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McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut accused of lowballing wages

mcdonaldsminimumwagechina.jpgMcDonald's, KFC, and Pizza Hut have been accused of paying part-time workers less than the minimum wage in various Chinese cities, Chinese labor officials found.

The English reports mostly mention numbers from Guangzhou, but the Chinese reports give numbers from other cities, including Zhengzhou, Taiyuan and Fuzhou. We don't know what the figures for Shanghai are.

Out of the cities mentioned above, the largest gap is in Zhengzhou McDonald's, where the wage is 3.9 RMB/hour and the legal minimum wage is 7 RMB/hour. By the way, working for 3.9 RMB an hour sucks.

The fast-food establishments are saying, not surprisingly, that they are equal-opportunity, that they believe in fair wages, etc. We might just have to go without Egg McMuffin and 8 RMB all you can drink coffee for a week—such are the sacrifices we must make in the name of solidarity.

Picture from jrai's Flickr page.

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By Peijin Chen in on April 1, 2007 10:50 PM

Comments [rss]

  • paddy2step

    What the heck is wrong with 3.9 RMB per hour?! If you made 3.9 RMB for every hour for 25 years (24/7/365) you'd have about $110,000 or so. Not to shabby if you ask me.

  • nanheyangrouchuan

    Then McDs deserves what they get.

  • Kris

    Not all fast food restaurants are franchises. In fact quite a few McDonald's are corporate owned and operated. I don't have any data to back this up, but I had heard that the majority of the McDonald's in China were not franchises.

  • nanheyangrouchuan

    I was going to post the same question. But I think even the US, McDs would pretty much esacape blame because a franchise means you are purchasing the right to use a company's name and sell its product under its banner. The franchiser is responsible for meeting health codes and paying employees.



    Kinda like the mobs that destroyed restaurants and stores selling Japanese food and products but were in fact wholly owned and staffed by local chinese.

  • Cindy

    Do I understand correctly that fast-food chain are generally 'franchise'? Would that mean the 'real' bosses behind these outlets should be responsible for wages of their employees?



    Of course the mother-company, back in the US, cannot escape from shoulding the responsiblities of not keeping an eye on what is going on behind their backs.



    Would be interesting (and worth reading for your readers) if you can research into 'who is the real bosses' of these outlets?

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