"Official Restaurant" of the Olympics pays $6.35 per hour in Vancouver

Of course, can't forget the $1.2 billion in profits that McDonald's made last year...a corporate empire built on cheap labour.   In fact it was because of them that the word "McJob" entered the Oxford English dictionary.   Wonder if they're proud of that?

I do not understand this 'new worker and immigrant' aspect...while it 'might' be reasonable to assume that a new worker needs training before they are effective, upon what is the assumption that an immigrant falls into the same grouping? Would this apply to me if I moved to Vancouver?

Someone ought to organise a boycott of McD's.

Michelle wrote:

This is disgusting.  McDonald's is taking advantage of B.C.'s "training wage" for new workers and immigrants (note: wtf, BC? you let employers legally discriminate against immigrants?) and paying their workers $6.35 per hour instead of the regular minimum wage of $8 per hour.  One of the richest corporations on the planet.

Just for comparison purposes:

When I left high school in 1990, I get a full time, minimum wage job at a bakery for $6.00 per hour.  Two decades ago.  By 1994, when I left that job, minimum wage had gone up, and I was making $6.50 per hour at minimum wage.

So, 16 years ago, my minimum wage job paid MORE than those fuckers at McDonald's are paying immigrants and "new workers" NOW.

SHAME.

So the real issue is McDonalds, for not choosing to altruistically pay employees more than they have to?  Because I would think it's the province, for setting a legal minimum wage so low, and for targetting young employees and immigrants.

If I see a car driving 60km/h down my street, and I think that's too fast, I'm not going to blame the driver if the posted speed limit is, in fact, 60km/h. 

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It is even more shameful for MacDonald's, but given who and what they are little else would be expected....

Hehe. It's nice how, even as you admit you expect nothing more of them, you still manage to sneak in that tiny little bit of surprise anyway.

Ya, I'm shocked any time a corporation doesn't voluntarily choose to pay more for labour (or anything else) than they have to. Where's the love?

You also have 7048467 Canada, which is the legal name of the broadcast consortium, that file last September for an Excess Hours Permit so they could evade Section 176 of the Canada Labour Code. If deemed vital for Olympic coverage, a worker would expect to be available for 7 days a week with 10-12 hours per day.

Are you suggesting that perhaps they sent The Clown to lobby the government for a low minimum wage?  Maybe they did.  That's what corporations do sometimes; they look out for their own interests.

But the government is supposed to be accountable to the electorate.  If they weren't, the blame still lies with them.

In my experience, socialists and other left wing types usually look for broader, social solutions to problems (like, say, raising the minimum wage and abolishing a 'training wage') but in this case the focus seems to be on McDonald's, and why they won't, out of the goodness of the heart nobody believes they have, voluntarily pay more.  I find this fascinating.  Why change the laws to benefit all young and immigrant workers, when we can just drop a guilt trip on McDonald's instead.  Excellent solution!

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Sometimes? And the rest of the time they're hand-wringing about how to make labour better off? Being altruistic by drilling wells in Africa?

Well, really, not at all. But everyone seemed to want to hold on to the belief that corporations are motivated by altruism, and I didn't want to just step on that with both feet.

But you're right of course; corporations look out for their own interests. Government is supposed to look out for the interests of the rest of us.

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As for nobody believing McDonald's has a heart, what do you think an institution is - a human being? Can you reason with an institution on matters of social justice when its main goal is to reproduce itself?

Nope, I guess you can't. So the best bet would be to look to the government to change that minimum wage, ya?

Snert wrote:

Nope, I guess you can't. So the best bet would be to look to the government to change that minimum wage, ya?

That's the most reactive idea ever. But if government is to serve the people - as you claim is their job - why don't we go a little further and punish corporations for exploiting labour?

The government imposed the training wage as to what was exactly  was demanded of them to do,  by the corporations who put them in power...your complete ignorant ignoring of corporate controlled government and calm acceptance and support of that sociopathic behaviour indicates again why you are a piece of .....work in digression.

Always wondered what it felt like to be in Germany in the lead up to Hitlers full out control, and have found one should be careful about what one wonders for...

people just can't be bothered with dealing with the likes of snert types, so they ignore and they will continue to ignore until they can no longer do so.....

It is really not their fault I have come to believe, it is like blamming the victim, and ignoring the perps.

Some people just do not have the constitution to tell it like it is and so avoid at all costs.

The government is to blame for sure, but McDonalds isn't blameless either.  When I was a wee lad, I earned $5.25/hour washing dishes at the Sheraton Hotel in Halifax, two dollars higher than the minimum wage at the time.  The Sheraton didn't have to pay me that much (god knows there was no union fighting for me) but they chose to anyway.  McDonalds could also.  BCers will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe many companies ignore the 'training wage.'  And with or without the training wage, they still set their own wage rates.  McDonalds had to pay higher than minimum in many Alberta locations last year due to the boom, and their inability to attract staff at the Alberta minimum wage.  Strangely, paying higher wages didn't break them.

On a different note, and this is second hand info, so don't take it to the bank - but someone I know told me she was good friends with the chef at the Aboriginal Pavillion at the Olympics.  He got his hand slapped for serving a buffalo 'burger' because McDonalds had the rights to serve the official 'burger' at the Olympics.  The chef had to change the name of the dish to a sandwich or something.  It's amazing to me that such a big company can be so petty.

