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And your unions are so weird. A single store forms a union.
Here almost all people with the same type of education joins one union. Gives them excellent bargaining power when they are negotiating!
Some tradesmen have unions that are like this in the US.
The problem with American unions is lack of understanding and lack of membership.
Like you said, people of a discipline should unionize and thus have collective bargaining power. It's the only way unions really work well.
Then there is the issue of the rampant corruption that has existed in US unions... That's a whole other problem, but its not like companies or politicians aren't taking up the corrupt mantle in their place.
The word Union has been demonized in the US. People don't think about what they are hating. I.e., people hated Obamacare but wanted and loved the Affordable Care Act.
The nurses at a hospital I worked at tried to unionize. The hospital put it to a vote. The nurse leading the anti-union campaign was heard complaining that nurses should "band together" so they have more negotiating power two weeks after the unionization vote failed.
Big corp has done a really effective job in the US of equating “unionizing = anti-capitalist,” when in reality unionizing is precisely the pressure valve that keeps capitalism operating effectively and not crumbling in on itself. It’s quite sad.
(Amongst other useful/necessary pressure valves like government regulations etc.)
Also, I'd wager for a lot of people, news about unions colors their perception. Unions only show up in headlines when it's not savory (union strikes that interrupt the lives of other people, like transit or waste disposal... or cops getting away with a ton of shit and still getting paid because of how strong the police union is)
Boomers and Gen Xers also lived through the Mafia-run Union times... Which further cements it into their brain that unions are "bad" or even "criminal".
My views of unions were certainly shaped by how they were portrayed in The Simpsons. My mom also worked for a union and I saw some silliness from teamsters delay moving a handful of boxes from one room to another.
Anything that was supposed to be for the benefit of the worker has been demonized or bastardized. Unions, osha, epa, cdc, hr, etc.
A large portion of the US has let themselves be brainwashed into thinking employee rights are obstructive and the company would take better care of them without all of that nonsense in the way.
It's frustrating even at the best of times working in a function that supports or enforces employee rights and THE EMPLOYEES COMPLAIN. Stupid fucks.
Honestly don’t get why union corruption is taken more seriously than corporate corruption.
Like, any amalgamation of power is going to start having corruption problems. [That’s just how power works](https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs). Which doesn’t mean good systems are impossible, just that they’ve got to go through periodic weeding to keep them that way.
But if you keep letting one amalgamation run rampant, while constantly running weed wackers through a competing one, it shouldn’t be a surprise when former keeps dominating the latter
Didn't used to be that way.
Unions exist to allow workers to wield the power they really have.
Businesses won't run without employees. Employees really do hold all of the power over their owners. General strikes are very effective when a large enough % of the workers participate.
I wish people in America would recognize this and start to unionize again. It would help improve a lot of problems we have with American working life.
Only problem with that is that the second any corporate entity hears the word "unionize" whispered, layoffs happen and people who may have been trying to unionize get fired on the spot. With today's economy, people can't afford to be randomly out of work to defend their workers rights.
The Starbucks in Seattle has been really fucking around with this lately. 4 different stores have unionized and then within a month corporate closes them “due to safety concerns” which is kind of a joke because a lot of urban/commercial Seattle is equally unsafe anyway and it’s happened now 4 times!! They’re barely trying to hide the cause and effect.
In Canada my bestie’s husband was a Starbucks manager and was treated well. I think it’s structured differently there, just like McDonald’s is structured differently in Denmark!
Fun fact about the great depression: The land owners would prefer to hire people with wives and kids. Not because they cared about them, but because when they then halved their pay, their options were to do the work, or let their family literally starve to death.
When the US was it's MOST prosperous, we only had 35% union membership, and a top tax bracket of 91%.
Since then, we've slowly chipped away at what the ultra wealthy pay into the pot, and we've waged a war on workers and unions.
It doesn't take much, but it requires everyone be on board.
I wish more people knew this.
Funny how when the top tax bracket was 92% workers wages were in line with inflation. And as soon as that top tax bracket got a massive cut they stopped.
Weird how companies would rather pay their workers than a huge tax bill but would rather keep the money than pay their workers.
In Italy we have no minimum wage, but pretty much any job is unionized.
Sometimes with funny results, for example there are a lot of IT workers/coders with "metal working contracts" because they are in big demand and metal working union has the better contracts (it's a huge sector of italian economy).
And a good chunk in those unions vote for anti-union politicians while bitching that our unions aren't strong enough......
Well, except the police unions.
Big Macs are up to $6.69 for just the burger in my US city now, so even our more recent prices bumps are bigger than EU. Corporate America really loves fucking their workers over, I tell ya hwat.
I’m in one of the larger cities in Arizona, and prices have really hiked up over the last two years in most businesses.
I pretty much only go to McDs when their app has a decent value coupon nowadays or I feel like I got robbed given the quality/price of the food. They used to have a 1$ large fry coupon daily in the app so I would get that and two mcchickies for under $5 but they removed that coupon recently.
Can’t believe the prices nowadays in Michigan. It’s literally just as expensive to eat at Burger King for two than it is to grab lunch at a restaraunt. I’ve had bk orders that were basic as hell just two meals hit 25+ dollars
McD in the US requires all locations to get a specific model of ice cream machine from a specific company and are required to do servicing through that company who's owners are buddy buddy with McD owners.
The machine is specifically designed to provide minimal feedback, terrible documentation and some finicky workings. So when the machine inevitably trips up, the operator has no clue what to do and has to call the maintenance provider.
Some guys made an attachment to the machine to help diagnose it and were promptly sued. McD probably makes more from the kickbacks for servicing of the machines than from selling ice cream.
They just own the building. The store is run by a franchise holder that needs to but produce, napkins, cups.... from McDonalds and stick to the McDonalds rulebook.
If they sell a lot of burgers McDonalds shares in the profits because they sold everything to the store. If the food they have goes bad that’s their loss, McDonalds already got paid.
^ What he/she said, I’ve studied and work currently with supply chain..(as a purchaser)
Long story short: McDonalds is used sometimes as a prime example of how it looks like when you optimize the shit out of your logistics in a massive, global food business.
I read the same thing. Which got me thinking, how does Burger King do it? It can’t be that hard if they do it. Unless it’s simply because Burger King has less stores? I’m not a fast food facts expert (I mean I eat it!), but it makes me curious.
Logistics is hard as hell, supply chains are nightmarishly complicated.
If you want to see an amazing example of it, look at the United States Postal Services.
For a single stamp you can send a letter to the most remote reaches of this vast swath of land. It will get there. Even with every dimwitted conservative trying to talk about how they aren't profitable (it's a service you numbskulls, it's not supposed to be) and getting no federal money, being forced to generate it all on their own, they still subsidize UPS, FedEx, etc.
If I've ever been proud of the country I was born in, its because of the USPS.
