THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD
(apologies to Keith Olbermann)
Don Thompson
McDonalds’ CEO Don Thompson believes that his company has “always been an above-minimum wage employer,” he told Bloomberg TV on Wednesday, despite evidence to the contrary. The fast food chain has come under fire recently after it released a “sample budget” for its employees that offers a cruel glimpse into the life of the average McDonalds employee: No money for heat, only $20 a month for health care, and rent that would only get someone a closet if they live in a big city. Plus the budget calls for a second job to make ends meet. When Bloomberg TV pointed to the outcry over the budget to highlight what some see as a need to raise the minimum wage, Thompson responded, “I think we have legislators and many people that will determine whether or not minimum wage should be raised. And every time, if minimum wage is raised we have always been an above-minimum wage employer, and we’ve always provided opportunity.”
It takes a malleable conscience (or a sociopath) to be able to lie so blithely and with such alacrity and skill, but that’s exactly what Don Thompson managed to pull off. I suppose when your frame of reference is your country club, there’s no reason you could be expected to have any empathy for the poorly-paid peons responsible for your perch at the top of the economic food chain. When you can cling to the belief that something is true simply because you say it is, despite the fact that it can be easily disproven…well, that’s some kind of industrial grade dishonest, knowhutimean? And isn’t that sort of tenuous relationship with the truth bordering on the sociopathic?
The are numerous reasons not to patronize McDonalds. At the top of the list, of course, is that their food is crap- unhealthy, addictive, and without soul or character. A close second is that the company pays its front line employees so poorly that the sample budget McDonalds prepared for employees presumes a second job. When you pay employees so poorly that you assume they’ll need a second job to survive…well, if that isn’t the very definition of exploitation, I can’t imagine what would be.
It takes some cojones to claim with a straight face that McDonalds is “an above-minimum wage employer,” especially when it doesn’t take a Ph.D. to disprove that epic prevarication. I’m sure that Thompson’s convinced himself that his company is just this side of Mother Teresa when it comes to providing fair wages and opportunity for his front line employees. I’d suggest that if Thompson is so convinced that the wages the compnay pays is fair, he should try to live off $7.75 an hour. No doubt Thompson would find that it’s much easier when you’re on the outside looking in than it is to try to surviving on what isn’t even a living wage.
McDonalds is a fabulously profitable company…and one of the biggest reasons for that profitability is that it pays front line employees, those most responsible for that success, something less than a living wage. If you enjoy your unhealthy fast food with a side of exploitation, then by all means belly up to the counter and order that Big Mac. You might also trying to avoid thinking about the reality that the person taking your order behind the counter can’t make ends meet because he or she’s making minimum wage.
Wouldja like fries with that??
