McDonald's has been hit by a wave of protests by its workers, who are demanding the fast food giant pays higher wages.
Disenchanted franchisees and disgruntled workers staged a global "day of action", with demonstrations and walkouts in more than 230 McDonald’s locations, including the US, Britain, France and New Zealand.
It came despite McDonald's new chief executive Steve Easterbrook, originally from Watford, hiking pay for 90,000 of its restaurant workers at the start of this month, taking their hourly wage from $9.10 to $9.90 (£6.70).
But rather than quell revolt the pay rise seems to have fuelled one – it is a long way short of the $15 an hour many have been calling for and actually ignores the wage demands of 750,000 staff in the US.
In London, protesters outside McDonald's Trafalgar Square site called for an hourly rate of £10 and held placards saying "Scrap zero hours" - the controversial contracts that have been criticised for creating insecurity for workers.
The unrest adds to long list of problems plaguing McDonald's, including increasingly intense competition and shareholder unease.
Appeasing workers may prove one of the hardest problems to solve however, because hardly anyone who works in a McDonald’s restaurant actually works for McDonald’s.
The 750,000 who will not get a pay rise work for franchisees, who own and operate their restaurants separately from the corporation.
The franchisees pay a lot of money to build and own a McDonald’s. Just getting started in the US can range in cost from just under $1m to approximately $2.3m, of which 40% must not be borrowings.
However, claims that higher wages will kill franchises are increasingly falling on deaf ears as competitors such as Shake Shack and Chipotle Mexican Grill pay higher wages while growing significantly faster.
One of the key elements of the franchise industry has also been that staff hired by the franchisee do not work for the corporate franchiser. But a landmark March 30 decision by the US National Labor Relations Board may change that.
It decided that McDonald’s is a “joint employer”, at least partly responsible for pay and conditions at franchisee restaurants as well as its traditional role in marketing and menu decisions. That could change the entire franchise industry.