Well chime me in as surprised that the law governing a so-called "training wage" allows McDonalds to consider their staff to be in training for much more than a shift or two. Even with the most charitable interpretation I can muster (and I can't muster a lot), I can't conceive of such a law applying after the basic skills required for the job are mastered.

On a drifty note, and thinking about the ongoing debate about tactics elsewhere on the board, if "smashy smashy" had been directed towards McDonalds, and information about the abhorrent wage practices was wide-spread, I wonder if the tactic might be viewed in a more kindly light?

Snert and the others are both right.  It's not a mutually exclusive thing.  People can try to change the law AND shame the company.  Why set up a false dichotomy?

I believe the following:

1.  Corporations do not have hearts or souls. 

2.  Corporations have a responsibility to their shareholders to maximize profits.

3.  Corporations have a responsibility to their employees and the public to follow government laws and regulations.

4.  Governments have a responsibility to make laws to protect the people.

5.  Government intervention to create laws is necessary because of points 1 and 2.  Corporations will not necessarily "do the right thing" if they do not have to.   

6.  Corporations can increase revenue through branding, advertising, gestures of good will and otherwise increasing their corporate profile.

7.  Corporations can lose revenue through negative publicity, including for example, claims that they exploit workers or have low quality products or services.

8.  Corporations may choose to pay their employees more than minimum wage because of, inter alia, supply and demand or recognition that minimum wage is not a living wage.

9.  If there is a ready stream of workers willing to work for minimum wage/training wage, a corporation will generally not be inclined to pay more than that.

10.  The more far removed a corporation's principals are from its workers, the less likely that a corporation will decide to increase salary/improve conditions for altruistic reasons.

Focussing on a large well-known corporation like McDonalds can help get McDonalds' employees raises. (Although, it's unlikely in this circumstance - I think a cost-benefit analysis would show that it will cost more to raise wage than McDonalds is likely to lose from bad publicity.)  It can also prompt the government to look into its minimum wage laws so that all minimum wage employees get a raise. 

Nonsense snert, take your paranoid smears and shove them into your digression pond, I  was there on the when and where as the CoC's deliberated upon lobbying (of course it really wasn't lobbying, as they were not yet the government, so actually I consider it more a discussion surrounding the ways and means in respect to loyal support) for a "training wage" as part of their 'support' for Gordo et al....

You see the trouble with people like you calling paranoia, or actually for you, not so much for me, is that you really have no  legs to stand on and merely make yourself look ridiculous, and of course details how you are an enabler of sociopaths and sociopathic thpought and action.

1. I do not give a shit about your armchair psychiatry labels that are purely propaganda devices.

....and from that position, not much matters after that, at least enough to be stated, not even my life experiences that puts lie to your labelling propaganda device.

Summer, corporations do not have to be what they are, it is a choice of the shareholders and their sociopathic notions of privilege.

remind wrote:

Summer, corporations do not have to be what they are, it is a choice of the shareholders and their sociopathic notions of privilege 

I'd like to pick up on this comment.   I would argue that [b]within our system[/b], corporations do have to be way they are.  My understanding of how they are is at points 1-3 and 8 and 9 of my other post.   

The 10 points above are, IMV, reflective of the capitalist framework we are working in.  Some people want to change the framework - i.e. to communism.  My comments are not meant to defend the framework but to say this is what we've got, now let's deal with it.     There will always be exceptions to the rule.  I submit that an employer who decides to pay more than minimum wage when he doesn't have to is the exception.  Small business owners who care about their employees are not the same as corporations whose principals don't even know their employees.  If McDonalds chooses to pay more than it has to, its salary expenses will go up and profits will likely go down (as will dividnds) Investors (aka shareholders) will decide to invest in another company that is perceived to be maximizing profits.  Some investors may decide to stick around with McDonalds who is doing the right thing, but most won't.  Is this sociopathic? I'll leave that for someone else to say. 

Libertarians, I believe, favour little to no government involvement and there are arguments that the free market and the invisible hand will work things out eventually.  We've seen how that's been working.  I think gov't involvement is necessary.   I think we have to be careful about blaming a corporation as if it has some form of conscience and will feel bad about its choices.  It doesn't.  It won't.  Let's blame a corporation to effect legislative change - to get the government to sit up and take notice.

Sure, corporations are made up of people, but people can be greedy too. Is it sociopathic to be greedy?   People have an incredible ability to justify their own shortcomings.  A sociopath wouldn't justify his greed because he wouldn't feel the need to.  A non-sociopath could justify her greed to make herself feel better.  It doesn't make it right, but it doesn't make it sociopathic. 

Corporations can never make enough profit for the trickle-down voodoo to work, and especially here in Bananada. It's a generally accepted rule of thumb that government and property-owning democracy are two generally incompatible themes. If previously massive corporate tax cuts haven't worked for job creation and growth worth a darn, then more should do the trick. More tax cuts and more dregulation equals democracy. Because fewer rules and responsibilities for the corporatocracy means better times ahead for all.  DAY-O!