McDonald's Controversy
Large corporations are never without controversy. Whether it involves a poorly thought out statement from a CEO, or a sexist ad, companies always have to respond to some offended customers. Being the largest fast food company in the world begs constant scrutiny by consumers; McDonald’s seems to be in the news every other week in regards to some sort of public outcry.
In the summer of 2013, McDonald’s sparked public outcry when they released a sample budget for employees to plan out their monthly expenses. It seems like the fast food company was trying to do something helpful for their employees, but they really showed a big disconnect between the entry-level workers and those that work for corporate McDonald’s. As the Forbes article points out, the budget seems to imply that no one can live on minimum wage, or whatever McDonald’s pays their workers.. The budget assumes a person working two jobs. Beyond that, many estimates, such as rent, are well below the national average. The company also writes in $20 in the health insurance line, which is less than a tenth of the national average. The Forbes article also noted that this budget does not include any day care, groceries, clothes, or gas money, which the average family spends nearly $250 a month on, allotted to the worker.
In response to this controversy, the CEO of McDonald’s Don Thompson claimed that his company has “always been an above-minimum wage employer” (Huffington Post). He said that McDonald’s helps people to gain wealth and income and eventually status in the company. They provide opportunity, the CEO said. His response was basically to just dismiss notions that McDonald’s does not under pay their employees, which is hard to actually determine. According to the Huffington Post article, analysts estimate that McDonald’s is actually dragging down the average $8.94 per hour wage of fast food workers in the U.S. It is hard to tell what they actually do pay because McDonald’s is typically not forthcoming in their numbers.
This controversy illustrates well the big gap between the company’s executives and its numerous lower-level employees. The people near the top are incredibly out of touch in regards to actually living on a budget, especially a tight one. When an employer assumes that their employee must have a second job to get by, they almost certainly are not paying very well.
The response by Don Thompson was not very satisfactory. All he did was to say that his workers are not exploited, but it is really hard to tell from a perspective outside of the company whether that is true or not based on the fact that McDonald’s “has never been transparent about its wages” (Huffington Post). It’s easy to say that you do not exploit your workers, but when a budget that your company made up assumes that the people working for you have two different jobs, and you don’t talk about how much you actually pay a cashier, it seems as though there is some cause to question the executives at McDonald’s.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2013/07/18/why-mcdonalds-employee-budget-has-everyone-up-in-arms/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/24/mcdonalds-minimum-wage_n_3644081.html