Like any McDonald’s employee, they prepared and delivered food orders; They served customers at the drive-thru, ran the cash register, and cleaned the store. But they were only 10 years old.
The US authorities imposed sanctions against three franchises of the fast food company McDonald’s after discovering that they had been employing more than 300 minors, including two 10-year-old boys, one of whom was even allowed to operate a frying machinewhose use by law is limited to people over 16 years of age.
The minors were working in 62 stores McDonald’s in Kentucky, Indiana, Maryland, and Ohio. Most (45) are in Kentucky.
US law does not totally prohibit child labor, but it does regulate it.
The offenses committed by these franchises include allowing minors to work more hours than allowed, which on school days are limited to 3 per day.
“Unacceptable and worrying”
According to estimates from the Department of Labor, In total, the three franchises will be penalized with fines amounting to US$212,544.
In the case of the two 10-year-old boys, they were found working without pay until 2 in the morning at one of the McDonald’s locations in Louisville, Kentucky.
Bauer Food LLC, the franchise that operates that location, noted that those kids were the children of a night manager they were visiting at work and that the company had not authorized them to be in that part of the restaurant, according to the American press.
Tiffanie Boyd, senior vice president of McDonald’s USA, described this information as “unacceptable and deeply worrying” which, according to a statement, did not live up to the expectations that exist for this multinational brand.
The sanctions against McDonald’s occur in a context in which there has been an increase in cases of employment of minors in conditions that violate labor regulations.
According to the Department of Labor, in 2022 there were at least 688 illegally employed minors in the US in dangerous trades.
This is the highest number recorded since 2011.
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BBC-NEWS-SRC: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-65487761, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-05-04 23:30:06
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