McDonald’s Is Making 10-Year-Olds Work Until After Midnight, See The Video
McDonald's franchises in Kentucky were caught breaking child labor laws.
McDonald’s corporation is under fire after a Labor Department investigation revealed that 300 children were illegally working at various restaurant locations. Two of these children were 10-year-olds at a Louisville location that were receiving little to no pay and working until as late as two in the morning. Check out the YouTube clip of the news below:
Along with the Louisville location, two other McDonald’s franchisees were fined $212,000 for child labor violations. Louisville’s Bauer Food LLC operates 10 locations of the restaurant and had 24 minors in its employment under the age of 16 working more than the hours allowed. The ten-year-olds were also under the minimum age of employment and performing tasks, such as operating the deep fryer and the drive-thru, that are not permitted for children under the age of 16.
McDonald’s franchisees must adhere to the federal child labor regulations, which put specific and strict limits on the types of jobs children can do and the hours they are allowed to do them. The Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division also found that Walton-based Archways Richwood LLC and Louisville-based Bell Restaurant Group I LLC were also allowing minors aged 14 and 15 to work beyond the hour limit. For its part, the McDonald’s corporation condemned these franchise locations in a statement.
AP News reported on McDonald’s USA senior vice president and chief people officer Tiffanie Boyd’s statement that said: “These reports are unacceptable, deeply troubling, and run afoul of the high expectations we have for the entire McDonald’s brand.” Franchise owner-operator Sean Bauer, who owns Louisville’s Bauer Food LLC, said the 10-year-olds were visiting their parents and weren’t employees, adding that they would revisit the child visitation policy with the employees at that location. If there were any further comments about the other locations going over the allotted hours, they were not included in the report.
McDonald’s also recently reported that it’s seeing resistance from customers against raising menu prices, with customers not buying as many items for every transaction. Despite the labor troubles and the pushback, the fast-food giant still saw its first-quarter earnings and revenue outperforming Wall Street estimates. Also, this is the third quarter in a row that the restaurant corporation has seen US traffic increase.
McDonald’s saw all three of its divisions — USA, internationally operated markets, and internationally developed licensed markets — see same-store sales growth of 12.6 percent. However, the fast food company remains wary of future estimates, predicting a possible recession could lead to a less impressive second quarter. Combined with the aforementioned price resistance, economical and recessionary factors could mean a more conservative estimate might be prudent.
Last week, McDonald’s even saw its stock prices hit a new 52-week high, and other fast food giants like Starbucks and Chipotle also seem to be bucking any macroeconomic factors for their earnings calls. It remains to be seen if the golden arches end up having some trouble in the future, but addressing these multi-state child labor violations should probably be at the top of their priorities first. Regulatory violations are a bad look for any corporation, but it’s a much worse look when those violations affect children.
