Tag Archives: McDonalds

McDonald’s Fined 0.0002% of 2022 Profits for Child Labor Violations

“Less than $1,000 per child,” said one critic. “For one of the biggest franchises on Earth.”

By Julia Conley. Published 11-28-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: _skynet/flickr/CC

McDonald’s, one of the largest employers in the world, was fined just $26,000—a tiny fraction of its profits—on Monday for violating child labor laws in Pennsylvania, with two franchisees found to be violating numerous rules in five stores.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division found that Paul and Meghan Sweeney, owners of a company called Endor, which runs five McDonald’s locations, employed 34 children who were 14 and 15 years old.

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House Dems Urge Biden Administration to Rid Hyundai Supply Chain of Child Labor

The call from congressional lawmakers comes amid a surge in child labor violations—and as Republican state lawmakers seek to roll back over a century of child labor protections.

By Brett Wilkins.  Published 2-112023 by Common Dreams

Hyundai’s Montgomery, Alabama manufacturing plant—some of whose suppliers illegally employed children as young as 12 years old—is seen in this aerial photograph. (Photo: Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama/Facebook)

A group of 33 Democratic lawmakers on Friday implored the U.S. Labor Department “to take immediate action to rid Hyundai’s supply chain of child labor and hold those responsible to the fullest extent of the law” after a Reuters investigation revealed that dozens of kids as young as 12 years old—most of them Central American migrants—were working in Southeastern factories supplying the Korean auto giant.

Last July, Reuters began investigating allegations of children working on the factory floor at Hyundai subsidiary SMART Alabama LLC’s metal stamping plant in Luverne after a 13-year-old Guatemalan girl who worked there temporarily went missing. Reporters Joshua Schneyer, Mica Rosenberg, and Kristina Cooke reported that children, the youngest of whom were 12 years old, worked at the plant, which supplies parts for vehicles manufactured at Hyundai’s flagship U.S. factory in Montgomery. Continue reading

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After Amazon and Starbucks, what’s next for revamped US labor movement?

Workers across the country are beginning to reverse a 40-year decline of labor organising. But deeper problems remain

By Aaron White  Published 4-29-2022 by openDemocracy

Starbucks employees protesting outside the Magnolia Dr. location in Tallahassee, FL. Photo: Ethan B./Wikimedia Commons/CC

“Starbucks has this image of being a progressive company that takes care of its employees. But really that hasn’t been the case,” Will Westlake, a barista at a Starbucks in Buffalo, tells openDemocracy.

Will got a job at Starbucks nearly a year ago, and was one of nearly 50 people from the Buffalo New York region – as part of Starbucks Workers United – to sign a letter in August asking then-CEO Kevin Johnson to support a fair union election. Continue reading

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“Four Meals from Anarchy”: Rising Food Prices Could Spark Famine, War, and Revolution in 2022

The political consequences of hunger are profound and unpredictable but could be the spark that lights a powder keg of anger and resentment that would make the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests look tame by comparison.

By Alan Macleod.  Published 12-17-2021 by MintPress News


Soldiers from the 1177th Transportation Company support warehouse and distribution operations at the Atlanta Community Food Bank as a part of the Georgia National Guard COVID-19 response force, April 2020. Photo: Georgia National Guard/Wikimedia Commons/CC

Already dealing with the economic fallout from a protracted pandemic, the rapidly rising prices of food and other key commodities have many fearing that unprecedented political and social instability could be just around the corner next year.

With the clock ticking on student loan and rent debts, the price of a standard cart of food has jumped 6.4% in the past 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with the cost of eating out in a restaurant similarly spiking, by 5.8% since November 2020. Continue reading

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McDonald’s Workers Join ‘Striketober’ and Walk Out Over Sexual Harassment

One striker participated because “McDonald’s still refuses to take responsibility for the countless women and teenagers who face harassment on the job at its stores across the globe.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams.  Published 10-26-2021

Employees of a McDonald’s in North Charleston, South Carolina walked out with workers across the United States for a one-day strike on October 26, 2021. (Photo: NC Raise Up/Twitter)

Amid of wave of worker walkouts that supporters are collectively calling “Striketober,” McDonald’s employees in at least 12 U.S. cities took to the streets Tuesday to raise concerns about how the fast food giant has handled sexual harassment and to demand a union.

