McDonalds has become synonymous with food thats terrible for you, low-wage jobs and overzealous marketing to children. Largely thats because of McDonalds scale; the company serves more customers each day than the entire population of Great Britain, and it hires some one million workers each year (reportedly one in eight Americans have been employed by McDonalds).
This is all to say that theres a lot to hate about McDonalds. As such, here is a not-comprehensive list of some of the more outrageous facts about McDonalds, past and present.
1. It wants employees to work Thanksgiving and Christmas without overtime pay.
McDonalds has a long history of terrible labor practices, but this is especially Scroogey: this holiday season the company urged franchisees to stay open on Thanksgiving and Christmas (McDonalds restaurants are usually closed on those holidays). Worse, employees who work those days dont get paid overtime. According to a company spokesperson, When our company-owned restaurants are open on the holidays, the staff voluntarily sign up to work. There is no regular overtime pay.
Mark E. Andersen at the Daily Kos crunched the numbers and figured out that McDonalds made about $36 million in extra sales by staying open this Thanksgiving. Andersen notes, It is bad enough that McDonalds pays crap wages but then they turn around and refuse to pay overtime for employees who volunteer to give up their holidays so that McDonalds can make several million dollars. Yup.
2. Workers dont get fair pay in general.
Not getting overtime pay on major holidays is bad, but unfair wages is a widespread problem for McDonalds workers year-round. As Sarah Jaffe wrote at the Atlantic recently, he term McJob has come to epitomize all that’s wrong with the low-wage service industry jobs that are a growing part of the U.S economy because no matter what your job might be, it’s assumed to be better than working in a fast-food restaurant. And of course, McDonalds is the biggest fast-food restaurant chain there is.
There have been many examinations of McDonalds pay structure, but this fact sums up the problem best: the average McDonalds employee would need to work one million hours or more than a century to make as much as the company’s CEO makes in one year ($8.75 million).
The good news is that fast-food workers, including a number of McDonalds employees, have been organizing for better treatment and fair wages in recent weeks.
3. Its marketing for kids is creepy and predatory.
Two years ago the watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest threatened to sue McDonalds over its creepy and predatory marketing practices aimed at children. In its letter of intent to the company, CSPI likened McDonalds to the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children and said the company uses unfair and deceptive marketing to lure small children into McDonalds.
McDonalds duplicitous approach to marketing directed to children can be seen in a recent press release that boasts that the companys Shrek-based promotion will encourage kids to Shrek Out their Happy Meals around the world with menu options like fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy and fruit juices. In reality, though, the whole point of the Shrek promotion is to get kids into McDonalds where they most likely will end up being served unhealthy default options and eating unhealthy meals.
That wasnt the first time McDonalds had come under fire for its use of Happy Meal toys to rope in children as customers, and given that the company is the number-one toy distributor in the world, it surely it wont be the last.
4. It has a salad with a higher calorie count than a burger and fries, and about the unhealthiest oatmeal on the planet.
McDonalds once introduced a Caesar salad that was more fattening than a hamburger — with fries. The Daily Mail reported that with dressing and croutons contains 425 calories and 21.4g of fat, compared with the 253 calories and 7.7g of fat in the standard burger. Whats more, Adding a portion of fries to your burger brings the calorie count to 459 — still less fatty than the salad at 16.7g. That is downright impressive.
More recently, McDonalds oatmeal — another purportedly healthy option on the Micky D menu — has been criticized for being anything but good for you. Mark Bittman wrote in the Times that the companys oatmeal is nothing but expensive junk food (you can make real, healthy oatmeal at home for very little money). He went on: A more accurate description than 100 percent natural whole-grain oats, plump raisins, sweet cranberries and crisp fresh apples would be oats, sugar, sweetened dried fruit, cream and 11 weird ingredients you would never keep in your kitchen.
5. Its burgers wont decompose.
Who can forget the time a woman let a McDonalds burger and fries sit out for six months, only to find they wouldnt decompose?
Heres the meal on day one:
And here it is one day 94:
In case you think this is just a myth, a researcher found that McDonalds burgers can rot under certain circumstances, but that in general they wont decompose on their own. The researcher found its likely that the burger doesn’t rot because it’s small size and relatively large surface area help it to lose moisture very fast. Without moisture, there’s no mold or bacterial growth.
Basically, the burger will turn into beef jerky before it can decompose. So it may not be a matter of nasty chemicals in the burger keeping it intact, but its still grody.
6. McDonalds used pink slime for years.
By now weve all seen, and been horrified by this image:
That is so-called pink slime, a substance derived from mechanically separated chicken parts that for years was used to make McDonalds chicken nuggets. At least, it was used in the U.S.; the substance has long been illegal for human consumption in the UK.
The good news is that, once this image started circulating, McDonalds was forced to discontinue use of pink slime. (The company claims public outcry had nothing to do with its decision.)
7. McDonalds is everywhere.
Try as you might, you cant escape McDonalds. In the continental U.S., the only place you can go to be more than 100 miles from a McDonalds restaurant is a desert on the Oregon/Nevada border.
( via alternet.org )