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

shouldn't the federal minimum wage apply to everyone who is doing work in the US? This seems like fraud

how would you distinguish this from regular outsourcing
- Outsourcing is the problem.
  The owners take advantage of our commons, tear up our roads, and succeeded because of domestic infrastructure, only to refuse to pay full price for labor and allowing even those wages, in lieu of the taxes they bribe our government to enact loopholes to dodge, to "trickle down" domestically as their always bullshit yay market capitalism talking points lied?
  It's absolutely clownshoes that outsourcing labor/manufacturing is allowed, not because of domestic shortages for a skill, but to explicitly pay pennies on the dollar for the employees you need and screw the country you don't want to pay taxes to despite record profits even harder.
  It's insane. But we let the owner class dictate whatever they want here, and our well bribed government will even sell it for them by calling it "something something freedom" while never mentioning social consequences, accountability, or responsibility. We aren't so much a country as a piggy bank and cudgel for the global owner class.
- That the neat thing, you don't.
  Here, for certain industries (might be all but I don't have first hand accounts of that), the contractors must make sure that the companies/freelancers they employ pay their taxes, otherwise, they are on the hook for it.
  Do the same. If a company outsource work, they should prove that they pay the same as they would in their region, and if it not, be hit hard by fines and/or jail time.
  But one can only dream I guess
- Should apply to that as well if they're interacting with the US market. All the way through subcontractors to the end employee. No hiding behind contracting local companies.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
This practice is rampant across industries and only getting worse. We must demand an end to it through legislation.
We may not agree with it, but this is exactly the same thing as an overseas call center. They're not physically located in the US and are not subject to any laws here.
They aren't doing work in the US though.
- That is naive. I hope you don't have any employees

I would just unplug the camera and computer. Every day. Even if I wasn't buying anything.

Fuck this business.

I'd presume they have a few cashiers from the Philippines but at least one person managing the store.

Boo for OP who didn't name and shame

https://nypost.com/2024/04/09/us-news/nyc-restaurants-use-zoom-cashiers-from-philippines/
adding that she splits tips with her manager and kitchen staff at the restaurant.
They don't even let her keep her entire tips. The whole situation is fucked. Somebody mentioned in the article also brought up a great point...
“Today, this is a Filipino woman behind a screen, controlling a POS system — but it’s not crazy to believe that probably in the next six to twelve months, this could be an AI avatar doing all the same things,” he said.
What a shitty future we have.
- From the article, Sansan Chicken, Sansan Ramen, and Yaso Kitchen, all in NY. (Since nobody has said it yet)
Zoom ID and pass are in the image tho 😄
Was about to say the same. Up vote instead.

this should be straight up illegal.

It's not only legal it's effectively encouraged. Capitalism is a race to the bottom, regardless of consequences.
- Resulted in community silence instead
People should just not go there. But it's america and they probably have 1dollar chicken nuggets or something.
- I would probably just turn around if I saw and understood what I was looking at. Definitely wouldn't go back a second time.
- They are not physically in the US, and probably work listed as some sort of overseas contractor. Whatever wages they earn are from their employer who contracts for the restaurant.
  That’s probably how it works.

Good thing they build a wall so these mean immigrants are not stealing jobs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure
Oops! All Plantations now!
Guess it wasn't much of a land for the free. Unless people start pushing back, I gotta question if it's the home of the brave, either.
Can't wait to hear how Trump says Philippines

This shit has got to be outlawed. Companies are doing this across the board. Literally skirting labor laws, outsourcing jobs that should be going to us citizens, all to just continue pouring more money into the tops pockets. When will we have all had enough?

Not with this fucking compromised supreme court. Nothing was capitalized on purpose.

I would not shop here. If I saw this, I would turn around and walk out. Go somewhere that they value work.

BuT nO oNe WaNtS tO wOrK aNyMoRe
- BuT nO oNe WaNtS tO wOrK aNyMoRe
  :D
  Obligatory -
Everyone in the US takes advantage of cheap overseas labor. It’s just usually not directly in your face.
- It's usually impossible not to, because we have no visibility into the supply chain or there's no other options. In this case, it's impossible to ignore.

This feels cyberpunk. Some netrunner will hack the system and give free meals away because fuck the corpos, right?

