The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: mcdonalds
America’s Second-Largest School District Says No To McDonald’s McTeacher’s Nights

America’s Second-Largest School District Says No To McDonald’s McTeacher’s Nights

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

In a victory for public health, the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest school district in the country, adopted a resolution to end McDonald’s McTeacher’s Nights this April.

The resolution comes as millions of parents, educators and health professionals call on junk food corporations to stop kid-targeted marketing. To date, United Teachers Los Angeles, the National Education Association and more than 50 state and local teachers unions, representing more than 3 million educators nationwide, have demanded junk food corporations stop marketing to children in schools.

McTeacher’s Nights are events at which McDonald’s invites teachers to “work” behind a McDonald’s counter and serve McDonald’s burgers, fries, and soda to students, students’ families, and other people eating at the restaurant. McDonald’s, in return, donates a small percentage of the night’s proceeds to the school—often amounting to only $1-2 per student.

While McDonald’s enjoys free labor and the kind of marketing money can’t buy, schools are left with negligible proceeds, and teachers must face the impossible challenge of choosing between much-needed funds and educating students about health. Yet despite challenges from educators, parents, and health professionals, McDonald’s has continued to promote the events across the country. Since 2013, more than 700 McTeacher’s Night events have been documented in more than 30 states.

Cecily Myart-Cruz, the vice-president of United Teachers Los Angeles, has challenged McDonald‘s to end McTeacher’s Night events. “Calling McTeacher’s Nights ‘fundraisers’ just doesn’t hold up—it’s a raw deal for schools and an even worse deal for our students,” Myart-Cruz has said. “This should be a wakeup call for corporations like McDonald’s: We’re not going to tolerate them targeting our kids!”

Steve Zimmer, president of the LAUSD Governing Board, acted as the lead sponsor of the resolution. “I am grateful to my colleagues for joining me in taking a comprehensive view of our Good Food Purchasing Policy and how other policies might be in conflict with that. Our Board responsibilities extend well beyond the classroom,” he said.

“While I am thankful to the independent McDonald’s operators and business partners for their desire to support our students, I look forward to working with them to support our schools without relying on the labor of our teachers or interest of our families to promote food and other products that are in conflict with existing policies.”

The passage of this resolution protects over 640,000 K-12 students within the Los Angeles school district from junk food sponsorships and builds on a foundation of strong food policy within LAUSD. For instance, LAUSD adopted school sponsorship guidelines that provided the framework for this resolution and enacted the groundbreaking Good Food Purchasing Policy program that sets standards for  food within the district to be sustainable, healthy, humane and fairly produced.

Sriram Madhusoodanan is the director of the Value [the] Meal campaign at Corporate Accountability International.

This article was made possible by the readers and supporters of AlterNet.

McDonald’s No. 1 Choice For ‘Breakfastarians’: Poll

McDonald’s No. 1 Choice For ‘Breakfastarians’: Poll

(Reuters) – McDonald’s Corp, which is expected to offer all-day breakfasts starting this fall to turn around slumping U.S. sales, is the top choice for “Breakfastarians,” who crave breakfast food at any hour, according to a new survey obtained by Reuters on Monday.

Forty-one percent of consumers who eat breakfast twice a day consider McDonald’s for their next meal, according to the survey from YouGov BrandIndex, a brand perception research service.

Sandwich chain Subway was diners’ second choice for anytime breakfast with 34 percent, followed by DineEquity Inc’s IHOP at 32 percent, Burger King with 27 percent and Starbucks Corp at 26 percent.

Denny’s Corp and Dunkin’ Donuts were tied with 25 percent each and Wendy’s Co got 23 percent, while KFC and Chick-fil-A rounded out the top 10 with 22 percent apiece.

McDonald’s long has dominated the breakfast category, which already accounts for roughly 25 percent of McDonald’s sales and about 40 percent of profit in the United States.

Breakfast is the only U.S. restaurant meal time seeing an uptick in customer visits. Breakfast traffic was up 4 percent for the year ended May 2015, largely because of gains at fast-food chains, while lunch and dinner visits were flat, according to research firm NPD Group.

The category is increasingly competitive as growth-hungry chains dive in or double down with new breakfast menu items.

