Coalition of Franchisee Associations

March 28, 2021

McDonald's Isn't Unionized But You Can See It From Here

This article was publish before Biden was inaugurated but it certainly is prescient. 

It is reported that the McDonald's system contributed $186,873 to the two presidential candidates. 

44.9% went to Biden and 55.1% to Trump. What will the system get for giving all that money to Biden? Unionized, that's what you'll get.

I don't know if any McDonald's stores will be unionized in the next few years but the system will come closer to unionization than at anytime in its history.

 Biden promises to be the most pro union President

11 comments:

Richard Adams said...

$$$ Source: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/mcdonald-s-corp/summary?id=D000000373

Richard Adams said...

I've been a political junkie for most of my adult life and am stunned at how divisive and violent our politics has become in the past 10/12 years. The idea that an entity can spread some money around and obtain a "seat at the table" is completely antiquated. It might be better to not contribute any money to anyone.

But the political consultants, lobbyists, and corporate governmental affairs people will tell you they have all the answers while using strategies they've been using for decades. Meanwhile, everything has changed. It's very gracious for McDonald's Owner/Operators to still provide full employment to dinosaurs.

When President G.W. Bush left the White House one of his top guys, Karl Rove, started appearing on Fox News. Karl has a supercomputer for a brain and can rattle off national election reults county by county from the last 20 years. Today, Karl can still do the numbers but his actual political advice is useless, Again, everything's changed.

Should there even be a PAC? Should the McDonald's system even show up on political contribution reports? Should you be taking advice from and giving money to people who learned about politics by studying Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson. These are questions that should be asked because being publicly involved in politics has become a lose-lose proposition.
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Anonymous said...

I disagree that everything has changed. Much has, but the 2 most important things remain at top of mind for every political leader:

1- money and raising more of it.
2-the next election.

Nothing else comes close.

Anonymous said...

The McDonalds Corporate threshold in America has already tilted with its leaders personal politcal bias. McDonald's USA is for the most part run by foreign influences from Europe to Australia.

While you can always take the person out of their socialist country, you can't take the socialist country out of the person.

These people never owned or ran their own independent company. They grew up in socialist systems that for the most part stifled independent thought and bankrupted their home countries. Its why they headed to America in the first place. Now, they are trying to led a free and independent franchise in running their business. When in doubt, they revert to what they know best- the system they grew up in, and not the acquire the expertise of the system they are currently operating.

There is no one in McDonalds Corporation with the history of the franchise model or brand responsibility. Soon, corporate will deplete the same knowledge and expertise out of the operator arena too. Its a real threat to them.

Anonymous said...

Should there be a PAC type function, YES!

But under the direction and control of a pure operator function, like the NOA.

Operators are being told to buy stock as an effort to have influence. Why pay hundreds of thousands in stock, when a few thousand well place in the polical arena can bring about needed influences, changes and protections.

Richard Adams said...

"1- money and raising more of it.
2-the next election."

Except that's all on steroids.
.

Anonymous said...

The socialist Democratic party is the biggest threat to franchisees but the best friend of corporate. “Partners”??????

Anonymous said...

Would be helpful to know the contributions of Chris K , Joe E and the board. Would be quite telling.

Richard Adams said...

We can dig up a little more info but with all respect that doesn't tell you anything useful. The real question is, how did all this Owner/Operator PAC money get to Biden and his democrats? Obviously corporate and their "experts" are calling the shots.

You guys are not only sleeping with the enemy you're also leaving $500 on the nightstand and when you get down the road you'll realize your Rolex is missing.

At present, the corporate suits are a lost cause. Your political contributions should support capitalism, not corporatism.
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Anonymous said...

To directly answer your question - No. Now here is why. First off, I don’t particularly think that it should be ANYONE’s ambition in life to be a laborer at McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s Hardy’s/Carl Jr.’s, KFC, Arby’s Subway, Jimmy John’s, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s and the like nor should we be encouraging it. These types of jobs are (or at least should be) entry level work positions to allow an individual to learn the nature of working as part of a team, developing a work ethic, and gain the responsibility necessary to move on up into, let’s say more challenging forms of employment. When we provide a “living wage” to these types of entry level positions, then we also reduce the inherent ambition for someone to move onward and upward to better and better positions. This in and of itself should provide all of the incentive necessary to end this whole notion.

There is a much more important reason, though, to maintain these types of position at the lower-end of the wage/benefit scale; namely youth employment. When we start to provide livable wages/benefits to the lower level positions, then they tend to be filled by, for lack of a better word, more mature people, depriving the availability of them the younger folks, high schoolers who need to learn the extremely important life skills that working in these type of positions provide. More specifically, things like humility, customer focus, teamwork, compromise, and the like that they need as they develop into a contributing member of a social Society and things that a dotting mom and dad most likely overlook at home - same with the schools.

While I understand the rational that, oh deary me, people can’t survive working at a minimum wage of X ($7,25/hr today by Federal Law) and that is the WHOLE point - a minimum wage position is for an individual who is first entering the work force and learning the aforementioned life skills and NOT intended to be lifelong career. To do otherwise, not only is detrimental to the individual by providing a counter-incentive to move onto more challenging (and fulfilling) employment, but also to Society as a whole as we tend to lose ambitiousness of large segments of our populous AND jobs for our youth to develop all the skills necessary work as part of a comprehensive team.

Anonymous said...

With about 15 minutes left in the hour Joe Biden allotted last week for his once-only
press conference, the president sort of ran out of steam for questions and filibustered the
time remaining by delivering his campaign speech. After Mr. Biden revived the line, “I
am running for three reasons,”he invoked the middle class.
The middle class, he said,“built America, and unions built them.”With this assertion that
unions created the American middle class, the political and social goals of the Biden administration come into focus