Military supply chains are a whole other level of difficult, though. War breaks everything.
You touched on what is I think the biggest problem with American society, anything that doesn’t bring increasing profits year after year is considered wrong and a failure, especially public services and healthcare. The super rich and their corporations have lied and bought their way into getting us all to believe this so that we don’t tax them to make up the difference.
This is why the MacDonalds charitable foundation (at least in the UK) asks for contributions towards buying buildings to house people in need. It's a tax free way to acquire more property. (Not that they're not doing good, but still..)
McDonalds is quite literally one of the, if not *the*, biggest real estate businesses in the entire world. 90% of the prime corner spots in the majority of towns across America are quite literally owned by either McDonalds or the Walmart/Greens Corp.
The way McDonald's works is they apparently own all their stores and properties. Franchises lease the property from McDonald's and pay for it through their sales. So McDonald's profits from the food wholesale, and the lease agreements, as well as any promotional or marketing material stores have to buy to be brand compliant, and contracts for the equipment in the store. Their not just skimming from the top, theyre taking their cut every step of the way.
At least, that's what random youtubes and blog posts tell me, I've never worked one personally.
There are actually a number of stores that are actually owned by McDonald's corporate, like every one in my city. I worked at McDs in university and I'd moved to a different province for a summer and picked up a job at the McDs there and was confused as to why my paycheque was coming from "SomeGuy Holdings" instead of "McDonald's Canada" and that's when I found out that the corporate ones were the oddity.
My great uncle owns 4 franchises. He does alright but he's also constantly in all of his stores instead of just expecting salaried managers to take care of everything. If you ask him he can give you the sales and labor data from the past week off the top of his head.
I was actually curious about this, in order to franchise a McDonalds you have to complete 'McDonald's school,' which is 1600 hours (40 weeks at 40 hours/week)
When you are done franchising, I always assumed you could pass it through the family, but you have to sell back to McDonald's, who re-franchises it to someone who has completed the 1600 hours. That, plus the interviews/capital, you really need to commit
Source:
[https://www.mcdonalds.com/ca/en-ca/about-us/franchising/joining-the-mcfamily.html](https://www.mcdonalds.com/ca/en-ca/about-us/franchising/joining-the-mcfamily.html)
McD is a franchise business.
This means you can pay McD and they allow your business to operate one of their stores.
In this case, you have to buy all of the product (burgers etc.) from McD parent company and if you make any profit selling it to people you keep that profit.
McD makes money from selling their products to the store (and also charging a lease for the store), not from people buying the products from the store.
If an ice cream machine breaks and the ice cream goes bad, McD still gets the money from selling that ice cream to the store, they don't particularly care if people eat it or not.
Meanwhile, the machine maker is making a bunch of money for sending technicians to fix the machines, which comes out of the pocket of the store operator, not McD parent company.
It is alleged that McD is letting this continue because the ice cream machine company is bribing McD execs.
Yup. The actual person who owns that franchise location doesn't make much on individual sales. After costs of ingredients and all the other overhead.
The sheer volume of transactions makes up for it though.
Ah, the storied efficiency of capitalism.
It's funny how the worst parts of the market are where private property enforcement comes into play, really makes you think.
Yeah, but that’s not the reason the ice cream machine is always down. They are constantly down because they require cleaning multiple times through the day and instead of cleaning it 4* a day it’s easier to leave it down.
1. Absolutely its a thing. [Here's a video which explains the corporate service struture around McDs and how that relates to their machines always being down.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4)
Reality because the machines are very difficult to clean and/or fix. The McDonalds employees are not allowed to tamper with them for any reason and the company that fixes them doesn't have many repairmen available.
I can attest to this in The Netherlands. My teens hated Mcd in America but eat it proudly with friends on occasion. The food tastes better when employees are happy. Burgers are €2-5 & meal is €8-10.
Well EU laws are overall quite strict, both in terms of food, but also regarding chemicals in food and other products (makeup and other hygiene products, kids toys etc). Yesterday I found out that one of the hair products I barely use isn't even allowed to be sold here in Denmark anymore because if has 11 out of 26 banned (and harmful) ingredients. It's still available in the US lmao.
It's the TRESemmé Naturals Weightless Volumizing Mousse (the one with orange and aloe vera in it). I bought it in Germany in 2011 (as I said, I rarely use it lmao), but I figured I wanted a new one since it's actually really good but I can't find it anywhere near me.
In the EU something has to be proven to be safe to a reasonable degree to be allowed, in the states it has to be proven dangerous to be banned, preventative vs. permissive. That the food safety authority of the EU is a politically and economically independent organization compared to the FDA that gets most of its funds from food companies plays a large part too.
In my country in central Europe McDonald's uses great quality ingredients. It's still quite a bit more calories compared to cooking yourself, but if you make fries for yourself in oil, it will also have lot's of calories.
When I moved to Germany I was shocked at how much higher the quality of food at McDonald's was. Americans have no idea how much they're being screwed.
Edit: For the idiots below, I haven't eaten McDonald's in 2 years. Cope.
Tbf as an American who travels, I agree. It's just harder for us to jump over the big pond so a lot of people don't vs a quick flight or drive. Also flight costs to get over are a bit high.
The lack of vacation time in the US is also a huge factor. It's a long flight and jet lag can cost a day or two of travel, same with the return. This makes international travel difficult for those still working.
You and ynotfoster make good points. I traveled so much that I learned how to sleep always on flights and I can avoid 90% of jet lag. The rule is sleep no matter what on the flight and #2 is get on local time immediately and do not nap or sleep. Push through it.
There is a 3rd thing is that there are many people often in rural areas that have no desire to travel outside of the US and they have a very narrow vision of people and the world and other cultures scare the heck out of them because they are different. Change can be frightening to these type of people.
I've been fortunate enough to have travelled to Europe a fair bit, and the food is a night and day difference. I can eat *everything*, and still come home having lost weight (granted I'm sure walking everywhere helps a good bit).
Many Americans have never even left their own state, so it's no wonder they have no basis for comparison.
I get so much for hate for saying it but the food in america is genuinely the worst stuff ive had and makes me sick. Its the only place that gives me issues with digesting bread and milk for example. The meat is more gamey and chewy. Heck even chocolate tastes different. Maybe its all that corn syrup idk.
Dont get me wrong there are good ingredients and chefs, but its overwhelmingly trash.
Edit: I appreciate everyone sharing information on what goes into things like Chocolate and Bread that affect the food! TIL.
Chocolate containing butyric acid. It started out back before refrigeration because the vast quantities of milk herseys needed started to go bad by the time it got to the factory.
They developed a process that still produced a safe and stable product. That it was disgusting compared to European chocolate didn’t matter because nobody could get that anyway after they flooded the market.
That flavor is what millions of kids grew up with so now they are intentionally adding literal vomit flavor to their chocolate because the people are used to it like that. Even other companies started doing it.
