McDonald’s Workers in Three States File Suits Claiming Underpayment

[Bronzeage]

Yeah. The reality is that failing businesses are prone to dirty deeds. Just because it's McDonald's doesn't mean a franchisee isn't in trouble. There's no reason to blame corporate other than deep pockets.

And unless their uniforms require something out of the ordinary in cleaning how is laundering them any more work than laundering whatever you would have worn if there was no uniform requirement?

- - - Updated - - -



Such dirty deeds usually mean a business in trouble. Suing them would likely produce little.

I wore an employer provided uniform for many years. Five clean shirts and pants, every week cost me $7. At the time, it was a very good deal. In the days before the Reagan tax cut, I could deduct the seven dollars. It was a great deal for me, but I was one of the highest paid people(non-management) in the company. The minimum wage plus 25 cents worker who swept up after me paid the same $7.

The laundry is the least of McDonalds problems with this lawsuit. Labor laws vary from state to state, but one thing is pretty consistent, when a violation is found, an audit will be made, going back at least 3 years. Everyone who was shorted on pay will be cut a check.

It will come down to the wording of state laws. In the restaurant business, a "split shift" is very common. Kitchen staff work 4 hours in the morning, for the lunch crowd, then return around 5 pm for the dinner crowd. It amounts to a 12 to 18 hour day, but only pays 8 hours.

I don't think there are many failing McDonalds franchises. McDonalds accounting and procedures is one of the most regimented in the restaurant industry. If a franchise were in a financial trouble, it would be recognized before it became a crisis. The real issue here is a restaurant trying to keep the payroll within the parameters set by management. Part of the regimentation is keeping payroll within a very narrow window, based on its percentage of the weekly receipts. The manager who over staffs is in trouble. All of this comes from the top franchise management, but it is taught and preached by McDonalds corporation.

 

[The Paul]

I don't think there are many failing McDonalds franchises. McDonalds accounting and procedures is one of the most regimented in the restaurant industry. If a franchise were in a financial trouble, it would be recognized before it became a crisis. The real issue here is a restaurant trying to keep the payroll within the parameters set by management. Part of the regimentation is keeping payroll within a very narrow window, based on its percentage of the weekly receipts. The manager who over staffs is in trouble. All of this comes from the top franchise management, but it is taught and preached by McDonalds corporation.

Probably true. Of course, the top of the chain will never have explicitly said anything like "erase hours and refuse to pay legally mandated overtime bonuses." They'll have put policies in place that strongly encourage low-level managers to do that, maybe even policies that mean low-level managers who fail to do that are going to get fired for poor performance, but they never actually told anyone to do it. They can just make a scapegoat of anyone who gets caught at it, then carry on encouraging the exact same behavior.

A lot of electronics stores have an accessories quota sales people have to make. If you sell something significant like a laptop or desktop computer you have to sell an average of say... $200 dollars of accessories and crap the customer doesn't want along with it. Service plans, overpriced and ineffective anti-viruses or internet security packages, things like that. And if you don't you get replaced with someone who does.

So a couple of years ago Staples gets exposed for running ads with great prices on computers that they won't actually sell you when you show up to buy it, and it turns out what's going on is if the sales rep can't convince you that you need a bunch of crap to go along with it, he lies and says they're out of stock. He doesn't sell a sans-accessories computer, and his numbers stay good enough that he keeps his job.

Now of course Staples corporate was shocked and appalled, they would never endorse that kind of behavior. They dropped the hammer on a few scapegoats to show how that sort of dishonesty will never be tolerated and left in place the policies that ensured it would continue.

I imagine this will play out similarly.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

The problem with working enough hours is that the rules about benefits mean employers tend to keep workers on part time status.

and you are ok with this?

 

[Bronzeage]

Probably true. Of course, the top of the chain will never have explicitly said anything like "erase hours and refuse to pay legally mandated overtime bonuses." They'll have put policies in place that strongly encourage low-level managers to do that, maybe even policies that mean low-level managers who fail to do that are going to get fired for poor performance, but they never actually told anyone to do it. They can just make a scapegoat of anyone who gets caught at it, then carry on encouraging the exact same behavior.

A lot of electronics stores have an accessories quota sales people have to make. If you sell something significant like a laptop or desktop computer you have to sell an average of say... $200 dollars of accessories and crap the customer doesn't want along with it. Service plans, overpriced and ineffective anti-viruses or internet security packages, things like that. And if you don't you get replaced with someone who does.

So a couple of years ago Staples gets exposed for running ads with great prices on computers that they won't actually sell you when you show up to buy it, and it turns out what's going on is if the sales rep can't convince you that you need a bunch of crap to go along with it, he lies and says they're out of stock. He doesn't sell a sans-accessories computer, and his numbers stay good enough that he keeps his job.

