A National Labor Relations Board judge has turned down McDonald's bid to obtain documents that would have made it easier to learn the names of employees and ex-employees who are trying to organize workers.
McDonald's stands accused of violating federal labor law. Plaintiffs are saying the burger behemoth oversees working conditions of employees at all stores, both company-owned and franchised, and is a joint employer. As such, Mickey D's shares responsibility for employee pay and working conditions.
McDonald's calls the claim an attack and told the NLRB it wanted documents about companies that were brought into the organizing effort by the Service Employees International Union. The company claimed it wanted to learn how the effort was funded.
Attorneys for the union said MacDonald's wanted the information to learn employee names in order to retaliate. The lawyers noted that McDonald's had used intimidation tactics such as threats, intimidation, schedule cutbacks and firings in response to previous labor protests.
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NLRB administrative law judge Lauren Esposito ruled that materials McDonald's want were not relevant to its case and that delivering them would expose employees to retribution. The judge said the confidentiality of employees working to organize the company outweighed McDonald's arguments.
Judge Esposito also noted that McDonald's wanted documents from as far back as 2009 though the organizing campaign didn't start until 2012.
At stake is more pay and benefits for all McDonald's hourly workers. Two weeks ago, the company said it would raise wages for its employees to a dollar more than the prevailing minimum wage where its stores are located. What wasn't mentioned is that the pay hike applied only to workers at company-owned stores. About 90% of the total hourly employees work for franchisees that aren't required to follow McDonald's corporate lead.
McDonald's has no problem raising franchise costs and adding new demands on their franchisees. They also have no problem raising prices: the cost of a Big Mac has risen 30% since the federal minimum wage was last increased.
And it wouldn't seem to be a problem of profits. Last year, McDonald's announced it would spend $20 billion on stock buybacks in order to raise share prices. McDonald's stock has been hit because of the company's dismal performance and rather than offering better value and better food to attract new business and bring back former customers, the company would rather spend enough money to fund nice raises and benefits like paid vacations for all workers for years - on a stock buyback that probably won't help anyone except the executives with stock options. Buybacks seldom achieve the desired goals, but that doesn't stop companies from pouring billions into them every year.
The National Labor Relations Board is glacially slow and sometimes doesn't seem to have the best interest of labor at heart. But this time, they came through for a lot of minimum-wage workers.