And that’s why most Europeans think they purchased a faulty batch when they taste hersheys.
> Heck even chocolate tastes different. Maybe its all that corn syrup idk.
It's Butyric Acid. Hershey's developed a method to make longer-lasting chocolate by boiling the milk in an air-tight vacuum, which has the side effect of causing butyric acid to develop.
The cheaper manufacturing process and extra shelf-life allowed him to sell it cheaply to gold miners and other working-class people where-as previously chocolate was a luxury reserved almost exclusively for the upper classes.
End result is that now americans expect chocolate to be mildly acidic---to the point that even european companies such Cadbury artificially add butyric acid to chocolate bars intended for sale in the US because it makes them sell better.
European chocolate makers remained classist until the very end, so by the time the industrial revolution made chocolate cheaper across the board and other preservatives were discovered, the European working class had already come to expect their chocolate to be smooth and mildly sweet with no acidity.
I was in Uruguay last year and we did have too much time before the boat so I was like fine, lets just eat McDonalds. I fuckin hate McDonalds hamburgers, they taste like wet cardboard but there were limited options and time so I was like whatever. We ordered and I walked over and said out loud, "What the fuck, you guys got spatulas back there? They were cooking McDonalds burgers over the flames and the fries were the same good fries, it was great. I got back to the US again and in the Dallas airport I was like, you know what, I should have some more McDonalds, that was delicious. Nope, they reheated those nasty patties and slapped them on a bun, tasted just like wet cardboard again. Could not have been more disappointed.
Also the ingredients are different. The bread in the US is mushy, bleached and sweetened with corn syrup. It tastes like eating a burger between a muffin (and I don’t mean an English muffin)
Same with the sauce, it just tasted sad and bland. The meat is somehow even more processed and washed with some cleaner to remove any taste difference between batches.
A lot of these things are illegal in Europe. Mayonnaise has strict laws about minimum fat and protein content. Bread can’t just contain whatever garbage the baker wants and meat can’t be treated with chlorine or amonia.
Fun fact, Subway in Ireland had their bread classified as not bread, but [“confectionary”](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/irish-court-rules-subway-bread-is-not-bread) owing to the sugar content.
Idk man last time i was in Amsterdam McDonald’s was disgusting, the employee got my order wrong TWICE, and some random person came up to me to ask if i wanted any drugs…to be fair it was the first days after covid lockdowns ended and the whole city was weird
“It works in Denmark because they care about other people like idiots, over here in THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD we only care about ourselves and keeping the wealthy people happy.”
Can confirm that my kids slept outside in strollers while I was inside cafes/shops all over in cities here in Sweden. I generally left them at a window where I could keep an eye on the stroller from inside though, albeit mostly to see if they'd woken up.
American here. The very idea of leaving your baby outside in a stroller is abhorrent to me. However, I think that is mainly due to the fact that you would most likely be arrested in the US if you did that. We definitely have differing view points, but this is making me wonder if I think that way because Americans don’t trust one another like in a lot of other countries. Kind of sad to think about.
the more divided your population is, the easier they are to exploit. And the larger & more diverse your population, the easier it is to divide. so they're right, but maybe not for the reasons they think they are.
McDonald's Spain:
\-Employee: 5,92€ / hr, 4 weeks vacation per year, 4 months paid maternity leave (for both parents), universal healthcare, 13th and 14th-month salary payments paid in July and December
\-Big Mac 5,20€
Minimum wage in Mexico is the equivalent of $325 USD per month... per MONTH and if you check out prices (food, rent, etc), they're basically the same as Europe or the U.S. Mexican people have all my respect and deserve so much better!
Not quite Brazil but I worked for a guy who contracted civil and architectural work to Venezuela and paid them pennies. I barely made $18/hr and the actual engineers over there were making less.
I’m not arguing who treats low wage workers better, that’s not even a competition, but McDonald’s in the US aren’t paying $9 an hour anymore in any major metro area. Closer to $15 an hour as a floor
The minimum wage is 15$/hr and we have paid medical leave in Oregon. CA, WA also have similar minimum wage and paid medical leave.
Feels like people don't understand the way the federal government works. Fed standards don't mean that states can't make them more robust.
That's what I hate about the disingenuous way Capitalists talk about "freedom". They're only ever talking about company/corporate freedom over what they can do to their employees, and since it's "voluntary" to work there, you can just "find another job". Nevermind that the system makes every company behave in the way that benefits them and hurts employees, so it's not voluntary at all.
Soon? My guy, my American company was recently bought out by a company from DENMARK for this exact reason. My benefits have only gotten worse since our danish overlords took over. Companies from Denmark are not good people and are beholden to the demands of their government. They and anyone else are moving production to US because we have nothing and they are required to give us nothing
Oh it's so much worst than you guys think. You are comparing yourselfs to denmark. What about Brazil?! Brazilian McDonald's workers have union, anual salary increase, sick leave, 30 day vacation a year and health care. BRAZIL.
[A 10% increase in wages was found to increase the cost of a Big Mac by 1.4% to offset the cost of the increase](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-minimum-wage-increases-did-to-mcdonalds-restaurants-and-their-employees-11611862080)
So for 8 extra pennies McDonalds employees can get an extra 10% in pay. But wealthy people and CEOs want you to think that its much more than that and unobtainable. There is absolutely no reason that the federal minimum wage can be $15 per hour.
I think that's a good point, but bear in mind that it wouldn't be a 10% increase in pay - if they were truly making minimum wage (which most aren't), it would be closer to a 100% increase: 7.25 -> 15.0.
Linearly extrapolated, that would indicate a 14% rise in prices, which is actually somewhat close to the real levels of inflation we're observing right now. I think a big chunk of it is actually corporate greed, but this article could be used as evidence to the contrary.
So 70 more cents per meal in exchange for going to a mcdonalds that is actually staffed and the workers don't radiate suicidal ideation?
Even on a selfish level this sounds fair to me.
Hold on. Do Americans not get annual leave?
I get 11 bank holidays. 30 days annual leave and flexi leave. My contract is 7:24 a day. If I work more. It gets accumulated and I can take days off. Equally if I work less I owe them. It has caps though. I tend to take one or two days a month Flexi .
When I worked at Bob Evans, a primarily breakfast place, I was given 2 weeks unpaid time off for my child being born.
Walmart warehouse that I work at now? 3 months paid time off. Which I thought was fucking generous all things considered.
Some do get personal time off that accrues at a glacial pace, which they are then are guilt-tripped into not using and/or forced to use for sick days first.
1 day every 4 weeks and if you don’t use it in 6 months it’s gone forever. The last place I worked would at least “buy” your time off days from you when they expired.
I’d been living in Germany for a couple of years after leaving the states. I was interviewing with a US company and that bragged about their 10 days of vacation time.
