Slashdot Mirror
Robot Worries Could Cause a 50,000-Worker Strike in Las Vegas (technologyreview.com)
Thousands of unionized hotel and casino workers in Las Vegas are ready to go on strike for the first time in more than three decades. From a report: Members of the Culinary Union, who work in many of the city's biggest casinos, have voted to approve a strike unless a deal is reached soon. Some background: On June 1, the contracts of 50,000 union workers expire, making them eligible to strike. Employees range from bartenders to guest room attendants. The last casino worker strike, in 1984, lasted 67 days and cost more than $1 million a day. Why? Higher wages, naturally. But the workers are also looking for better job security, especially from robots. "We support innovations that improve jobs, but we oppose automation when it only destroys jobs," says Geoconda Arguello-Kline, secretary-treasurer for the Culinary Union. "Our industry must innovate without losing the human touch."
So they're willing to go on strike to prevent their jobs from being taken by robots that can't go on strike? I can see no downside.
I fully support their right to strike since it is the only mechanism the 'common worker' has to defend themselves and ensure they get a reasonable slice of the pie. However, this is probably something that cannot be stopped.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Why go to Las Vegas to gamble, see half-dressed showgirls, etc. etc? Between the hundreds of casinos around the country and online gambling and sex, Las Vegas must be seeing a lot of competition.
They've got it exactly backwards. Replace the servers, not the chefs. We need to start putting a dent in the asinine tipping system, which is only getting worse over time.
I enjoy some repartee with my dealer, and to know when to walk away when they bring in a new (mean/Chiller) dealer.
It would probably cost less, because I tip my human dealers and waitresses, but certainly less "fun". with robots. If I want creepy animatronics, I can go to a Disney park,
I also wonder how a robodealer would figure out I was counting cards with multiple decks....
Are those the same people who used to be called hotel maids?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
rather than demand the continuation of exhausting and physically demanding work instead of automation you should be demanding the wealth generated by automation and civilization be evenly distributed.
Of course can't have that since it's the socialisms...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
not dealers. At a high volume bar you don't interact enough with the bartender for it to matter much. At the more expensive lower volume ones they're not going to replace the bartender because it's usually a pretty girl/hot guy for you to ogle and hit on.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
First question: can robots be called "scabs" ?
Second question: if we enact laws giving robots "human rights," as some, ahem, particular kinds of people suggest, now can they be called "scabs" ?
Personally, despite my strong support for unions, I can't support this action. If robots are acceptable to the casino customers and their TCO is less than for people, then the union should have no control over this decision. Unions should (hah) be concerned with job qualities such as safety, pay level, benefits; not with the existence of jobs.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
The simple fact is that they can either get on board with learning to work with automation OR they can eventually watch their jobs go away anyway when the jobs move to someplace with more pliable labor and better automation. It would not be hard for tourists to start going elsewhere if they don't like what they get. If you have a job that can be readily taken by automation then sooner or later it will be. Your only defense against this is to have a skill set that is difficult to automate. Pretending otherwise is like fooling yourself into thinking this internet thing is a fad.
Its as insane as hit men striking because they might be replaced by terminators some day.
It would probably cost less, because I tip my human dealers and waitresses, but certainly less "fun". with robots. If I want creepy animatronics, I can go to a Disney park,
That is a valid opinion but the question would be how many people share that opinion. Slot machines don't involve a person and they are hugely popular. I could see plenty of people wanting to play blackjack or poker and not caring at all if there is a human dealer. I know I wouldn't give a shit.
I also wonder how a robodealer would figure out I was counting cards with multiple decks....
The dealer probably doesn't most of the time unless you are being stupidly obvious about it. It's the eye in the sky that is watching for that.
Top reason to automate. That's why we need robots. Humans aren't meant to have service or manufacturing jobs. Universal Basic Income .. tax the robots and cut us a check.
Fortunately, all the striking workers can be easily replaced by robots, so it will cause no inconvenience to the companies involved! In short, when you realize that robots could do your job much better for a much lower price, you should probably shut up about it! As a consultant, I constantly bite my tongue to avoid pointing out to customers how stupid it is that they are paying me a lot of money for little benefit to their company.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
How's the blacksmith union doing these days?
