McDonald's Pulls the Plug on Employee Website
From its suggestion that fast-food workers tip their au pairs and massage therapists to its recommendation that employees fend off hunger by breaking their food into smaller pieces, the McDonald's employee website has been a PR horror show of spectacularly out-of-touch lifestyle "advice."
On Wednesday, the website was finally taken offline.
After months of making headlines for its oftentimes offensive, other times nonsensical guidance for workers who are paid less than a livable wage, what finally brought down the McResources employee site was a recent post it published characterizing fast food as "unhealthy."
According to CNBC, the text read in part, "While convenient and economical for a busy lifestyle, fast foods are typically high in calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar, and salt and may put people at risk for becoming overweight."
The accompanying graphic didn't help matters. Wrapped in suspiciously familiar red packaging, the meal labeled as the "unhealthy choice" looked exactly like food that came from...McDonald's.
After the negative press Mickey D's received for essentially suggesting to its employees that its own food may be a calorie bomb of fat and salt, the company pulled down its McResources website this week.
In a public statement from corporate headquarters, McDonald's explained, "We've directed the vendor to take down the website. Between links to irrelevant or outdated information, along with outside groups taking elements out of context, this created unwarranted scrutiny and inappropriate commentary. None of this helps our McDonald's team members."
Also not helping the chain's team members is that they don't earn a livable wage. The average minimum wage is just $7.50 per hour, but corporate doesn't appear to have any plans to address that problem.
In October, a full-time employee who called the McResources telephone hotline was told that if she needed more money to feed her family, she should look into public assistance. An earlier McResources website post assumed that employees would need a second job to supplement their income.
The McResources website may be a thing of the past, but its internal employee hotline is still working. Based on history, however, its ability to provide any meaningful assistance to the people working for McDonald's seems highly unlikely.
Related stories on TakePart:
• Bittman: McDonald's Oatmeal Has More Sugar Than a Snickers Bar
• France, Germany and McDonald's Beat the Recession
• Forget the 'Royale With Cheese'—French McDonald's Are Serving Bagel Burgers
Original article from TakePart