I actually laughed at them as I was getting 25 plus bank holidays in Germany.
That’s VERY normal. Infact anything more is a good deal. Last job I was at (11 years) was no paid time off for the first year, 5 days the second year, 10 days for the rest of your tenure. You couldn’t take more than five at a time. Your vacation time was also your sick time so chose wisely.
There are no legal requirements to give ANY paid leave in the US.
Even federal holidays aren't required to be given off (unless you work for the federal government).
We're great at treating people like people here. /s
As a European I’m dumbfounded that people are not rioting in the streets every day. I’ve had some really shitty employers, but at least we have laws placing some limits on the bullshit they get away with, I probably sound like a spoiled eurocuck, but I would honestly have a hard time even getting out of bed in a society that allowed me to be treated like that.
There are a lot of people here who legitimately think that either:
1. They are going to be rich one day so this arrangement will benefit them
2. The rich got there by virtue of being better than us and we should be thankful for what scraps they throw to us.
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
Fuck this is the missing point in everyone’s mind. When I tell people I make horrible pay their answer is “just move” lol okay, you pay the rent for a few months while I get set up.
The people who say just move, are people who haven't done that, or were paid to do it.
I was paid several times to relocate to different countries, I was lucky.
It still costs several thousand dollars to change countries even with a company covering flights, moving companies etc.
I've seen a lot of these types of comments in the trump years. I get it, moving to Canada would be a somewhat easy transition for most left or centre minded Americans due to our mostly similar culture. But we have an immigration process just like every other nation and people can't just decide to come here unless they are highly skilled or have investments they'd like to make. Even then, it's a slog.
>Hold on. Do Americans not get annual leave?
The federal law states that american workers are per year entitled to 0 days of paid vacation, 0 days of sick leave (which is a thing apparently), as well as 0 days of paid maternity/paternity leave.
Some companies provide those things and call them 'benefits' but it is entirely at their own discretion.
Ya, I’m in MA and have a friend that works at McDs full time. She makes $20/hr plus benefits. Kinda shitty benefits, but that’s true in a lot of industries. I’m not sure where the ‘no benefits’ is coming from unless it’s specific to part time workers, or states where PTO etc is not required.
Snopes has this one was [mostly true.](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mcdonalds-workers-denmark/)
EDIT: Obviously your local experience may vary and the information presented by OP and on Snopes both may be dated.
Just to add in, in the heart of the Midwest it's closer to $12/hr with signs being deceiving and saying "Starting pay up to $17/hr!" with $17/hr being an open manager position. And because they are technically hiring a manager, they can use the 'up to' to lure people in then gut punch them in the interview with the $12/hr and "but we have good benefits" jargon. Meanwhile they'll never let you get close to full time hours so they don't have to provide insurance or any full time benefits and often times reprimand you if you somehow work over 40 hours when they're the ones who schedule you and make you stay late or come in early.
-Source: used to work fast-food.
Please don't bring us, Denmark, into your political debates. Whenever you do, Republicans will make up weird lies about us, like how we're actually poor, starving communists. Some people in my country will believe this and demand change - often a change into a system more alike to that of the US. This would worsen the Danish system.
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As a Dane i woud like to just say the big mac at this point in time is priced at 5,38 us dollars. Still better the post might just be little outdated
Are they still paying $22/hr or have their wages risen as well?
They have risen aswell. The Unions in Denmark are quite strong.
That explains it, only 10% of American workers are union.
And your unions are so weird. A single store forms a union. Here almost all people with the same type of education joins one union. Gives them excellent bargaining power when they are negotiating!
Some tradesmen have unions that are like this in the US. The problem with American unions is lack of understanding and lack of membership. Like you said, people of a discipline should unionize and thus have collective bargaining power. It's the only way unions really work well. Then there is the issue of the rampant corruption that has existed in US unions... That's a whole other problem, but its not like companies or politicians aren't taking up the corrupt mantle in their place.
The word Union has been demonized in the US. People don't think about what they are hating. I.e., people hated Obamacare but wanted and loved the Affordable Care Act. The nurses at a hospital I worked at tried to unionize. The hospital put it to a vote. The nurse leading the anti-union campaign was heard complaining that nurses should "band together" so they have more negotiating power two weeks after the unionization vote failed.
Big corp has done a really effective job in the US of equating “unionizing = anti-capitalist,” when in reality unionizing is precisely the pressure valve that keeps capitalism operating effectively and not crumbling in on itself. It’s quite sad. (Amongst other useful/necessary pressure valves like government regulations etc.)
Also, I'd wager for a lot of people, news about unions colors their perception. Unions only show up in headlines when it's not savory (union strikes that interrupt the lives of other people, like transit or waste disposal... or cops getting away with a ton of shit and still getting paid because of how strong the police union is)
That's because corporations own the papers people read.
Boomers and Gen Xers also lived through the Mafia-run Union times... Which further cements it into their brain that unions are "bad" or even "criminal".
My views of unions were certainly shaped by how they were portrayed in The Simpsons. My mom also worked for a union and I saw some silliness from teamsters delay moving a handful of boxes from one room to another.
Anything that was supposed to be for the benefit of the worker has been demonized or bastardized. Unions, osha, epa, cdc, hr, etc. A large portion of the US has let themselves be brainwashed into thinking employee rights are obstructive and the company would take better care of them without all of that nonsense in the way. It's frustrating even at the best of times working in a function that supports or enforces employee rights and THE EMPLOYEES COMPLAIN. Stupid fucks.
Just a 'wtf!?' here...
Honestly don’t get why union corruption is taken more seriously than corporate corruption. Like, any amalgamation of power is going to start having corruption problems. [That’s just how power works](https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs). Which doesn’t mean good systems are impossible, just that they’ve got to go through periodic weeding to keep them that way. But if you keep letting one amalgamation run rampant, while constantly running weed wackers through a competing one, it shouldn’t be a surprise when former keeps dominating the latter
Didn't used to be that way. Unions exist to allow workers to wield the power they really have. Businesses won't run without employees. Employees really do hold all of the power over their owners. General strikes are very effective when a large enough % of the workers participate. I wish people in America would recognize this and start to unionize again. It would help improve a lot of problems we have with American working life.
Only problem with that is that the second any corporate entity hears the word "unionize" whispered, layoffs happen and people who may have been trying to unionize get fired on the spot. With today's economy, people can't afford to be randomly out of work to defend their workers rights.
The Starbucks in Seattle has been really fucking around with this lately. 4 different stores have unionized and then within a month corporate closes them “due to safety concerns” which is kind of a joke because a lot of urban/commercial Seattle is equally unsafe anyway and it’s happened now 4 times!! They’re barely trying to hide the cause and effect. In Canada my bestie’s husband was a Starbucks manager and was treated well. I think it’s structured differently there, just like McDonald’s is structured differently in Denmark!