Some of the laziest, most worthless people I've encountered in my career have been at trade shows in Vegas. They demand to be given work to set up the trade show, then bugger off on extended breaks to leave us to do the work anyway.
Go ahead and automate them all the way to unemployment.
Replacing human workers with robots will have a negative impact to local economies due to the lack of reinvestment from the workers spending their earnings.
My favorite strip club just isn't that same ever since they went completely automated...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
There's nothing sane about demanding companies begin evenly distributing wealth with you, just because they invested a portion of their profits in automation. Heck, in this case, none of that even happened yet. These workers are just realizing that the jobs they do could potentially be automated so they're trying to work a deal to ensure their employers don't take advantage of new technology as it becomes available to them.
Ironically, they're striking over this in the casinos of Vegas, of all places! Let's think about that for a minute. You're talking about an industry that's been centered around automation of much of its profit center since practically day 1. Slot machines are standard fare, and they've brought in things like video poker and video blackjack too. On top of that? These guys only let people play games that are rigged in the house's favor. If they even suspect you're using a skill like card counting ability to get an edge while playing, they ban you from the casino. But you expect them to invest in automation so they can equitably share the money made by it with you? Let me get my popcorn .....
they don't make a robotic digital pest that writes books no one reads, makes videos no one watches, and makes Slashdot posts no one notices! Creimer would have to go on strike!
But how could his employer tell? I though strikes were supposed to be bad for the employer...
Amazing what people will belive these days.
A kitchen is a much more well-defined and static environment than an open road. Much easier to automate.
Also the fact you called a commecial kitchen static shows how little you know. Theres literally movement everywhere in a decent sized kitchen with a good staff.
So they want the companies to spend money to keep an old profession alive which is not needed? that's like saying business should stop using advanced automation so we can keep people in a job... That's completely wrong... What should be done, is look to the near future how to handle the situation of a LOT of people having no jobs due to automation. It's happening, so we need to be prepared and look what we need to do to keep people happy, fed, clothed and housed..
So having a fleet of robots with 3 maids instead of having 20 maids and no robots seems like a good idea.
Yes it will displace some people, but that always happens when new technology comes along.
The service will go up, the prices will go down, the people will move on to better jobs with more skills, if not they will be out evolved.
The robot service industry will create new jobs.
Yes your 50,000 workforce will be reduced to 10,000, you can't stop technology and you can't fight corporate greed, but I view this as a good thing overall and a win for the customers.
It might not happen this year, but in 5 years it will.
Las Vegas is one of the few places in America where people with no college degree and little formal job training can make close to six figures without much difficulty. They should grateful. I hope these strikers get fired en masse.
enough to go to college, but they _are_ smart enough to hold a gun. For thousands of years demagogues have used desperation and fear to motivate and organize these people. Perhaps if you have the guts to brutally oppress and kill them you can keep them under control. Much like we keep the population of stray dogs under control. But I don't know a lot of folks who have what it takes to go that route or who would say it's the right thing to do.
If you abandon the working class they will turn on you out of desperation. And if you wait until they actually turn on you to oppress them it'll be too late. Now's the time to act. Either fix the world so it's a better place for everyone or hope you're gonna get to be one of the oppressors and get to work on justifications for the brutal things you're going to have to do to maintain your quality of life.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
More or less. I really used Vegas as a place to sleep and eat. Spent the majority of time in the state and national parks in the surrounding area. I did see a show and hit a few nice restaurants. Gambled exactly zero time. I'll take hiking and camping anyway over hanging out in the city.
I hate fat people.
robot work tax + lower full time with bigger OT (make it harder to just put people on salary) maybe even some kind of CEO pay cap.
If you don't stop replacing us with robots we won't work here anymore.
OK. Thanks for making the transition easy.
My post was sarcasm. The people in Vegas would not have jobs at all if it weren't for past productivity improvements. I understand that the migration to cities was not necessarily a happy move for all involved, but in retrospect it has been great for our society. Similarly, when steel plants automated and went from 70,000 workers to 700, it was a miserable time to be a steelworker. But we're not talking about forcing steel plants to go back to the old, labor intensive process. When some kind of a kitchen machine can replace a guy in the prep area, this is an improvement - not something to fear. It's not like we are banning automatic dishwashers or laundry machines.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Internet has live dealers!
