Does your local McDonald's make your community a better place

Well, in here (Netherlands) McDonald's is one of the most expensive places to get food...even more expensive than certain restaurants. That being said, their foundation helps a lot of people, they always have some action going on to help children, and they pay their employees a fair wager (same hourly wager you'd get somewhere else...it's a "real job" here, not a summer "get some bucks" occupation)

I ate McDonalds* for lunch 5 days a week for over a month and lost 13lbs.

Explain that.

*and we're not talking about salad here, I got a double quarter pounder and a large fries. Must have been 1400 calories at least.

No it doesn't. The McDonalds where I live pays people crap wage (minimum), makes workers expendable and the food is cheap filth.

@RadecSupreme: but minimum wage and cheap filth is better than no wage and no food, right?

@whipassmt: That would be the case if there were no options but there are plenty of options. Threatening no wage is no reason to pay people shit. Making them work for something they can't survive on just seems like fucked up morals based on corporate greed for more profit.

Yeah you can always eat and work at Burger King.

My community is already a great place, and if there was no McDonalds we'd just go to the hundreds of other restaurants located around here. So no, it doesn't really make it a better place.

@RadecSupreme: I don't see McDonald's booksheets so I don't know how much more they can afford to pay their workers. Also I think some McDonald's restaurants are franchises, so those ones might make their own wage decisions.

Dude, that's every McDonald's. I like some of the food, but it is a bit pricey, I mean, $7 for a burger and fries? I usually just order off the dollar menu there.

To answer TC's question, I live in a suburb of 62,000 people, so there is obviously more than one McDonald's, and it doesn't affect the community at all. I mean, it's just another generic fast food place in suburban America. How would it have much impact?

@Storm_Marine: Or Chipotle....

lol nope.

It is disgusting and should be closed for violating food safety standards.

@BranKetra: is your local McDonald's routinely violating food safety standards? I wonder if the McDonald's corporation can force that local McDonald's to either clean up their act (i.e. maybe get new management) or stop using the McDonald's image and logo, in order to preserve the company's image.

Yes. They are a franchise McDonald's, so that makes dealing with them pointlessly difficult as you have to jump through hoops, so to speak, to talk with the proper authorities within McDonald's.

I think the thing to remember is that if the people taking the McDonalds job had better options, they probably wouldn't be working at McDonalds. Sure there are probably businesses in the area that pay more than McDonalds. So...why exactly are these employees working at McDonalds instead of those other jobs? You can't really present something as a valid option if people tried that option and got rejected. That'd be like me saying that I always have the option of being a rock star.

If they're violating food safety standards, why would you bother going to the authorities within McDonalds? I don't know how it is in other countries, but in the USA the food industry is sort of subject to outside regulation. Bringing up your complaints to McDonalds might not have any impact since McDonalds is making money. But isn't there someone else you could complain to? Maybe snap some pics (seeing as how everyone's phone has a camera these days)? But I was basically under the impression that if you're running a restaurant, you're subject to food safety regulations from whatever external agency handles that stuff. That's precisely why people go around inspecting restaurants for violations. If your McDonalds is violating food safety standards, why would you bring that up with the authorities within McDonalds instead of going straight to your local public health agency?

If by better you mean fatter, then probably. If by better you actually mean better, then certainly not...

Haven't gone to a McDonald's in over a year now so I don't really have the opportunity to see if it's been making the community a better place. That being said I didn't see it doing so when I was going there.

@MrGeezer: I got advice that I should not have followed. It is as simple as that.

Okay...so now hopefully you're actually going to file a complaint through the proper channels, right? I'm just saying, that's the kind of thing that deserves to be followed, because people actually DIE due to violations of food safety regulations. So you got bad advice and filed a complaint with McDonalds, I just hope that you at least followed up on that once you realized that was bad advice.

@Storm_Marine: you still created a calorie deficiet, you can do that regardless what type of food you eat.

My country's Mcd didn't grew much to my appeal,despite serving its chicken with rice(I hoped this is the one and only place to serve it) I can see the reason why I don't go there anymore since the nearest Mcd closed and got a replacement...better be worth it,I expect a Korean fast food chain that would fill it.

it allows me to get mcnuggets easily. so it improves my existence marginally

as far as the community as a whole, i have no idea

@MrGeezer: I am not really sure who to talk to about this.

The McDonalds here gives free gift cards to cancer patients...

I haven't used mine yet. I never eat McD.

We don't have a local McDonalds... Their food is terrible anyway so I don't really care. I'd just go to a pub if I want a decent burger and chips and can't be arsed to cook myself. Then I can get a nice ale with it too.