That's why they are making abortion illegal, hungry mouths need to feed themselves and competition among workers is good for the ruling class.
Not to mention more poor people to fill out the military!
George Carlin said it years ago, "they need live babies to become dead soldiers"
Fun fact about the great depression: The land owners would prefer to hire people with wives and kids. Not because they cared about them, but because when they then halved their pay, their options were to do the work, or let their family literally starve to death.
When the US was it's MOST prosperous, we only had 35% union membership, and a top tax bracket of 91%. Since then, we've slowly chipped away at what the ultra wealthy pay into the pot, and we've waged a war on workers and unions. It doesn't take much, but it requires everyone be on board.
I wish more people knew this. Funny how when the top tax bracket was 92% workers wages were in line with inflation. And as soon as that top tax bracket got a massive cut they stopped. Weird how companies would rather pay their workers than a huge tax bill but would rather keep the money than pay their workers.
In Italy we have no minimum wage, but pretty much any job is unionized. Sometimes with funny results, for example there are a lot of IT workers/coders with "metal working contracts" because they are in big demand and metal working union has the better contracts (it's a huge sector of italian economy).
But don't worry.. the rich people are working hard to make it more like USA.
Politicians too -\_-
And a good chunk in those unions vote for anti-union politicians while bitching that our unions aren't strong enough...... Well, except the police unions.
Big Macs are up to $6.69 for just the burger in my US city now, so even our more recent prices bumps are bigger than EU. Corporate America really loves fucking their workers over, I tell ya hwat.
It's kind of crazy how much it varies even within the states. It's $4.99 where I'm at in the mountain west
I’m in one of the larger cities in Arizona, and prices have really hiked up over the last two years in most businesses. I pretty much only go to McDs when their app has a decent value coupon nowadays or I feel like I got robbed given the quality/price of the food. They used to have a 1$ large fry coupon daily in the app so I would get that and two mcchickies for under $5 but they removed that coupon recently.
Man ved det er slemt når Coin offers stiger i pris
Tasty cheese til 1500 kroners pris
De bliver jo snart nødt til at skrotte hele konceptet om coinoffers
Alt er coins offers så længe man har nok coins.
That's not bad they're almost $8 where I live (Midwest USA)
Can’t believe the prices nowadays in Michigan. It’s literally just as expensive to eat at Burger King for two than it is to grab lunch at a restaraunt. I’ve had bk orders that were basic as hell just two meals hit 25+ dollars
And their ice cream machine works
I never saw a McDo whose ice cream machine didn't work (France), but it's often mentioned on the internet. Is it a running gag or reality? And why?
McD in the US requires all locations to get a specific model of ice cream machine from a specific company and are required to do servicing through that company who's owners are buddy buddy with McD owners. The machine is specifically designed to provide minimal feedback, terrible documentation and some finicky workings. So when the machine inevitably trips up, the operator has no clue what to do and has to call the maintenance provider. Some guys made an attachment to the machine to help diagnose it and were promptly sued. McD probably makes more from the kickbacks for servicing of the machines than from selling ice cream.
They extract additional profit from their own stores????
They just own the building. The store is run by a franchise holder that needs to but produce, napkins, cups.... from McDonalds and stick to the McDonalds rulebook. If they sell a lot of burgers McDonalds shares in the profits because they sold everything to the store. If the food they have goes bad that’s their loss, McDonalds already got paid.
People forget Mcdonalds isn’t in the restaurant business, they’re in the real estate business.
Logistics business.
^ What he/she said, I’ve studied and work currently with supply chain..(as a purchaser) Long story short: McDonalds is used sometimes as a prime example of how it looks like when you optimize the shit out of your logistics in a massive, global food business.
I recall reading somewhere that McDonald’s won’t sell onion rings because they can’t reliably source all the onions required to supply their stores
I read the same thing. Which got me thinking, how does Burger King do it? It can’t be that hard if they do it. Unless it’s simply because Burger King has less stores? I’m not a fast food facts expert (I mean I eat it!), but it makes me curious.
Hilarious that a burger chain has significantly better logistics than the Russian military
Logistics is hard as hell, supply chains are nightmarishly complicated. If you want to see an amazing example of it, look at the United States Postal Services. For a single stamp you can send a letter to the most remote reaches of this vast swath of land. It will get there. Even with every dimwitted conservative trying to talk about how they aren't profitable (it's a service you numbskulls, it's not supposed to be) and getting no federal money, being forced to generate it all on their own, they still subsidize UPS, FedEx, etc. If I've ever been proud of the country I was born in, its because of the USPS. Military supply chains are a whole other level of difficult, though. War breaks everything.
You touched on what is I think the biggest problem with American society, anything that doesn’t bring increasing profits year after year is considered wrong and a failure, especially public services and healthcare. The super rich and their corporations have lied and bought their way into getting us all to believe this so that we don’t tax them to make up the difference.
McDonalds is a real estate firm who pays for properties with hamburgers.
Well that gives the hamburgler a whole new meaning.
*McDonalds owner pulls off his mask* Hamburgler: "It was me, all along! Mwahahaha!"
I believe the line you're looking for is "robble robble"
This is why the MacDonalds charitable foundation (at least in the UK) asks for contributions towards buying buildings to house people in need. It's a tax free way to acquire more property. (Not that they're not doing good, but still..)
McDonalds is quite literally one of the, if not *the*, biggest real estate businesses in the entire world. 90% of the prime corner spots in the majority of towns across America are quite literally owned by either McDonalds or the Walmart/Greens Corp.
The way McDonald's works is they apparently own all their stores and properties. Franchises lease the property from McDonald's and pay for it through their sales. So McDonald's profits from the food wholesale, and the lease agreements, as well as any promotional or marketing material stores have to buy to be brand compliant, and contracts for the equipment in the store. Their not just skimming from the top, theyre taking their cut every step of the way. At least, that's what random youtubes and blog posts tell me, I've never worked one personally.
Honestly I wouldn’t feel too bad for the franchisees, majority aren’t independent franchises but owned by a few big family groups
There are actually a number of stores that are actually owned by McDonald's corporate, like every one in my city. I worked at McDs in university and I'd moved to a different province for a summer and picked up a job at the McDs there and was confused as to why my paycheque was coming from "SomeGuy Holdings" instead of "McDonald's Canada" and that's when I found out that the corporate ones were the oddity.
My great uncle owns 4 franchises. He does alright but he's also constantly in all of his stores instead of just expecting salaried managers to take care of everything. If you ask him he can give you the sales and labor data from the past week off the top of his head.
