“We continue to believe that we pay fair and competitive wages,” stated Don Thompson, McDonald’s CEO, in an annual meeting with shareholders at corporate headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois on Thursday. While Thompson reported that shareholders received $4.9 billion in returns in 2013, over 2,000 low-wage McDonald’s workers protested outside for a $15 minimum wage and the right to unionize, resulting in over 100 arrests…. “We provide job opportunities and training for those entering the workforce,” Thompson added, bringing up McDonald’s Chief Operating Officer Tim Fenton as an example, who started as a crew member in 1973 and is planning to retire later this year.
“We continue to believe that we pay fair and competitive wages.” And I continue to believe in the Tooth Fairy. Unfortunately, the first point is patently untrue and the second doesn’t exist…not that facts or reality have ever stopped corporate America from justifying trampling on their workers. With their front-line workers, McDonald’s success wouldn’t have been possible…and yet the closer you get to the customer, the worse the pay rate.
“Fair and competitive wages?” In relation to what, most state prisons? I wonder how Thompson would be feeling if he was the one trying to survive and/or support a family on minimum wage? I don’t know what fantasy land he calls home, but anyone who’s ever tried to live on $8 or $9 an hour will tell you there’s almost no conceivable way to make ends meet. When the very people who make outsized CEO salaries like Thompson’s possible are paid starvation wages, what you have can only fairly be called exploitation. What is so wrong, so unAmerican about paying those who make your success possible a fair living wage? Despite what fast food companies would have us believe, paying workers a minimum of $15 an hour will not mean customers paying $19.95 for their Happy Meals. I’d hazard a guess that most McDonald’s customers would pay a few pennies more for their burger and fries if it means those behind the counter could make a living wage.
For Thompson to claim in all seriousness that McDonald’s pays “fair and competitive wages” is ludicrous (unless he considers the competition to be in Somalia). If your competition is the rest of the fast food industry- which pays every bit as poorly as McDonald’s- then Thompson is correct…except that he’s setting the bar way too low. Everyone else in the industry may be exploiting their front-line employees, but that’s a fact, not justification for continuing the practice.
Despite the pitiful justifications, it really is possible for a retailer to pay a living wage and keep a happy, stable, and productive work force. All one need do is to look at McDonald’s franchises in places like Denmark and Australia, where workers are paid a living wage (required by law) and customers don’t have to take out a loan to order a Big Mac. The self-interested belief that paying front-line workers more than minimum wage will cut into profits and reduce business is largely incorrect. There may well be an impact, but when you consider the benefits of a happier and more stable work force over the long term, it would seem a trade worth making.
There is nothing “fair” and/or “competitive” about paying workers $9 an hour or less. Unless you believe that putting up a website which advised employees to take a second job and turn off their heat in order to make ends meet is appropriate. Greed is neither fair nor competitive.
Americans deserve better.
