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Union leaders have slammed McDonalds for their miserly 10p pay increase and called on the Company to meet the GMB's more than £4 claim. A new analysis by the independent Labour Research Department for the GMB Young Members section of the recent pay award at McDonalds reveals a starting rate of £3.25, which is 75p per hour below the union's minimum pay target. This is in contrast with the highest paid director who was paid £83 per hour.
McDonalds made a profit £45.157 millions. The LRD assesses that if McDonalds put some £10 million into its wage bill of £161.6 million it could meet the GMB claim . That would raise the pay bill by 6% . This is in line with the calculations of stockbrokers Barclay de Zoete Wedd that the GMB claim would add 5.4% to the paybill of the Hotel and Catering industry. The company employed 34,419 hourly paid workers in the UK at the end of last year. These staff worked a total of 26 million hours in 1995. This is an average of about 15 hours work, per week, per worker. Two thirds of the staff are aged uncle 21 years and many are full time students working part time for McDonalds. In September McDonalds made a pay award of 10 pence per hour to all staff. The starting rate now, outside London is £3.25 for over 18 year olds and £2.90 for under 18 . The outer London rates are 10p per hour higher and the inner London rates are 25p per hour higher than these rates. The unsocial hours payment for time between 7.00pm and 7.00am is either 15p or 25p per hour. Rory Faulkner spokesperson for the GMB Young Members, speaking at the GMB launch of a 10 pence per week union subscription for working students said "It would take a young Ma worker seven hours to earn enough to pay for a carton of chips from this penny pinching pay increase. McDonalds is a highly successful, competitive and profitable company. It can clearly afford to pay decent wages. To refuse our claim is pure greed and cannot be justified especially given the high level of commitment the young staff have shown."
Further information Steve Pryle GMB Young Members Bureau 0181 947 3131, or Lionel Fulton at LRD for technical queries 0171 928 3649.
Media Officer: Karen Livingstone. Direct: 0181 944 7129 Mobile: 0860 513127
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