A $57,000 fine seems pretty laughable, considering we're talking about their 13 franchises. $57k is like two full time McDonalds employees. That fine is a better deal for them (by far) than hiring the proper amount of staff.

but I thought McDonalds jobs were just for teenagers...weird.

/s

So they pay the measley fine and continuing violating labor laws.

Seems like this was a scheduling error. The kids were legal to work, but with restricted hours. Somebody messed up and had them working excessive hours. I think the fine is commiserate with the act.

These are teenagers. Apparently, the law allows for 14 and 15 year olds to work limited hours (pretty freaking crazy if you ask me). The owners were making them work unsafe jobs and longer hours than legally allowed, i.e. exploiting children who don't know better.

The reason they employ children is specifically because they are more easily exploited than adults. Children don't know the law and will do whatever an authority figure tells them to do, even if it's unsafe or illegal. They don't know any better.

I'll add the /s just incase that didn't land.

My comment was just making fun of those who argue against raising the minimum wage saying that minimum wage jobs are only for teenagers. Child labor violations basically make that impossible unless these business close at 6pm.

Sounds about right

Also, 100 kids were impacted. That’s like $500 per child

[deleted]

I’m saying that i think it’s crazy to allow children to work, at all.

And the fines aren't even going to the kids.

I'd sooner eat the asshole out of a skunk than eat at McDonalds

I spent some young teen years working in McD's and other short order gigs way back when (late 70's). Let's have a look.

>More than 3 hours per day and after 7 p.m. on school days when the law forbids work beyond that time.

Seven PM is the cutoff? Seems a bit early. Counting in at least 1-2 hours of homework time after school, that's barely enough to make it worth the parent's taxi. As to doing homework after work, screw that - after a few hours working Mickeys you wanna get a long shower and relax. Past 10 or 11 PM would be right out, but 7 is lame.

>Later than 9 p.m. on days between June 1 and Labor Day, when they may legally work until 9 p.m.

I was probably raised wrong as a child. When I work summer vacation is between me and my parents and I could get hours + shift differential, so much the better for me.

>More than 8 hours on a non-school day, and more than 18 hours a week during a regular school week.

I can go with half of this; working more than 8 hours almost anywhere should never be part of a game plan. But 18 hours max sounds a bit restrictive. I could get 8-12 hours of that on weekends alone.

I dunno. I'm some sort of ancient barbarian I guess, or maybe grade school is far more grueling than I remember.

When I was a teen, almost every other teen I know had a job. It's a good thing.

Education is more important.

I'd rather my son is reading a book or preparing for a test than flipping a burger at some nonsense job.

Yeah its just a simple mistake by the richest and most profitable restaurant chain in the entire world. I'm sure they overlook things all the time with their 40 billion dollars in revenue. Woopsie

As a teen I would have preferred to read a book too, but my parents didn’t have much cash, so if I wanted money, I needed to have a part time job.

It’s a franchisee that screwed up

Wtf?

The person doing the scheduling should be accountable personally for either being ignorant of or just straight up ignoring the law. This isn’t just a “whoopsie”. There should be criminal charges.

You must have skipped the Industrial Revolution history lessons about how messed up child labor was back then and why they made these sort of laws in the first place.

It sounds like you’re agreeing with me? You support restrictive child labor laws, correct?

Absolutely not a scheduling problem. This is common practice in all fast food. When I was 14 and working at a Hardee’s, my manager would regularly have me clock out at 7, work till 11, and he’d log my extra 4 during the day while I was at school.

It’s common in the restaurant industry. When I was 14 working as a bus boy I was doing 9-10 hour shifts without a break. I didn’t know better but my dad sure did and he scared the shit out of the GM (who was a piece of shit and went to jail for stealing customers credit cards).

Strange sentiment, weird kink but to each their own.

$57k fine …. Legal for a price.

It’s not a fine. It’s a fee

It's a giant megacorp. What do we expect?

I wouldn’t call it a megacorp. Seems like they owned around 20 restaurants.

I will be teaching my child when she's old enough because I will make sure my daughter knows her rights.

That's easy for you to say.

They need to check ID for the age of employees during the holiday season.

Without specifics, it's hard to know how egregious this is. For instance, did multiple 15 year olds work until 7:15 PM on a school night instead of 7:00 PM? If so, that's not really "exploitation" in my mind. However, if there's an ongoing issue with 14 and 15 year olds working till midnight, working 12 hour days, or something similar, then I would agree that the fine is pretty light.

McDonalds is a megacorp.

Yes but not all McDonalds are owned by McDonalds bud

Yeah honestly all the 15 year olds i have working hate that they can only get 3 hours at a time. If theyre going to have to go to work, they want to make more than $35-45 a day

It's not that cut and dry, legally, when it comes to labor practices:

https://lusthausfranchiselaw.com/blog/is-mcdonalds-responsible-for-franchisees-labor-risks/

Now, the NLRB did rule against the plaintiffs in this case, but depending on the circumstances, McDonald's the corporation could ostensibly be held liable for the practices of their franchises.

Im aware, im just making the point that when people yell "FUCK ALL CORPORATIONS THEY DESERVE TO DIE" they usually have no idea theyre talking about small business owners that are franchisees with a few stores

That's odd. I don't recall expressing that sentiment in my comment. Maybe you added that in an assumption?

Also, I think it's fair to question whether or not restaurant franchises, however small, are actually beneficial in communities. Slaveholding was a small business in many parts of the antebellum south. Small business isn't inherently good or bad simply because it is small.

Twenty restaurants would entail how many employees, do you suspect? Let's be very conservative, and assume that each restaurant has a dozen workers (it's likely many more than that). You've got 240 employees. You're not really a small business in any genuine sense anymore. Your revenue is probably running into the tens of millions of dollars per anum. Relative to large businesses, are your workers being compensated well relative to the value they are producing? Almost certainly not.

Hence me saying "people" and not "you". And yes, youre correct, it is fair to question businesses, but it's pretty lame to lump anyone that has a business in with a generalized hate for large corporations. So thats exactly what im saying, question businesses, but dont have a knee-jerk hateful reaction to anyone that owns a thing

> Children ... will do whatever an authority figure tells them to do

You've never had teenagers, have you?

:-)