and actually paid their drivers. They'd rather do this dramatic 'omg we have to fire them' thing though.
Its a punitive measure. Our lords want to send the message that further wage legislation will not be tolerated.
I agree. It might make financial sense for them as far as reducing payroll and management costs, but it seems just as likely to reduce their sales by as much as that saves. To me it feels like a political statement "how dare you expect us to pay employees!" where they pretend it's not possible for them to make it work. Which is fine. If a business depends on paying subsistence slave wages, it should just close.
Oh no, whatever shall we do if they put themselves out of business?!
Boomers keep threatening the collapse of the fast food market, "no one wants to work anymore". Like they think anyone is going to miss the absolute shit that is fast food. Why are we supposed to care?
"In retaliation we shall destroy their Pizza Hut. Let us see how the uppity peasants like that!"
Not aboutdestroying, its about directing anger back to the working class. Its a look what you made me do for standing up for yourself.
Sucks to be them when they refuse to pay for any staffing and close.
You are vastly overestimating the brain dead American population that will see the higher price, order delivery anyway, and then stop thinking about it.
Like, they just don’t think about how it will affect their finances at all. People order takeout and delivery every day without a second thought.
To be clear I am not victim blaming the poor, but we are beyond late stage capitalism here. They won.
This is a defeatist take and while the answer isn't a super simple "just tell people to not order out and cook more" we can definitely do more to help people stop relying on eating out and fast food.
No. In the days you maybe added $3 to an order for delivery and added a tip. Now you pay a $5 delivery fee and tip plus 20%-30% markup. They cornered and ruined the market and only those with too much money will simply not care.
Except that's not what's happening at all. Go look at Just Eats stock price after aquiring grub hub for a few billion. Turns out, people actually do scoff at the delivery price of these services.
I've only ordered from the big ones to avoid fucky delivery services. It just eliminates the point of it.
More money than sense.
Businesses have long realized it's easier and cheaper to rip off a smaller group of wealthier customers.
After winning on Prop 22, Uber/Lyft guaranteed drivers $13/hr. I'm not sure where the likes of Uber Eats/Grubhub stand in comparison, but even if we assume they're also at $13/hr, that's a full 'federal minimum wage' less than the Pizza Hut drivers would need to be paid. For doing literally the same job but with way, way worse benefits (e.g., having to provide your own insurance).
It's actually insane. Prop 22 is a travesty.
$20/hr isn't even what I would consider a living wage in California, and Pizza Hut is here proudly admitting they were paying their drivers substantially less than that. But the deliveries will still happen, just to even worse-paid people. It's a crazy cycle of abuse of labor.
Seriously. I don’t see why companies that were already paying for delivery drivers (eg, the chain pizza companies) don’t sell their delivery services as a value add. When I order a pizza from DoorDash, it doesn’t come wrapped in an insulated carrier and so often arrives cold. I’m not sure what else they could throw in but they’re just tossing it (no pun intended).
I’m also curious as to the numbers on this. I don’t know if this was done after a full evaluation of raising delivery service fees or other ways of addressing it, but the fact that they’re doing it in all of California instead of keeping it in markets like SF or LA makes me think it was a petulant act rather than a rationally justified one.
Just as a clarification (not a defense) from someone that drives for DoorDash - every time the driver picks up a pizza order, they are required to provide photo proof that they own a pizza bag. I'm not saying this forces drivers to use them, but they have to upload different pics of their pizza bags sometimes with every pickup.
Edit: autocorrect
The reason you have to do this is because you drivers are notorious for having absolutely zero standards and a solid “idgaf” attitude.
Give them a low rating, then. Hardly anyone leaves ratings, and a 1 star could easily tank them below the 4.2 rating they need to avoid their account being deactivated. I've done over 600 runs and only 35 have left any kind of rating, for example. Super easy to tank the average.
Oh, I had no idea. Thank you for the clarification!
Right? Just charge me $5 for delivery and pay your drivers a decent wage.
This is so weird to me because pizza is one of the few things I actually order for delivery.. there isn’t much around here other than 3rd party services, which I don’t use because I’m rural and the way it works here is just gross. Had 6 come in for the same failed order while I was out on Tuesday (menu wasn’t open for that item but it was ordered through another platform, and 6 people came asking for it for the same order because of how the platform works). I can’t imagine actually working there.
But I suppose in more urban areas, pizza hut is competing with actually good food also on delivery (for a very steep markup people are apparently willing to pay or the services would die), so it’s no surprise they can’t compete on their own; and still also turn record profits. Heaven forbid they die in the region. 🙂
This is why I won’t order pizza from places that use a sub contracted delivery. It gets here like shite. No thanks.
It was not a good move on their part.
And they are going to charge for it. I hate pizza places that have done this. It's at LEAST $20-$30 more now to get delivery.
Yeah. It's pretty bad. It's the good pizza places that do that, too.
If it even comes at all. I had several just disappear driving all over town and never show. Last one I got a bag of soup. That’s the plastic bag, with spilled bowl of soup, leaking out of said bag. Never again
Right? It's pretty bad. A lot of the food drivers don't really speak English, either, so you're kind of fucked in some way each time you order.
(I don't mind immigrant uber drivers, but it's a pain when there are food issues and they can't understand you.)
Honestly, that's not much difference from how it's been
It has been getting worse.
Out of curiosity, did you send that message recently or a day or two ago? My inbox says it's been like 20m. Looking at the thread it says 2 days.
Definitely at least a day 🤔
I wonder if instances just take time to federate all content across to each other