McDonald’s added espresso drinks to its morning lineup of McMuffins and inexpensive drip coffee. Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts struck back with new and upgraded breakfast sandwiches and pastries. And, Taco Bell last year jumped in with waffle tacos and other twists on the morning meal.

While McDonald’s holds the lead in the survey, its results suggest that the industry’s breakfast brawls are far from over. Chick-fil-A, IHOP and Taco Bell made the greatest purchase consideration gains in the last six months.

Breakfastarians “appear willing to consider a broad range of options,” YouGov BrandIndex Chief Executive Ted Marzilli.

The online survey, which took place over a 12-month period, included 1,000 adults over the age of 18 who eat breakfast twice per day.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Photo: A McDonald’s Egg McMuffin, soon-to-be-available all day long. Ryan Loh via Flickr

Stand With Postal Workers This Thursday In A National Day of Action

Stand With Postal Workers This Thursday In A National Day of Action

When a big-name retailer finds its sales in a slow downward spiral, the geniuses in the executive suite often try to keep their profits up by cheapening their product and delivering less to customers.

To see how well this poorly thought-out strategy works, look no further than the declining sales at Walmart and McDonald’s. When the geniuses in charge of these behemoths applied the cutback strategy, their slow decline turned into a perilous nosedive. You’d think their experience would keep other executives from making the same mistake, but here comes an even bigger — and much more important — retail behemoth saying, “We have to cut to survive.”

That was the pronouncement last year by the head honcho of the U.S. Postal Service, which has been eliminating employees, closing facilities, and reducing services for years. Each new round of reductions drives away more customers, which causes clueless executives to prescribe more cuts. In a January decree, USPS virtually eliminated overnight delivery of first-class mail, and it’s now planning to close or consolidate 82 regional mail-processing plants. This means fewer workers handling the nation’s growing load of mail, creating further delays in delivery. The answer to this, say the slaphappy executives, is — guess what? — to cut even more “service” out of postal service. They want to close hundreds of our local post offices and eliminate Saturday mail delivery (which is one of USPS’s major competitive advantages).

And speaking of competitive advantages, we can now buy rolls of “Forever” stamps from our local post offices, protecting us from future price increases (and mailing a letter from Texas to Alaska for 49 cents is a great deal — FedEx and UPS can’t offer us anything remotely close to that). But We The People now need to put a “Forever” stamp on the post office itself, protecting it from a cabal of privatizers and the Postal Service’s own executives.

This cabal of corporate predators, congressional anti-government ideologues, and pusillanimous postal officials is dismantling this invaluable public service, piece by piece — an agency that literally has delivered for America from the very start of our country. Yet in the name of “saving” the U.S. Postal Service, they’ve been gutting its services, intentionally driving away business. Having fewer customers will give the cabal an excuse to make more cuts … and ultimately to kill it as a public entity. This is like a boss telling workers: “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”

Post office workers, letter carriers, and mail handlers are tired of the beatings, so they’ve launched a nationwide campaign with dozens of other grassroots organizations to rally public support to Save Our Public Postal Service by revitalizing and expanding the services that this venerable American institution can and should provide. Under the uplifting banner of “I Stand with Postal Workers,” the American Postal Workers Union is coordinating a National Day of Action this Thursday, May 14. Workers are fed up with the deliberate degradation of this vital public service, so they themselves are putting forth a bold vision and innovative plan not merely for USPS to survive, but thrive. With more than 70 other national groups, they’ve forged “A Grand Alliance to Save Our Public Postal Service.” To be part of its actions, go to: AGrandAlliance.org.

Some 70 public demonstrations and rallies will take place Thursday at post offices in 30 states — from Alaska to Florida, Maine to California. Join me this Thursday in standing with postal workers — for the benefit of all the people. Each of us can be a symbolic “Forever” stamp to protect our public post offices from the privatizers. To join this spirited stand for restoring the common good in America, you can find the exact location, timem and contact number for each local event at www.apwu.org.

To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com. 

Photo: Kevin Dooley via Flickr

Is Ronald McDonald Racist?

Is Ronald McDonald Racist?

McDonald’s Corporation shares legal responsibility with three Virginia franchise restaurants and their owner for rampant racial and sexual harassment in those workplaces, according to a federal lawsuit that 10 former workers filed on January 22 alleging violations of their civil rights.