Though McDonald’s in April announced new sexual harassment training standards that all of its restaurants worldwide will be required to meet by January 2022, workers still joined the one-day walkout from Chicago and Detroit to Houston and Miami, charging that the company has not done enough to keep employees safe on the job. Continue reading

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As NLRB Delivers ‘Victory’ to McDonald’s, Docs Reveal Fast Food Giant’s Dirty Anti-Union Tactics

“The owner class will buy up every lever of power they can… But in the end we will win because together we are unstoppable.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 12-12-2019

Workers and allies demanding a $15 an hour wage stage a protest outside a McDonald’s restaurant. (Photo: Steve Rhodes/flickr/cc)

A lengthy Bloomberg article spotlighting President Donald Trump’s long affinity for McDonald’s—which preceded a major decision from a federal agency that involved the fast food giant—revealed Thursday morning that thousands of previously unreported company documents and internal emails expose how “corporate executives monitored developments as managers helped orchestrate a years-long anti-union response across the U.S.”

Bloomberg reviewed McDonald’s internal records and reported that the company’s “tactics, which were discussed by and, at times, coordinated by regional executives of the company, included gathering intelligence from a cashier who attended a union meeting as a mole, circulating names of suspected pro-union workers, and coaching a franchisee on how to avoid hiring union sympathizers.” Continue reading

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McDonald’s Settlement Could Open Door for Worker Wins Nationwide

“The courageous workers who brought this suit forced one of the world’s most powerful companies to take responsibility for the way it treats us.”

By Lauren McCauley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-31-2016

McDonald's workers strike for fair wages. (Photo: Steve Rhodes/cc/flickr)

McDonald’s workers strike for fair wages. (Photo: Steve Rhodes/cc/flickr)

Burger behemoth McDonald’s has reportedly reached a settlement with hundreds of franchise employees in California, which campaigners and attorneys are saying could be a precedent-setting development in the fight for fair wages.

In the settlement, revealed in a Friday filing in a U.S. district court in San Francisco, McDonald’s agreed to pay a total of $3.75 million in back pay and legal fees to roughly 800 employees of five restaurants owned by a single franchisee, Smith Family LP. Continue reading

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Demanding ‘What We Need to Survive,’ Workers to Descend on McDonald’s Shareholders Meeting

Fast food giant also faces renewed calls to ditch controversial ‘McTeacher’s Nights’

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 5-25-2016

Fight for $15 protesters outside a Chicago McDonald's in 2013. (Photo: Steve Rhodes/flickr/cc)

Fight for $15 protesters outside a Chicago McDonald’s in 2013. (Photo: Steve Rhodes/flickr/cc)

As McDonald’s prepares to hold its annual meting on Thursday, low wage workers—buoyed by successes from the “unstoppable” Fight for $15 movement—are gearing up to confront the burger giant and again demand a decent wage and union rights.

On Wednesday, in addition to a mid-day strike at the flagship Rock N Roll McDonald’s in Chicago, organizers say thousands of underpaid workers will stage a protest at the company’s headquarters just outside the city, in Oak Brook, Illinois. Continue reading

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This Legal Fight Could Lift Up Generations of Low-Wage Workers—And McDonald’s Is Not Happy

New York judge could determine whether fast-food giant can be held liable for any labor law violations by its franchisees

By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 3-10-2016

A fast-food worker strike last year in Minnesota. (Photo: Fibonacci Blue/flickr/cc)

A fast-food worker strike last year in Minnesota. (Photo: Fibonacci Blue/flickr/cc)

On the same day as Miami fast-food workers went on strike demanding higher wages and union rights, a trial began in New York that could have broad implications for the industry, pitting low-wage workers against burger giant McDonald’s.

The hearing before an administrative National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) judge maylast for weeks, according to the Washington Post.

It stands to “not only expose McDonald’s to massive liability, but also open the door for workers at McDonald’s franchises across the country to form a union that would negotiate directly with corporate headquarters, rather than each individual franchisee,” explained Post reporter Lydia DePillis. “And although the verdict will be specific to the Golden Arches, it likely will have a bearing on the rights of workers at thousands of other franchises as well.” Continue reading

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Striking Fear Into Corporate Hearts, Labor Board Hands Big Win to Workers

‘Employers will no longer be able to shift responsibility for their workers and hide behind loopholes to prevent workers from organizing,’ say Teamsters

By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-27-2015

Why is Thursday’s ruling bad news for McDonald’s? “If a fast-food brand or a hotel chain can be deemed a ‘joint employer’ along with the smaller company, it can be dragged into labor disputes and negotiations that it conveniently wouldn’t have to worry about otherwise,” one journalist explained. (Photo: Fibonacci Blue/flickr/cc)

In what is being described as “one of the biggest labor decisions of the Obama administration,” the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Thursday expanded its “joint-employer” standard, paving the way for unions to organize on a much broader scale—and striking fear into the hearts of corporations that have used previous labor laws to shift workplace responsibilities elsewhere.

While the ruling dealt specifically with a California waste-management company, observers said its implications could go much further. “McDonald’s, Burger King and every other company that relies on a franchise business model just suffered the legal setback they’ve been fearing for years,” wrote Huffington Post labor reporter Dave Jamieson on Thursday afternoon.

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