The Center for American Progress reports
In a ruling that raises the stakes for numerous fast food worker efforts, the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) top lawyer said on Tuesday that McDonald's Corp. is responsible for the actions of the owner-operator franchisees who run the vast majority of its stores.
The arrangements McDonald's makes with its franchisees have long been understood to insulate the corporation from worker lawsuits. Because the buck stopped with individual owner-managers rather than with at the company's Illinois headquarters, worker lawsuits and unionization efforts were limited in scope and unable to seek remedies from the company's $5.6 billion in annual corporate profits.
Workers have repeatedly challenged that interpretation of the franchisee relationships, most recently in a slew of class-action wage theft lawsuits this spring. Those cases centered on a computer system installed by McDonald's at franchisee stores that compares labor costs to money coming in in real-time, encouraging managers to fiddle with workers hours and timesheets as necessary to keep that expenses ratio as low as possible at all times.
The suits named both franchisees and McDonald's itself, and workers and attorneys were optimistic that the legal challenges would poke holes in the company's claims to legal indemnity. Tuesday's ruling did just that, though it stemmed from separate, older claims involving workers who had attempted to unionize and were fired in retaliation.
[...]
A man named Richard who has worked in the same Kansas City McDonald's for 18 years agreed that franchisees will be better able to care for employees' well-being if the corporation is held accountable for wages and working conditions. "Some may think that who my boss is is just a technicality, but it matters," Richard said on Tuesday's call, because in order to adhere to the rules of their franchising contracts "the only thing franchisees can skimp on is wages."
"They would pay more if they could, I'm sure of it," he said, "but they're hamstrung. This will help us hold McDonald's accountable for wage theft and other violations, and make it easier to form a union."
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04 2014, @03:34PM
To recoup any loses, I'm sure they'll just put more saw dust in the 'meat' and ice in the 'drinks'.
(Score: 1) by fadrian on Monday August 04 2014, @03:54PM
There's very little margin to be gained in "more ice in the drinks" because most of them are now served by the customers themselves at fountain dispensers found in most stores (and, here, I speak of US McDonalds stores). As for sawdust in the meat, I think they're at the lower end of meat content percentages allowed by the FDA already. OK, I kid, but basically, if you're going to McDonalds for any reason other than there's not a real alternative you have time or money for (or unless you have kids that won't set foot inside another restaurant), there's something wrong with your taste buds.
That is all.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 04 2014, @04:07PM
Not in the drivethru and I never fail to be unhappily surprised by the drinks at any fast food drivethru. If I'm eating unhealthy I'm eating the tasty unhealthy stuff, not McD, but they're all fundamentally the same with respect to drinks being a bucket of ice with a shotglass of soda "That'll be Pepsi, on the rocks, make it a double please".
My personal guess would be something like styrofoam in the fries. Or melamine plastic. Or quit faking ketchup and mustard and leave out what little spices they have and just pour raw high fructose corn syrup on. That's about 95% of what modern condiments are anyway. Too sickly sweet for me to eat anymore, just too gross.
Oh and the "bacon" (note the quotes). Sometimes you can't see thru the bacon, its so thick. Why it must be as thick as a sheet of paper, sometimes, accidentally. I suspect they'll find a way to fix that so it's completely translucent all the time.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday August 04 2014, @05:24PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Funny) by nukkel on Monday August 04 2014, @08:19PM
You might have been thinking of McDowell's :)
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday August 04 2014, @08:45PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday August 04 2014, @04:29PM
(or unless you have kids that won't set foot inside another restaurant)
If that is the case, you have even bigger problems.
(Score: 2) by fadrian on Monday August 04 2014, @08:45PM
True dat, but kids go through phases. And no parent is perfect and some evenings you just don't have the energy to listen to the whining from the kid. So you let the kid be happy... that night. Then it's back to normal. And, yes, thank you, both of them have turned out fine.
That is all.
(Score: 1) by hopdevil on Monday August 04 2014, @04:35PM
They don't put sawdust in the meat. Check your facts.
(Score: 4, Informative) by gman003 on Monday August 04 2014, @04:47PM
Check your ingredients list. For cellulose, specifically - that's a common meat filler that's basically a treated form of sawdust. Not dietarily harmful, but also indigestible.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Monday August 04 2014, @04:56PM
That would be fibre, no ? Surely McD customers need to get their fibre somewhere, and I don't think you even get a decent amount of cardboard packaging to eat these days...
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday August 04 2014, @07:55PM
That would explain why their burgers slide right out your ass. I always thought it was the copious amounts of grease, but who's counting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04 2014, @06:43PM
Like how water is basically a thicker form of air?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04 2014, @07:54PM
You actually drink liquid air?!? What is the temperature outside where you live, 70K? You might wish to move to warmer climes (like planet Earth).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 05 2014, @05:14PM
it is in fact ground up wood. sawdust. and it's in most of mcdonalds products.
or any large fast food chain. and most processed foods you buy.
actual sawdust.
Bon Appétit
(Score: 4, Interesting) by snick on Monday August 04 2014, @04:48PM
I'd be willing to bet that ice costs more by volume than the water, corn syrup and carmel color in your cup. Those ice machines use significant energy (and generate heat indoors, which has to be pumped out with more AC) and they break down fairly regularly.
The soda itself is probably the cheapest component of the soda you buy.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by gman003 on Monday August 04 2014, @07:09PM
Yep. Usually the most expensive part is the cup, followed by the ice, then the soda itself. Somehow, though, the mentality of "fill it with ice to save money" seems endemic among fast food workers. Combined with the need to shove products out the window as fast as possible, most just toss a large amount of ice in there then fill whatever's left with soda.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by turgid on Monday August 04 2014, @09:12PM
I've often wondered about heat pumps (fridges and freezers and the like). These days, would it not be economical to capture the waste heat by using it to feed-heat the hot water system i.e. to save energy on making the ot water needed for washing, and in winter, heating the building?
Just over three years ago, my parents built a new house for their retirement, and it has a heat pump for heating the house and a solar panel, for heating water, on the roof. The house is never cold, even in the depths of a Scottish winter. In fact, they have a wood-burning stove in the living room which they never use because the house is already warm enough, even in December, January and February.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Rune of Doom on Tuesday August 05 2014, @12:08AM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday August 04 2014, @03:52PM
"encouraging managers to fiddle with workers hours and timesheets"
See also, call centers, the few that are still in the USA.
(Score: 2) by nukkel on Monday August 04 2014, @08:21PM
n/t
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday August 04 2014, @09:59PM
It's fair that McDonalds be subject to the consequences of its actions, but there are two things I find disturbing.
First, that people need to rely on McJobs for employment, rather than as a means to get work experience as well as beer/movie/gas money while in HS or college, is sort of frightening. We have an economy that is ailing when otherwise able-bodied adults can find nothing more that fast food or Walmart work.
Secondly, this program that computes wage to revenue on a momentary basis all day, is .... I don't quite know how to formulate this yet. I've read (or more accurately listened to) a lot of Age of Sail stuff -- Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin and Horatio Hornblower. The way that the "lower classes" were treated is cringeworthy, especially in CS Forster's Hornblower books. Like idiot dogs. It was really only in 1900s that working conditions saw any real improvement, and those grudgingly granted, probably as a means of defusing some of the more radical ideas in the union movement early in the century. But today, I think we are seeing a return to this sort of treatment of wide swaths of the population who many deem to no longer deserve any dignity, because they are just low class scum afterall, like any street urchin in the early 1800s who deserved what he got for not getting out of the way if run down by a nobleman's horse. And it is programs like this, that treat people as machine parts to be inserted and removed as needed, that makes me think we are regressing.