Chicken instead of cash. Sandwiches instead of money. That’s what a branch of the Chick-fil-A fast food restaurant promised to [cough] ‘pay’ their Drive Thru Express ‘volunteers’ in North Carolina. The suggested ‘wage’ was 5 entrees per shift (aka 1 hour) worked. And if you think this is absolutely ridiculous, dear Pandas, you’re not the only ones.
The internet has gone off the rails in denouncing the company for this approach, and we've collected the most powerful and viral responses to the whole chicken/labor/wage drama. The outrage was real and you can practically taste the tension in the air. Scroll down to see just what people said about Chick-fil-A’s 'interesting' approach to wages, and let us know what you think in the comments.
Now, we know what some of you are thinking: 5 sandwiches per hour theoretically doesn’t sound all that bad, considering their value. We’ve analyzed why chicken is actually really bad as a medium of exchange, and we'll get to that in just a bit. Are we gonna get all nerdy and take this quirky bit of news seriously? Darn right we are! Scroll down for Bored Panda’s interview with a finance expert about this. We also got in touch with Bona Bones, whose video on TikTok helped the story go viral.
Chick-fil-A was in the news recently, and not because of something good
Image credits: Mike Mozart (not the actual photo)
A social media post about wanting 'volunteers' at one of their drive thrus in exchange for chicken went viral for all the wrong reasons
Image credits: Jeph Foster
Unsurprisingly, the initiative got blasted. The restaurant got called out for the idea online
Image credits: Jeph Foster
A dash of irony...
Chick-fil-A’s controversial social media post asking for chicken-paid volunteers to man their drive thru has since been deleted. In all fairness, the suggestion was made by a single location and the idea (probably) doesn’t represent the company’s values as a whole. Whatever the case might be, the outrage was absolutely real, wherever you turned.
A representative for Chick-fil-A told The Washington Post that the Hendersonville store “decided to end this program.” They said: “Most restaurants are individually owned and operated, and it was a program at an individually owned restaurant. This was not endorsed by Chick-fil-A, Inc.”
Plenty of internet users were using the social media post as an example of how companies shouldn’t treat their employees and what not to do. If you needed more proof that we might be living in a dystopian clown world, this is it. Many internet users also used this as an excuse to criticize Chick-fil-A which is known for being family-owned and for adhering to ‘biblically-based’ principles.
Times are hard, inflation’s hitting consumers right in their wallets… and it’s making some companies think about cutting costs. CNN reports that even though workers’ salaries are growing, they’re being outpaced by inflation. After accounting for rising prices, wages and salaries declined by 3.5% over the past year.
In the United States, inflation is at its highest level in over 40 years, with prices having risen by 9.1%. And that’s just summing everything up. When you start looking at specific items, your jaw can really drop. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, gas is up 80% and eggs cost 51% more. Meanwhile, NPR points out that chicken prices across America had increased 16.4% by April, according to the Consumer Price Index.
TikToker Bona, who helped the Chick-fil-A story go viral online, told Bored Panda how she reacted when she first saw the company's social media post.
"My first reaction was, 'Wow these people don’t even have a grasp of federal labor laws.' I’m not exactly a legal expert, but I’ve spent enough time in workplace break rooms to know that for-profit companies are legally required to pay the federal minimum wage. It seems like they were either unaware of the laws or at worst blatantly ignoring them," she shared with us.
Most of the people who reacted to Bona's video disapproved of Chick-fil-A not paying people. "We’ve already seen the tangible effects of how social media can change things because they took the advertisement down and made a public apology," she pointed out that public outrage can lead to change.
As for how companies can support their employees in these economically trying times, Bona put it simply: "Pay a living wage. It’s pretty simple. If you can’t afford to pay a living wage then you can’t afford to run a business."
Image credits: bonadona
She made a video about it and it immediately went viral
Image credits: bona.bones
Image credits: bona.bones
Here is her video, in full
Bored Panda got in touch with a finance expert working at a major bank, to get his opinion on using chicken sandwiches as a way to reimburse workers for their labor. He preferred to stay anonymous due to the sensitive nature of his work, but was kind enough to share his expertise and explain why fiat really is better than food.
Fiat money, aka cash, is a government-issued currency that isn’t backed by some sort of physical commodity. There are no tangible assets, like gold or silver in the past, backing these currencies. Fiat’s what many of us have been using all of our lives.
According to the finance expert, paying someone in chicken “is not a good idea due to the so-called ‘double coincidence of wants,’” an economic phenomenon where two parties both have something the other wants, so they exchange them directly. It’s what bartering is all about. However, in the modern world, this is extremely impractical, which is why we use a monetary medium of exchange.
The expert told Bored Panda that reimbursing someone for their time with food is a bad idea, especially if they work more hours.
“Fiat, with all of its downsides, manages to solve the issues that come with the double coincidence of wants,” he explained.
“In this case, you would be stuck with a pile of sandwiches which you wouldn’t want to eat anymore,” the expert told us.
“You wouldn’t be able to find anyone who you could give the sandwiches to in exchange for something you would want,” he noted why paying someone with food doesn’t work well. After all, you won’t find (m)any landlords who would gladly expect cold, stale sandwiches for letting you rent your apartment. And good luck buying a new video game or a cup of coffee with chicken.
“And they [the sandwiches] are more perishable than fiat money,” he pointed out. The expert then joked that considering that the price of chicken rises along with inflation, it might not be such a bad idea to choose it over cash.
Some people argued that what the restaurant was doing was allegedly not illegal so it must be fine, but Bona provided the facts
Image credits: bona.bones
You can watch Bona's follow-up video right here
Here's how people, from well-known CEOs to regular internet users, reacted to Chick-fil-A's 'volunteer' program
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The backlash was immense on TikTok as well
The Chick-fil-A branch in Hendersonville swiftly put an end to the program. Here's their statement
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