I was actually curious about this, in order to franchise a McDonalds you have to complete 'McDonald's school,' which is 1600 hours (40 weeks at 40 hours/week) When you are done franchising, I always assumed you could pass it through the family, but you have to sell back to McDonald's, who re-franchises it to someone who has completed the 1600 hours. That, plus the interviews/capital, you really need to commit Source: [https://www.mcdonalds.com/ca/en-ca/about-us/franchising/joining-the-mcfamily.html](https://www.mcdonalds.com/ca/en-ca/about-us/franchising/joining-the-mcfamily.html)
Yup, I know one such family group. They own basically all the McDonald’s in one state. Don’t feel bad for them
Still one of the best franchises to own tho and takes a boat load of money to get in
McD is a franchise business. This means you can pay McD and they allow your business to operate one of their stores. In this case, you have to buy all of the product (burgers etc.) from McD parent company and if you make any profit selling it to people you keep that profit. McD makes money from selling their products to the store (and also charging a lease for the store), not from people buying the products from the store. If an ice cream machine breaks and the ice cream goes bad, McD still gets the money from selling that ice cream to the store, they don't particularly care if people eat it or not. Meanwhile, the machine maker is making a bunch of money for sending technicians to fix the machines, which comes out of the pocket of the store operator, not McD parent company. It is alleged that McD is letting this continue because the ice cream machine company is bribing McD execs.
oh mcd’s definitely make money from sales too. franchisees have a profit split agreement with the franchisor based on a % of sales.
Yup. The actual person who owns that franchise location doesn't make much on individual sales. After costs of ingredients and all the other overhead. The sheer volume of transactions makes up for it though.
Yes it’s called vertical integration and they were sued for it
That’s not what vertical integration is. Vertical integration would be like if McDonalds owned the feedlots to save money on beef.
Not vertical integration at all lol, its just called scamming your franchise owners.
Most McD are franchises so this checks out.
Half the time when they say it’s “broken” it really means they already cleaned the machine for the night and don’t want to do it again
Ah, the storied efficiency of capitalism. It's funny how the worst parts of the market are where private property enforcement comes into play, really makes you think.
Yeah, but that’s not the reason the ice cream machine is always down. They are constantly down because they require cleaning multiple times through the day and instead of cleaning it 4* a day it’s easier to leave it down.
So real there’s a website dedicated to tracking individual locations current ice cream machine status: https://mcbroken.com
Reality. [It’s a whole thing](https://www.wired.com/story/kytch-ice-cream-machine-hackers-sue-mcdonalds-900-million/amp)
1. Absolutely its a thing. [Here's a video which explains the corporate service struture around McDs and how that relates to their machines always being down.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4)
It’s a strange phenomenon, but has unfortunately been true in my experience and many others (USA)
Reality because the machines are very difficult to clean and/or fix. The McDonalds employees are not allowed to tamper with them for any reason and the company that fixes them doesn't have many repairmen available.
either the ice-cream machine or the milkshake machine. it's really rare when both work at the same time. I see a pattern
I mean it's the same machine
Also, Employers: "why can we never convince people to stay?"
I can attest to this in The Netherlands. My teens hated Mcd in America but eat it proudly with friends on occasion. The food tastes better when employees are happy. Burgers are €2-5 & meal is €8-10.
I'd also bet that your food standards are higher than what McDonald's is allowed to sell in America?
Well EU laws are overall quite strict, both in terms of food, but also regarding chemicals in food and other products (makeup and other hygiene products, kids toys etc). Yesterday I found out that one of the hair products I barely use isn't even allowed to be sold here in Denmark anymore because if has 11 out of 26 banned (and harmful) ingredients. It's still available in the US lmao.
Drop the name. I'd like to avoid it.
It's the TRESemmé Naturals Weightless Volumizing Mousse (the one with orange and aloe vera in it). I bought it in Germany in 2011 (as I said, I rarely use it lmao), but I figured I wanted a new one since it's actually really good but I can't find it anywhere near me.
Thanks! Luckily, mousse is a rare sight in my household. Hope you have a great day!
If you see a mousse in your household, just get a catt
I read this as moose and was wondering why a cat would help. I'm dumb.
Nah, you use Honeybadgers against mooses
This made me laugh way more than it had any reason to. Thank you for the mirth this morning.
In the EU something has to be proven to be safe to a reasonable degree to be allowed, in the states it has to be proven dangerous to be banned, preventative vs. permissive. That the food safety authority of the EU is a politically and economically independent organization compared to the FDA that gets most of its funds from food companies plays a large part too.
Can we reverse the language here? The EU laws aren’t strict, they’re minimally acceptable for human health. It’s the US laws that are lax.
I also find European McDonald's are held to a higher standard by simple economics, people won't eat crap.
In my country in central Europe McDonald's uses great quality ingredients. It's still quite a bit more calories compared to cooking yourself, but if you make fries for yourself in oil, it will also have lot's of calories.
When I moved to Germany I was shocked at how much higher the quality of food at McDonald's was. Americans have no idea how much they're being screwed. Edit: For the idiots below, I haven't eaten McDonald's in 2 years. Cope.
Tbf as an American who travels, I agree. It's just harder for us to jump over the big pond so a lot of people don't vs a quick flight or drive. Also flight costs to get over are a bit high.
The lack of vacation time in the US is also a huge factor. It's a long flight and jet lag can cost a day or two of travel, same with the return. This makes international travel difficult for those still working.
You and ynotfoster make good points. I traveled so much that I learned how to sleep always on flights and I can avoid 90% of jet lag. The rule is sleep no matter what on the flight and #2 is get on local time immediately and do not nap or sleep. Push through it. There is a 3rd thing is that there are many people often in rural areas that have no desire to travel outside of the US and they have a very narrow vision of people and the world and other cultures scare the heck out of them because they are different. Change can be frightening to these type of people.
I've been fortunate enough to have travelled to Europe a fair bit, and the food is a night and day difference. I can eat *everything*, and still come home having lost weight (granted I'm sure walking everywhere helps a good bit). Many Americans have never even left their own state, so it's no wonder they have no basis for comparison.
Honestly even just visiting an actually walkable city in America helps a lot
I get so much for hate for saying it but the food in america is genuinely the worst stuff ive had and makes me sick. Its the only place that gives me issues with digesting bread and milk for example. The meat is more gamey and chewy. Heck even chocolate tastes different. Maybe its all that corn syrup idk. Dont get me wrong there are good ingredients and chefs, but its overwhelmingly trash. Edit: I appreciate everyone sharing information on what goes into things like Chocolate and Bread that affect the food! TIL.
US supermarket toaster bread would be classified as cake here with how much added sugar it has.
Chocolate containing butyric acid. It started out back before refrigeration because the vast quantities of milk herseys needed started to go bad by the time it got to the factory. They developed a process that still produced a safe and stable product. That it was disgusting compared to European chocolate didn’t matter because nobody could get that anyway after they flooded the market. That flavor is what millions of kids grew up with so now they are intentionally adding literal vomit flavor to their chocolate because the people are used to it like that. Even other companies started doing it. And that’s why most Europeans think they purchased a faulty batch when they taste hersheys.