I think we might be asking too much of a fast food restaurant, I mean they usually can't get my drink order right so I'm not holding out for miracles.

I shall send you a PM about that.

@Gaming-Planet: LOL that's ironic as ****

Unhealthy fast food should at least taste good and be cheap, neither of which McDonald's has going for them. The staff they hire are pretty worthless too, they all seem to embody this kind of lethargic disposition you really only see at methadone clinics.

this ^

The concept of corporate social responsibility is usually laughable: they pray on the country with their dubious business policies and employment practices and then trickle bits back to the community. My guess is that McDonald is no different.

Mcdonalds here in Greece is really cheap and it has no force over the community.

There's no McDonald's where I live and also no sense on community. Not sure if there's a connection.

Or perhaps McDonalds should pay people more livable wages. You want people to go around looking for better jobs and fail to take in the fact that there's a large population and option becomes limited. It's ridiculous to not even think about fixing a system that is pretty obviously broken.

Why should they when they don't need to? They pay at least minimum wage, and that's enough to get them the labor that they need. Do you think they're supposed to be a charity or something?

There's one unfortunate fact in the corporate world that apparently most who feel this way are missing or avoiding. It's that employees exist only as assets to and are consequences to producing goods and services. In other words, they only exist to make the investors money. That is the only reason they have a job period. You invest money to make money so in order to do that, you are required to spend that investment into anything that goes into maximizing your returns. Part of which is hiring people to run the registers inside the building..etc you just invested in.

If McD employees want more money, they should try investing in McD's or even themselves. Not sit there and wait for a hand out. Now you are right that the system is very well broken, it's also backwards in many respects thanks to lobbying, greed..etc. But you can't blame corporations because they answer to the major shareholders. It's a system that's been designed to maintain the correct population percentages for each class. If you have too many or too few poor, it screws up the economy. Too many or few wealthy screws up the balances of power, job creators..etc. So there are many places that lack any opportunities for the poor to get out of their situation. Likewise there are businesses allowed to confuse and feed off of consumer's greed or ignorance....such as high interest loans that they obviously can never pay back for example. When a minimum wage employee can take out $10k + easily with only $15 payment a month, their own greed ignores the math with the interest so they go into serious debt which provides more jobs such as debt collectors and of course which the bank then often sells or auctioned off the loan so you have a whole circle jerk thing going on just in that area of our society.

But point is, increasing wages just raises everything else, it really doesn't solve any problems. The poor will still be poor just like they are now when it went from $4.25/hr to $7.15...nothing really changed because inflation goes right along with it.

The food market, so Macdonals, bring major problem in community. Guys that now pee and other that get fat and waste their life. To not count the teeth problems and all the rest of the bad health problems bring the food.

Paying people enough money for them to live constitutes a charity? You seem so infatuated to defending the corporate business practices...

Let me answer that question with this scenario...

People give away money all the time. People donate to disaster relief, cancer research, education, whatever. People are absolutely happy to just give away money to a worthy cause. So...why exactly should mcDonalds pay their workers more? If it's such a travesty that the fry cook and the cashier at McDonalds aren't getting paid a living wage, then you're entirely free to set up a charity wherein people donate money to McDonalds employees. Let's see how that works for you.

Bottom line is that, no, McDonalds ISN'T in any way obligated to pay their workers a "living wage". They're obligated to pay their workers at least minimum wage, which they do. If that's not enough, get the minimum wage raised. But McDonalds wages, at least for entry level positions, are pretty much in line with what's normal for the industry. I'm not sure why you're trying to paint one single company in an entire industry as the villain, when it's the LAW that says that companies are allowed to pay that little. McDonalds doesn't set the wage laws, dude. That's not defending corporate practices, that's just how shit works. If I feel that a company is underpaying their workers, then I might boycott that company. What I DON'T do is go and buy a $6 combo meal and then hand the worker $20 on the side to put towards their utility bills. If a company charges $10 for a good or service, most people generally don't give out an extra $10 just for the hell of it. Similarly, if an employee agrees to work for $9 an hour, most companies aren't just gonna double that wage if they're already happy with the quality of labor that such a wage provides.

Did you really fill out a McDonald's survey to get a coupon?

Come on man...have some self respect.

You are generalizing. You have no idea what many corporations do/don't do with regards to giving back to their communities and giving to charity.

Well it does provide some entertainment when Tourists from the US walks in and are baffled that they can't pay with dollars.

But beyond that, it's simply there as a place to grab a quick meal.

Sensational