Now of course Staples corporate was shocked and appalled, they would never endorse that kind of behavior. They dropped the hammer on a few scapegoats to show how that sort of dishonesty will never be tolerated and left in place the policies that ensured it would continue.

I imagine this will play out similarly.

The pay plan is the incentive to work, whether it is minimum wage or a lucrative commission deal. I worked on commission most of my life and quickly learned how to maximize my pay for the minimum effort. If Staples were open and above board(ads which said, "Limited quantities available"), the results would be the same, as long as the pay plan was the same. I bought four computers last year from a Staples competitor. The great deal advertised sale price was out of stock. That was no problem for me. The computers were delivered four days later.
Actually, I wish the irritating little prick who wrote up the deal had tried to sell me a Windows7 OP instead of Windows 8.

 

[The Paul]

The pay plan is the incentive to work, whether it is minimum wage or a lucrative commission deal. I worked on commission most of my life and quickly learned how to maximize my pay for the minimum effort. If Staples were open and above board(ads which said, "Limited quantities available"), the results would be the same, as long as the pay plan was the same. I bought four computers last year from a Staples competitor. The great deal advertised sale price was out of stock. That was no problem for me. The computers were delivered four days later.
Actually, I wish the irritating little prick who wrote up the deal had tried to sell me a Windows7 OP instead of Windows 8.

Well, in this case it wasn't so much an incentive to work as it was the opposite of that. Ostensibly the job was to sell in-stock electronics to customers who wanted to buy them, and the environment and sales pressure had the effect of strongly discouraging sales reps from doing that.

Anyway, I've never worked for actual commission, so I could be way off the mark here, but if you've spent most of your life working for commission I think you might have the wrong idea of what the experience is like for a ground-level sales-rep at a place like Staples. Most of those people aren't actually earning a commission. Their numbers are meticulously tracked and regularly reviewed and they get canned if they don't add up well-enough, but there's seldom-to-never a commission involved. For a lot of them the closest thing they'll ever see to a commission is something like your name gets entered in a draw once for every service plan you sell.

Having some small amount of experience with the amount of pressure an employer can put on sales staff without ever adding a commission to the mix, I've always found the boast of "...our non-commission sales staff..." to be exceptionally meaningless.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

and you are ok with this?

No, but it's not something that can be addressed with minimum wage laws.

 

[funinspace]

It wouldn't be a big deal if they weren't being paid poverty wages. Maybe things were different back when you worked for fast food restaurants, but the economics of things are a lot different today; their wages have not kept up with the cost of living by a very wide margin.

LOL…I broke the 50 year mark a while back and I don’t remember fast food jobs ever providing a living wage. Back in the early-mid 1980’s they were the shitty bottom end jobs that were chock full of teenagers earning MW or just barely above it. And that is just about exactly where the current MW is in today’s dollars. As a teenager, I did yard work and pet care, but wouldn't take less than $3.50/hr, and avoided the fast food work. My girlfriend during college, of MW being at $3.25 (I think), was pulling in $7-10/hr as a sales clerk in a retail dept. store. I had a summer job during college at a low volume electronics assembly company as a temp making a base rate of $8/hr. The regulars were mostly Asian immigrants, and earned $10-$14/hr from what I heard. Yes, the economic world is different today, but one won’t find that difference within fast food…

 

[Bronzeage]

Well, in this case it wasn't so much an incentive to work as it was the opposite of that. Ostensibly the job was to sell in-stock electronics to customers who wanted to buy them, and the environment and sales pressure had the effect of strongly discouraging sales reps from doing that.

Anyway, I've never worked for actual commission, so I could be way off the mark here, but if you've spent most of your life working for commission I think you might have the wrong idea of what the experience is like for a ground-level sales-rep at a place like Staples. Most of those people aren't actually earning a commission. Their numbers are meticulously tracked and regularly reviewed and they get canned if they don't add up well-enough, but there's seldom-to-never a commission involved. For a lot of them the closest thing they'll ever see to a commission is something like your name gets entered in a draw once for every service plan you sell.

Having some small amount of experience with the amount of pressure an employer can put on sales staff without ever adding a commission to the mix, I've always found the boast of "...our non-commission sales staff..." to be exceptionally meaningless.

There is an immutable law of economics which states, "The more complicated the pay plan, the less the pay." What I mean by, "The pay plan is the incentive to work," is that you get what you pay for. A pay plan in which the incentive pay is linked to a far off evaluation and a dubious shot at a small bonus would have to have and above average hourly wage. Otherwise, the only incentive is "do your job or get fired." A person can get that deal anywhere.