Instead of striking they would be better taking there time to demonstrate to their employers why they are more valuable to them than a robot that canâ(TM)t strike.
Seriously, people wonder why they are being replaced by robots. When employees pull stunts like this it just accelerates the process.
> Robot Worries Could Cause a 50,000-Worker Strike in Las Vegas
I suppose the Robots should worry. There has been a large effort to discriminate against them by humans.
I do wonder how the robots will strike. Do all of the autonomous vehicles and drones in Vegas just stay parked for a day?
...50K people to go hunt down terrorists.
As mentioned, why aren't you agitating to get rid of vacuum cleaners and washing machines, so more hotel staff must be hired to carry rugs outside to hand beat, and smash rocks against clothes to clean them down by the river?
No, seriously.
No, really. Seriously.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
"Technology ALWAYS wins, workers ALWAYS lose." --CGP Grey from https://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU
Excellent satire and the funny mod points are well deserved. Underlying truth is that modern economics is incredibly stupid. Just a version of looking where the light is better when the wallet was dropped on the other side of town. The economists love money because it's easy to count.
We should switch to ekronomics, which puts the time (kronos) first. There are problems with counting time and with thinking properly about future times, but the time and how we spent it are much more important than how much money we died with. Another interesting aspect is that time is intrinsically much more equal than physical things. My 24-hour day is fundamentally similar to the day of any billionaire.
Pie in the sky. We're locked into the bribery-based corporate cancerism that killed off the last shreds of capitalism. Still seems insane to me that there is any poverty in a world where the overall average working time for essential production (such as food clothing and shelter) is around 10 hours per week, if only the working hours were distributed differently.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Staff? What staff?
1. Start taxing businesses based on their income, and tax the hell out of the bigger earners.
2. Use this tax money to establish a guaranteed basic income for the population.
3. Allow automation to do its thing, because the people will now have money to survive even if they are jobless.
Work isn't a virtue, that's just bullshit people make up to excuse why they toil and grind away while they'd rather be doing something else. Work is something that for thousands of years has been a necessity of survival because up until very recently, we were the only ones who could do the tasks required to build and maintain a society.
Mechanical autonomy and assistance has always been a staple of our species. We conceptualized the six simple machines because carrying things by hand would have been a pain in the ass without them. We invented phones because communicating with letters was a pain in the ass. We invented AI that makes phone calls for us because making phone calls is a pain in the ass. We invented 3D printed houses because construction is a pain in the ass. We invented CNC farming because farming is a pain in the ass.
We are human beings, the most innovative and lazy creatures ever known to exist, and our laziness serves as the greatest inspiration for our greatest innovations. We've always been fobbing tasks off on machines. When we can't do that, we try to fob those tasks off other living people. We used to do it with slavery, now we do it with wages, but it would be best if we could do it with machines that never sleep, never tire, never complain, never cry about perceived racism or sexism, never develop feelings of deceitfulness or vengeance or resentment. They just do their damn job while we deal with the rest of life's challenges.
Because chef-a isnt in chef-b's mind. If everyone were nodes in a graph orchestrated from the root down, then less energy would be needed
There are no examples because kitchen workers are a dime a dozen so automation isn't worth it. There's way more value tied up in solving the driving problem.
I don't know of any kitchen that's changing its layout every day like roads do with construction. You can build sensors right into the environment. Nothing needs to be moving in the kitchen but the robot.
I don't think you have a good grasp on the difficulties encountered by automobiles.
doesn't mean you should give up all hope. That's basically Conservatism in a nutshell: The idea that things can never get better so let's keep everything the same. It's that line of thought that got us 1200 years of dark ages.
I'm not saying we do knee jerk methods either. We use the scientific method. Hypothesis, Gather data, test, implement, more data gathering, adjust, adjust, adjust. And you live with the fact that you will _never_ have a perfect system or a body of philosophy that solves all problems.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/