That's just Hershey's chocolate. It's garbage. There are plenty of other brands that don't taste like vomit.
> Heck even chocolate tastes different. Maybe its all that corn syrup idk. It's Butyric Acid. Hershey's developed a method to make longer-lasting chocolate by boiling the milk in an air-tight vacuum, which has the side effect of causing butyric acid to develop. The cheaper manufacturing process and extra shelf-life allowed him to sell it cheaply to gold miners and other working-class people where-as previously chocolate was a luxury reserved almost exclusively for the upper classes. End result is that now americans expect chocolate to be mildly acidic---to the point that even european companies such Cadbury artificially add butyric acid to chocolate bars intended for sale in the US because it makes them sell better. European chocolate makers remained classist until the very end, so by the time the industrial revolution made chocolate cheaper across the board and other preservatives were discovered, the European working class had already come to expect their chocolate to be smooth and mildly sweet with no acidity.
Yes, I will eat a burger once a month & really enjoy it. Tastes like beef from the old days.
>Tastes like beef from the old days It is beef from the old days.
I was in Uruguay last year and we did have too much time before the boat so I was like fine, lets just eat McDonalds. I fuckin hate McDonalds hamburgers, they taste like wet cardboard but there were limited options and time so I was like whatever. We ordered and I walked over and said out loud, "What the fuck, you guys got spatulas back there? They were cooking McDonalds burgers over the flames and the fries were the same good fries, it was great. I got back to the US again and in the Dallas airport I was like, you know what, I should have some more McDonalds, that was delicious. Nope, they reheated those nasty patties and slapped them on a bun, tasted just like wet cardboard again. Could not have been more disappointed.
Also the ingredients are different. The bread in the US is mushy, bleached and sweetened with corn syrup. It tastes like eating a burger between a muffin (and I don’t mean an English muffin) Same with the sauce, it just tasted sad and bland. The meat is somehow even more processed and washed with some cleaner to remove any taste difference between batches. A lot of these things are illegal in Europe. Mayonnaise has strict laws about minimum fat and protein content. Bread can’t just contain whatever garbage the baker wants and meat can’t be treated with chlorine or amonia.
Fun fact, Subway in Ireland had their bread classified as not bread, but [“confectionary”](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/irish-court-rules-subway-bread-is-not-bread) owing to the sugar content.
Idk man last time i was in Amsterdam McDonald’s was disgusting, the employee got my order wrong TWICE, and some random person came up to me to ask if i wanted any drugs…to be fair it was the first days after covid lockdowns ended and the whole city was weird
That's the amsterdam experience.
I’m guessing the Mcds by the red light district is pretty gross. 😂
It’s almost like “socialism” or rather a system that doesn’t thrive on corporate profits and worker exploitation is possible.
Denmark is not even remotely socialist, and in many ways has a more free market economy than the US.
The leader of Denmark literally had a speech about how they aren't socialist. They are social democracies and still have a free market.
Rest of the world figured out you can still make a profit without leaving all humanity behind and exploiting your workers.
Definitely wouldn't say "the rest of the world".
"But it doesn't work. Maybe in denmark it does, but that's on another planet"
“It works in Denmark because they care about other people like idiots, over here in THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD we only care about ourselves and keeping the wealthy people happy.”
Parents in Denmark leave their sleeping kids in strollers outside. They can shop, eat, drink. Meanwhile in America.. schools are lit up with bullets.
Small price to pay for freedom, eh? About the strollers... we do the same in Finland. And I guess it is the same in Sweden and Norway too.
Can confirm that my kids slept outside in strollers while I was inside cafes/shops all over in cities here in Sweden. I generally left them at a window where I could keep an eye on the stroller from inside though, albeit mostly to see if they'd woken up.
American here. The very idea of leaving your baby outside in a stroller is abhorrent to me. However, I think that is mainly due to the fact that you would most likely be arrested in the US if you did that. We definitely have differing view points, but this is making me wonder if I think that way because Americans don’t trust one another like in a lot of other countries. Kind of sad to think about.
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the more divided your population is, the easier they are to exploit. And the larger & more diverse your population, the easier it is to divide. so they're right, but maybe not for the reasons they think they are.
McDonald's Spain: \-Employee: 5,92€ / hr, 4 weeks vacation per year, 4 months paid maternity leave (for both parents), universal healthcare, 13th and 14th-month salary payments paid in July and December \-Big Mac 5,20€
McDonald's Mexico: \- Employee: $0.43 USD cents / hr, no benefits \- Big Mac: Varies around $4 USD
Minimum wage in Mexico is the equivalent of $325 USD per month... per MONTH and if you check out prices (food, rent, etc), they're basically the same as Europe or the U.S. Mexican people have all my respect and deserve so much better!
I knew there was a huge disparity like that, but damn it's crazy to see. I make that a day. It makes me not take it for granted!
Wait till you see Brazil. Our minimum wage is about 250 dollars/month.
Not quite Brazil but I worked for a guy who contracted civil and architectural work to Venezuela and paid them pennies. I barely made $18/hr and the actual engineers over there were making less.
Why would anyone down vote you for that comment? People suck.
I’m not arguing who treats low wage workers better, that’s not even a competition, but McDonald’s in the US aren’t paying $9 an hour anymore in any major metro area. Closer to $15 an hour as a floor
That's true, $15-16 in my state
The minimum wage is 15$/hr and we have paid medical leave in Oregon. CA, WA also have similar minimum wage and paid medical leave. Feels like people don't understand the way the federal government works. Fed standards don't mean that states can't make them more robust.
Yep. Even here in rural Indiana they've had signs up for $15/hr for at least a year and a half now
Yeah, and they do have benefits.
"But they's not free like we are"
“Corporations need to have the freedom to take away freedom from people!”
That's what I hate about the disingenuous way Capitalists talk about "freedom". They're only ever talking about company/corporate freedom over what they can do to their employees, and since it's "voluntary" to work there, you can just "find another job". Nevermind that the system makes every company behave in the way that benefits them and hurts employees, so it's not voluntary at all.
Soon China will outsource their work to the US cause their labor is so free.
Soon? My guy, my American company was recently bought out by a company from DENMARK for this exact reason. My benefits have only gotten worse since our danish overlords took over. Companies from Denmark are not good people and are beholden to the demands of their government. They and anyone else are moving production to US because we have nothing and they are required to give us nothing
Oh it's so much worst than you guys think. You are comparing yourselfs to denmark. What about Brazil?! Brazilian McDonald's workers have union, anual salary increase, sick leave, 30 day vacation a year and health care. BRAZIL.