I don't think you need a netrunner to plug a mouse into the pc behind the monitor and hit "Leave" on the (I assume) Zoom call.
Even easier, unplug the ethernet cable.
- Whoa, slow down there, Einstein, I don't understand your hacker jargon!
- Or turn off the monitor and bounce lol. If you don't have employees to fix things, systems are hilariously easy to break.
Fuck corpo shit

Are there movements in the US or globally to force all business into worker coops? Unions are good but I think this is their ultimate limitation, that employers can just offshore their jobs

Argentina has somewhat of a history of workers seizing their factories. I think it would be extremely hard in the U.S. due to the well-funded police. Generally, I guess the movement would be "anarcho-syndicalism."
Edit: misremembered worker factory takeovers in the past as occurring in Venezuela instead of Argentina.
- They'll send in the national guard
- Thanks. I didn't know about Venezuela's history at all. But I meant not more on a policy level to mandate that all companies must be owned equally by employees instead of shareholders
- Got some sources on that? I was born and raised there and all I can find is the government seizing factories, not the workers
  Edit: some sources of my own
  https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/general-motors-says-venezuelan-officials-illegally-seize-plant-n748741
  https://www.lanacion.com.ar/el-mundo/las-expropiaciones-venezuela-ruta-directa-al-desastre-nid2376403/
Yes:
https://www.abolishhumanrentals.org
@aboringdystopia
- Thanks! First time hearing of this.

Having no actual person guarding your business is a recipe for theft. If this catches on it will be so much easier to steal from places. I'm ok with this

You shouldnt ever try to protect the cash register at your place of work. They give 0 fucks about you and will have a job posting up before your body is cold.
- I remember working in a store and a guy walked through the scanner at the door and it went off, the other employee looked at me and was like "that guy stole something, hey?" And I was just like "yep" and we went back to whatever we were doing lol
- Can confirm, if they give any appearance of being human, even for years on end, it's a lie, they are complete psychopaths and will throw you into the fire not even to save themselves, just to feel slightly less insecure.
- Retail jobs will tell you this too as they want as little liability as possible.
  Plus the registers only usually have a couple hundred bucks max at one time.
Having no actual person guarding your business is a recipe for theft.
From 1977 to 2021, in 2021 inflation-adjusted dollars, state and local government spending on police increased from $47 billion to $135 billion, an increase of 189 percent.
Privatize the profits, socialize the costs
- gestures broadly at the entire us pharmaceutical industry
The recommended course of action in a robbery is to follow instructions and hand over anything they ask for. If they grab product and walk out of the store, don't try to stop them. This is actually less of an insurance liability than having an actual person there.
- Yes but in general people are less likely to steal if there is a person standing in front of them watching. I'm not even talking about robbery just people stealing a candy bar or whatever. If it's just sitting out with no one around people will take it.
- Stealing and robbery are different
A 17 year old kid paid minimum wage who gives zero fucks about the company isn't a huge deterrent either. As long as you don't put them in risk steal from corpos all the time

Japanese Fried Chicken? JFC

Looks like this is "Japang". Terrible reviews online and described as actually a "ghost kitchen".

Ghost kitchens for those who don’t know are basically “restaurants” for online takeout orders. They don’t do in person service.
- It’s more they use spray existing kitchens to do so.
  The Denny’s around here is a ghost for like 3 different places

Unplug the display & camera, get meals for free?

... and walk into the back to make your own food?
I'd be tempted to do it just for the chaos factor.

Working as a graphic designer in the US since the early 2000's, every employer I ever worked for eventually used Fiverr to pay someone overseas a fraction of what they paid me to do the same work. This doesn't seem meaningfully different.

Not saying this is okay, just that it's not even remotely (no pun intended) a new problem.

The monthly subscription to the kiosk software still costs more I bet.
- Right, Corpomerica will corpomerica

Ah yes, it's the minorities who are stealing jobs. Not the lack of regulations blocking corpos from outsourcing work.

And black jobs, too!
/s
Shhhh don't say that part. We're supposed to hate each other.

I’m honestly surprised the corps haven’t done this to all of their drive-thrus.

I mean every time I go through a drive through I'm asked if I'm going to use the app to order by one person (or ai but I know about 20 years ago Wendy's tried to put all drive through orders through a remote facility too) and when I say Nope another person actually gets on and takes the order...so they are in many aspects. Hell you can't order in person from some of the rest stop fast food spots in Florida.
- No, that is just a pre-recorded message. I once went through a mcdonald's drive thru that had just closed. They asked me for my order and after I gave it, I realized no one was in the restaurant. I pulled around and they asked me again every time I stopped at the order point, but there was no cars in the lot.

Theyre stealing our jobs without even being here! /s

Maybe someone will catch on to who the actual enemy is here...
- Lol. Not the hicks. Theyll see foreigner and get pissy

What happens when you join the zoom id listed?

