New San Francisco billboard warns workers they'll be replaced by iPads if they demand a fair wage

Walking home from Pando's office a few nights ago, I noticed this giant new billboard...

Its message -- that minimum wage increases will lead to service workers being replaced by apps -- is continued on an accompanying website -- BadIdeaCA -- which claims to be "holding activists accountable for minimum wage consequences."

So who the hell pays for billboards threatening waitstaff with redundancy if they demand a living wage? A bit of digging and clicking reveals that the campaign is backed by Employment Policies Institute, the conservative lobbying group which regularly campaigns on behalf of the restaurant industry.

Followers of Pando's Techtopus coverage might remember the Institute for one of its key advisers, Kevin Murphy, aka "the man Silicon Valley’s CEOs turn to when they want to justify screwing workers". As Mark Ames explained back in February...

[W]hen the heads of companies like Apple, Adobe, Google, Intel, Intuit, Microsoft and others, are called upon to explain why it’s okay to screw over employees—or their consumers—they know exactly who to call...

...Murphy has a long history of trying to convince courts that workers are not being screwed and that dominant monopoly corporations are good citizens, despite evidence to the contrary. It's somehow grossly fitting that a group which argues for screwing service staff -- and which is advised by a guy who tells companies like Apple that it's ok to screw their workers -- is now posting ads in San Francisco saying that service staff deserve to be replaced by iPads if they demand a fair wage.

UPDATE: Meet the asshole behind San Francisco’s most assholeish billboard

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