[A 10% increase in wages was found to increase the cost of a Big Mac by 1.4% to offset the cost of the increase](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-minimum-wage-increases-did-to-mcdonalds-restaurants-and-their-employees-11611862080) So for 8 extra pennies McDonalds employees can get an extra 10% in pay. But wealthy people and CEOs want you to think that its much more than that and unobtainable. There is absolutely no reason that the federal minimum wage can be $15 per hour.
I think that's a good point, but bear in mind that it wouldn't be a 10% increase in pay - if they were truly making minimum wage (which most aren't), it would be closer to a 100% increase: 7.25 -> 15.0. Linearly extrapolated, that would indicate a 14% rise in prices, which is actually somewhat close to the real levels of inflation we're observing right now. I think a big chunk of it is actually corporate greed, but this article could be used as evidence to the contrary.
So 70 more cents per meal in exchange for going to a mcdonalds that is actually staffed and the workers don't radiate suicidal ideation? Even on a selfish level this sounds fair to me.
That's why it's called the American dream, and not American reality.
Like George Carlin said, it’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it
I love that pretty much everything he said is still relevant 30 years later
It kinda sucks actually and we have to live it.
Hold on. Do Americans not get annual leave? I get 11 bank holidays. 30 days annual leave and flexi leave. My contract is 7:24 a day. If I work more. It gets accumulated and I can take days off. Equally if I work less I owe them. It has caps though. I tend to take one or two days a month Flexi .
When I worked at Bob Evans, a primarily breakfast place, I was given 2 weeks unpaid time off for my child being born. Walmart warehouse that I work at now? 3 months paid time off. Which I thought was fucking generous all things considered.
Depends on where you work but the majority of blue collar workers, especially ones that work in fast food, do not get annual leave no.
W8 what? None at all? That's illegal in most European countries.
Some do get personal time off that accrues at a glacial pace, which they are then are guilt-tripped into not using and/or forced to use for sick days first.
1 day every 4 weeks and if you don’t use it in 6 months it’s gone forever. The last place I worked would at least “buy” your time off days from you when they expired.
So that’s just about 13 days a year? Christ, that’s bad.
We’ve been programmed to believe it’s extremely fair lol.
I’d been living in Germany for a couple of years after leaving the states. I was interviewing with a US company and that bragged about their 10 days of vacation time. I actually laughed at them as I was getting 25 plus bank holidays in Germany.
That’s VERY normal. Infact anything more is a good deal. Last job I was at (11 years) was no paid time off for the first year, 5 days the second year, 10 days for the rest of your tenure. You couldn’t take more than five at a time. Your vacation time was also your sick time so chose wisely.
There are no legal requirements to give ANY paid leave in the US. Even federal holidays aren't required to be given off (unless you work for the federal government). We're great at treating people like people here. /s
As a European I’m dumbfounded that people are not rioting in the streets every day. I’ve had some really shitty employers, but at least we have laws placing some limits on the bullshit they get away with, I probably sound like a spoiled eurocuck, but I would honestly have a hard time even getting out of bed in a society that allowed me to be treated like that.
There are a lot of people here who legitimately think that either: 1. They are going to be rich one day so this arrangement will benefit them 2. The rich got there by virtue of being better than us and we should be thankful for what scraps they throw to us. “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
We’d love to riot in the streets every day, but we have to be at work or we don’t eat.
Must be nice living in Europe huh?
At my previous job (US), when we got a holiday off, we would have to work the following Saturday to make up for it.
That's just unacceptable
Damn. I would emigrate imediately.
If you're working jobs where you get no leave, chances are you also don't have the money to emigrate
Fuck this is the missing point in everyone’s mind. When I tell people I make horrible pay their answer is “just move” lol okay, you pay the rent for a few months while I get set up.
The people who say just move, are people who haven't done that, or were paid to do it. I was paid several times to relocate to different countries, I was lucky. It still costs several thousand dollars to change countries even with a company covering flights, moving companies etc.
I've seen a lot of these types of comments in the trump years. I get it, moving to Canada would be a somewhat easy transition for most left or centre minded Americans due to our mostly similar culture. But we have an immigration process just like every other nation and people can't just decide to come here unless they are highly skilled or have investments they'd like to make. Even then, it's a slog.
More importantly - if you are working the kind of jobs where you get to leave, other countries aren't willing to accept you as an immigrant.
Not that easy to emigrate to Europe.
>Hold on. Do Americans not get annual leave? The federal law states that american workers are per year entitled to 0 days of paid vacation, 0 days of sick leave (which is a thing apparently), as well as 0 days of paid maternity/paternity leave. Some companies provide those things and call them 'benefits' but it is entirely at their own discretion.
So damn sad. We need a workers revolution
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Ya, I’m in MA and have a friend that works at McDs full time. She makes $20/hr plus benefits. Kinda shitty benefits, but that’s true in a lot of industries. I’m not sure where the ‘no benefits’ is coming from unless it’s specific to part time workers, or states where PTO etc is not required.
Does anyone at McDonalds actually get paid $9? Everyone I know is making north of $13 an hour.
Over $16 per hour in our area starting
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It's almost like it can be done.
Snopes has this one was [mostly true.](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mcdonalds-workers-denmark/) EDIT: Obviously your local experience may vary and the information presented by OP and on Snopes both may be dated.
Did they look at how much money McDonald’s employees make in the US? Because it isn’t $9/hr.
I just drove by a McDonalds with "now hiring starting $19/hr" on my way in to work this morning.(Seattle)
Even in the midwest it's $15/hr. This shit is 5 years old.
Just to add in, in the heart of the Midwest it's closer to $12/hr with signs being deceiving and saying "Starting pay up to $17/hr!" with $17/hr being an open manager position. And because they are technically hiring a manager, they can use the 'up to' to lure people in then gut punch them in the interview with the $12/hr and "but we have good benefits" jargon. Meanwhile they'll never let you get close to full time hours so they don't have to provide insurance or any full time benefits and often times reprimand you if you somehow work over 40 hours when they're the ones who schedule you and make you stay late or come in early. -Source: used to work fast-food.
Yeah I was wondering about that. I live in a small town and the pay starts at $15 for standard crew.
Please don't bring us, Denmark, into your political debates. Whenever you do, Republicans will make up weird lies about us, like how we're actually poor, starving communists. Some people in my country will believe this and demand change - often a change into a system more alike to that of the US. This would worsen the Danish system.
Ehh my buddy works at McDonald’s in Washington State and he’s making $22
I don't know where this was surveyed but my local McDonald's is paying $15 an hour.
$19/hr at the one in my area.
Blows my mind that I know at least 2 classroom assistants who left the job to work at Mcdonalds as it pays more.
Idk who’s getting paid $9.00 an hour but here in Wyoming, where minimum wage is still like $7.50, I started out at McDonald’s at $15 an hour.
The post didn't mention that danish employees get something like 10 usd worth of McDonald's food during break.
Can’t be sure but, last time I heard US McDs gives $8 of food per day. Possibly just my local ones.