Many times throughout the campaign we have pointed to McDonald’s poor ethical behaviour as “being part of their DNA” The promise of jobs that aren’t real, the reduction in shift hours, poor wages, lying to the media and using the courts to bully are just some of the behaviour that has been reported in the Australian media in recent times. (And Tecoma has been on the end of some of this) Which is why we thought we would bring this article published only today to your attention.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/15/dignity-4

Currently there is a heavy international media focus on McDonald’s. Not only are they producing poor financial results but their labour practices are coming very much under the spotlight as this article shows. Several weeks ago when McDonald’s Q2 results showed a trend towards the catastrophic, McDonald’s here in Australia put out press releases about fictitious jobs and home deliveries hoping the media would look elsewhere. That “slight of hand” media management appears not to be working in the States and Europe as we are starting to see detailed media analysis appearing that is highly critical of the company that promised Tecoma a car park.

Only last week The Guardian reported how hundreds had been arrested in the US for simply protesting for a liveable wage. Many of the reported arrests were McDonald’s employees.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/04/fast-food-protests-dozens-arrested-low-wages

And today this article in The New Yorker (Maybe not as prestigious as The Franchise Herald which last week featured Tecoma’s own James Currie). This article by William Finnegan once again points to the behaviour that is obviously in their corporate DNA. Whilst it could be argued to dismiss much of the article on the basis that labor laws in the US are vastly different to Australia, we tend to believe that if McDonald’s could lower the bar here they would. Former Australian CEO Catriona Noble is on the record stating McDonald’s would like to see penalty rates go.

We encourage you to have a read of this article and then ponder the question we continually ask; “Is this the type of company we want in our community?”