It's not like they can replace human personnel that easy. Ordering kiosks are the low-hanging fruit, and then comes a long, long stretch of nothing, because it turns out that developing McDonalds-compatible robots capable of preparing burgers and packing up meals is about as easy as developing actually-working autonomous vehicles. And about as expensive. It's probably easier to automate the managers away. Meaning the McDonald's of tomorrow will surely rely on a horde of human personnel for food preparation and related simple tasks for the foreseeable future.
But of course it's kind of convenient if people at least think that their job can be automated tomorrow: that makes it easier to make them sell their workforce for peanuts today. You just need to hope that they don't realize that it doesn't make a difference once the day comes on which they can be automated away - it won't matter then whether they get $9.50 or $15 an hour, the automation will be cheaper regardless. But by demanding $15 now they will at least have earned a lot more during the decades until that day finally arrives.
But of course it's kind of convenient if people at least think that their job can be automated tomorrow: that makes it easier to make them sell their workforce for peanuts today. You just need to hope that they don't realize that it doesn't make a difference once the day comes on which they can be automated away - it won't matter then whether they get $9.50 or $15 an hour, the automation will be cheaper regardless. But by demanding $15 now they will at least have earned a lot more during the decades until that day finally arrives.