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MGM Considers Replacing Workers With Robots In Its Las Vegas Strip Properties (vegasslotsonline.com)
MGM, one of the largest global casino companies in the world, is considering replacing some workers with robots. The company's 2020 plan calls for reducing its workforce by about 2,100 people to save roughly $300 million in the coming years. Vegas Slots Online reports: Among those who could be replaced are cashiers and bartenders. Automatic technology that can make drinks would replace the bartenders and monetary transactions could be done through standard payment technology. There would also be mobile payment processors going around the floor with the wait staff, eliminating the need for cashiers. There is no indication as to how many such jobs would be replaced at the MGM properties. The unions and workers will not be happy with this news. Jobs will be lost and it may also violate the labor agreement that MGM struck with the unions last summer. The Las Vegas Culinary Union (LVCU), which represents bartenders, kitchen staff, and wait staff, reached a five-year deal in June 2018 with the MGM. The agreement guarantees that MGM will not implement any technology that would have a negative impact on employment. However, the news that the MGM is considering replacing some workers with robots could mean that the company is not willing to fulfill this agreement. MGM CEO Jim Murren unveiled the new "MGM 2020" plan earlier this year, describing it as a "company-wide, business-optimization initiative aimed to leverage a more centralized organization to maximize profitability and, through key investments in technology, lay the groundwork for the company's digital transformation to drive revenue growth."
That's sort of the problem. 2100 jobs isn't much in the vast scheme of things. But every company on earth bigger than a mom & pop is trying to figure out how to do this. And it's not just automation. It's stuff like better tech (portable payment devices that are cheap enough and reliable enough so you can have the girls handling out drinks replace your cashiers).
It'll be the death of a thousand cuts. Eventually the job losses will put downward pressure on wages, then on sales, and then more layoffs and it'll spiral down. It's a classic race to the bottom. The only thing that can stop it is human reason and action from outside the system.
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municipalities should tax each robot at a rate commensurate with the wages they would have lost from employees living in the area.
Everyone with a dishwasher can pay taxes for the scullery maid they didn't hire.
We should also tax every phone with a keypad, since no switchboard operator is being paid.
Printed books should be taxed to make up for the unemployed scribes.
Or countries could actually tax businesses properly.
If Jim Murren is let go and replaced by a robot, that's another $14 million each year which can be saved, and that's in salary alone. Add in all the other perks he gets and that number could be near $20 million.
In one fell swoop, and additional 6.66% could be saved of the total amount. And it could be done immediately.
There is no meaningful way to define what a "robot" is, certainly not for purposes of replacing people. A self-checkout at the grocery store? A soda fountain at McDonald's? A big tractor on a farm that does what 120 peasants did at one time, or 30 sharecroppers with mules? Restricting it to anthropomorphic robots that correspond to 1 human would accomplish nothing, we keep imagining robots that way and they keep not being like that.