The host denies you access. I just tried, waited for 5 minutes before being denied access.

Ok what the actual fuck?

They call it free market

Okay but like... how are they gonna count out my change?

In Japan, you order from a vending machine, pay the machine, get a slip of paper, and hand it to the cook.
I think that system is fantastic.
- We have this in the US to. Even McDonalds does them!
For giving you change: https://www.yourposstuff.com/T-Flex-Coin-Dispenser-p/tflexsc.htm
For counting your change, probably something like this https://www.innovorder.com/en/automated-cash-recycling-system
- Ohh
  So that’s how it works - video was actually quite interesting.
In the Netherlands you have self checkout with cash. No cashier involved.
Cashless payment, or those machine that will count the money, sorta like vending machine.

I'm almost certain this has been tried before multiple times and always ended badly. I see no reason to think it would be different now.

This is going to be the response to "work from home"

Cashiers fought for WFH?
If you're talking about other sectors, it's been done before (off-shoring in the 2000s).

Is this real? Is there any proof of this actually being a thing?

So … they do ask for tips, right?

The tips go to the owner.

Not knowing the law in the US I guess it is fully legal. Given that there is no union or chain responsibility in the supply chain or similar to GDPR in EU you guys are fucked until someone abuse the system one way or another.

On the other hand it shows work from home is feasible even with these kind of things.

If my initial reaction is “that’s too bad”, does it make me greedy?

Like, I don’t think US workers are more deserving as human beings than anyone else… but a part of me knows hardcore globalization would hurt people geographically close to me… I’m like some national relativist or something?

I feel like I should want everyone to win regardless of where they were born. And $3/hr is huge vs. the $6/day min wage in parts of PH. Know friends’ friends are farming rice for six bucks a day.

the problem is it circumvents minimum wage laws. They're employing a person so they should be paying them the appropriate wages to do business in new york or the US. They're also benefitting from payroll/income taxes but not paying into the programs.
- Good point!
  Are call centers the same way? And any company relying on Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firms?
  Would be a lotta layoffs overseas if we restricted all foreign labor making less than local minimum wage. Is that a fair trade off? (Not being facetious, genuine question again)
  Oh one thing that’s kinda messed up is when tech companies go through consultancies to hire workers in India, the consulting companies take HALF!! Wild!
Everything in the US is already expensive, that "great wage going to a Filipino/a" is at the expense of a person in their own hometown not having a job.
Too bad? Put the shoe on your other foot. If we in the US ban imported rice to protect our farmers, would you and friends feel comfortable in that time things take to adjust? The loss of income?
How far does $6/day go in the Philippines? I can tell you how far it goes in NYC.
- I don’t know what to think because I want everyone to win, but it’s hard to deny I’m biased towards my countrymen here stateside.
  Re-reading my comment, did it sound like I meant:
  it’s too bad this job is being outsourced
  or
  psh, too bad, this is the reality of a global world!
  I did mean the first one.
  I should want everyone to win but I’m biased towards Americans in situations like this - and I don’t know if I can justify it, if I can universalize the maxim.
- Things in america should be more expensive. We do not pay for the full cost of what all of our goods and services cost, mainly due to exploitative measures like in this post.
  You can double down all you want but the real answer is that we just shouldn't be able to buy nearly as much stuff as we do. We love being consumers anf watching the trash heap grow, while we take advantage of anyone smaller than us in any remote corner of the Earth.
What you shluldve wanting is some Phillipino employer to pay the lady what shes worth, and the American business to hire an American

Jetsons predicted this

I have bad eye sight...I read the screen behind her as "Japanese fried children" suddenly I knew I had misread that. Like there's no way New York would stoop that low and be that cruel to children. I corrected myself before any other thought occurred actually. But it was momentarily disturbing.

This is a particularly suited post for this magazine and the image just completes it

Yeah, that's how labor exploitation works

I'm not a fan of this, it's definitely not great, but I've tested the AI drive through lanes, not the worst possible future.

Sure, it might be convenient, but our society is not structured in a way that allows this to work. We need deep, deep social support or people will suffer greatly
- I don't think anyone ever said anything about it being convenient. I'm pretty sure I specifically said it was bad just not as bad as it could be.

this is simply cool and good

If a remote worker can actually do the job at a high enough level, then the writing is on the wall.

Globalization will eventually take over those roles and laws that try to prop up a local worker will end up like Oregon's old law that says you can't pump your own gas.

The only way to 'win' is to equip the local guy with skills that absolutely cannot be done remotely, or educate him to do things at a level unmatched by the remote worker coming from another culture.