They accuse the franchise owner of firing them, despite their managers’ acknowledgement of their good work records, simply in order to reduce the proportion of non-white employees.

“All of a sudden, they let me go for no other reason than I ‘didn’t fit the profile’ they wanted at the store,” said fired plaintiff Willie Betts. “I worked at McDonald’s for almost five years, I was on time every day at 4:00 in the morning to open the store, and I never had a disciplinary write-up. They took away the only source of income I have to support my family.”

McDonald’s Corporation, the plaintiffs said, would not intervene to investigate or reverse the franchise actions after workers called and asked for help, a corporate inspector made a routine visit to check on franchise compliance with corporate procedures after the firings, or even after a local newspaper reported the story.

“This is a problem that goes far beyond these stores in Virginia,” said Kendall Fells, organizing director of Fast Food Forward, the New York area branch of the Fight for 15 movement. “It’s a problem with [the] McDonald’s business model itself when workers at the company have nowhere to turn. McDonald’s has the power to fix this problem, but instead it chooses to skirt its responsibility and hide behind its franchise model.”

The workers at restaurants in South Boston and Clarksville, Virginia, say that Michael Simon and his firm, Soweva, began a systematic plan to reduce the number of black workers soon after taking over the three stores in late 2013. Simon told workers, “the ratio [of black to white employees] was off,” and supervisors told them that the restaurants were “too dark” and that white workers needed to be hired “to get the ghetto out of the store.”

When Simon took control of the franchises, the lawsuit alleges, he promoted to the top day-to-day management of his business two supervisors who had a long history of racial abuse, such as calling African-American women “bitch” and describing the stores as “too ghetto.” They also sexually harassed both male and female workers, including soliciting sex from employees or touching their legs and buttocks, according to the plaintiffs’ lawsuit.

Even if the charges only were directed at one franchisee in the system, they would badly damage McDonald’s carefully nurtured brand image. But the suit names the corporation itself as essentially a joint employer. It calls into question McDonald’s model of trying to maintain tight control over how franchises operate, including personnel matters, while attempting to avoid any legal or financial liability. Plaintiff attorney Paul Smith says that McDonald’s seeks “all of the control and profit and none of the responsibility.”

The National Labor Relations Board has taken the same position as this lawsuit, treating the corporation as a joint employer, in a dozen complaints filed in December charging McDonald’s Corporation and many franchises with violating the rights of workers to organize and take collective action to improve their working conditions.

The lawsuit spells out much of the system that the McDonald’s Corporation uses to control its franchises. The mechanisms include its elaborate training program with Hamburger University on the grounds of the company’s suburban Chicago headquarters at its pinnacle and detailed guidelines on “quality, service and cleanliness,” and extensive business manuals for franchisees (covering personnel management, bookkeeping and other areas). The “bible” for franchisees, the Operations and Training Manual, is a detailed guide to hiring, discipline, diversity, non-discrimination and sexual harassment that the corporation can unilaterally change at any time, the lawsuit alleges.

The McDonald’s franchise agreement grants the corporation power to send in corporate “business consultants,” who review in great detail all operations of each restaurant, including staffing decisions, and provide recommendations that are mandatory for each franchise. In addition, the corporate office sends in “mystery shoppers” monthly to secretly observe and report back on even the most minute details of operations.

Fells indicated that after the firings, some supporters of Fight for 15 at the Virginia restaurants had contacted the local NAACP, which has been a major supporter along with the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights. Fight for 15, which invited some of the plaintiffs to a convention last year, has now set up a nationwide hotline for McDonald’s worker complaints: 855-729-2869.

Winning a lawsuit and damages would bring relief for the discharged workers and strike a blow at practices not only at McDonald’s but also at many other franchises. But fired cashier Katrina Stanfield says that workers also need their own voice at work. Never disciplined, regarded by her boss as a “good worker,” she was fired for being black, she says, leaving her out of work for five months and afraid she might lose the home shared by her sister and both women’s children.

“I still don’t understand why McDonald’s did nothing to get our jobs back,” she said. “I left a detailed message on the corporate hotline, but McDonald’s Corporation is concerned about the bottom line, not the workers. If we had a union, we could have done something.”

David Moberg is a senior editor at In These Times.

Originally posted at In These Times.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons