Caught employing slaves, McDonald's promises to do better

In October 2019, British police arrested a couple who lured sixteen men from the Czech Republic – all struggling with homelessness, drug addiction or both – with the promise of jobs and a new life. Instead, they were enslaved.

The couple forced the men to work in factories supplying local grocery stores and at a McDonald’s in Caxton, a village just west of Cambridge. When the couple was arrested, laws designed to protect victims’ privacy prevented journalists from gathering much information about the case, but a recent BBC investigation has shed light on new details. The investigation clearly shows that neither McDonald’s nor the factory’s employers clearly failed to notice or deliberately ignored the red flags associated with modern slavery.

The Czech men spoke little or no English, so another person interviewed and filled out their application. At the Caxton McDonald’s, nine men worked seventy to one hundred hours a week, but all their wages were deposited into a single bank account that none of them controlled. It took four years before the traffickers were arrested, and only afterwards did one of the men call the Czech police for help.

While there is no evidence that slavery is widespread in fast food restaurants in the UK or any other country, the fact that it has occurred invites examination of the industry’s business model.

As a low-wage industry, fast food has always relied on a constant influx of desperate and often vulnerable people to staff its restaurants. For example, I recently wrote about how Burger King was instrumental in shaping America’s plans to move welfare recipients into employment in the late 1990s. The fast food industry was one of the main beneficiaries of this policy: the removal of welfare payments created a more flexible labor market, which allowed fast food companies to hire more workers at lower wages. .

The same can be said for major retailers like Amazon and Walmart. But while these companies directly employ low-wage workers, exposing the entire company to legal problems if necessary, the ownership structure of the fast food industry is complex in a specific way, large companies often being protected from consequences through franchise agreements.

Like most fast food restaurants around the world, Caxton McDonald’s is a franchise business, meaning its owner is an independent businessman who pays the McDonald’s company to use its image, menu and methods of work. Under a typical McDonald’s franchise agreement, the company provides specific mandates for almost every aspect of the restaurant’s operations – not only for menu items, but also for where to buy the raw ingredients to prepare them and how to welcome customers.

Employment is one of the few areas in which fast food companies generally do not provide direct mandates. Under the law, franchisees are generally allowed to hire whoever they want and pay them however they want. This freedom often leads to abuses against workers, for which big companies deny responsibility. In a 2022 study commissioned by the Service Employees International Union, 85% of four hundred fast food workers surveyed said they had been victims of some form of wage theft.

Perhaps the most disturbing recent fast food labor practice comes from Alabama, where two groups of incarcerated people are currently suing the state Department of Corrections for signing them up for jobs, including in fast food , taking 40 percent of their salary, then threatening them. they will be punished or transferred to more violent facilities if they try to quit. These lawsuits allege that by forcing people to keep their jobs against their will, the Alabama Department of Corrections enslaved inmates under its protection — an illegal practice under the state constitution.

Alabama fast-food franchisees who employ prisoners are, according to the lawsuits, willing participants in the state’s forced labor program. In contrast, the UK’s McDonald’s told the BBC that its Caxton franchisee unknowingly employed Czech slaves, apparently having ignored what should have been obvious red flags. Speaking on its behalf, the company said the franchisee was only made aware of “the full extent of these horrific, complex and sophisticated crimes” during the police investigation.

But even as they downplayed the incident as a horrific anomaly, these leaders also seem to think a repeat is more than theoretically possible. In response to the latest revelations, McDonald’s UK told the BBC it had “taken steps” to better “detect and deter potential risks” in the future.

Fast food workers have historically faced low wages, dangerous and punishing conditions, and few opportunities for advancement. As the speed of operations has increased, workplace stress and risk of injury have also increased precipitously. These dire conditions result in enormous annual turnover – often exceeding 100 percent in the United States – which then puts franchisees in a constant search for new workers. With so little attention paid to how they find and employ people, we shouldn’t be surprised when some cut corners and ignore warning signs. On the contrary, we should expect it.