Stressed about how to feed your family during the holidays while working a low-wage job? McDonald’s has a suggestion for its employees: just break your food into pieces so you’ll eat less but still feel full.
The fast-food chain hosts an employee-only internal website called the “McResource Line” offering advice for workers on making ends meet. The “Low Pay is Not OK” advocacy group recently posted a video revealing screen shots of the website, which also suggested employees complain less and sing more to lower blood pressure and stress, and sell unwanted Christmas gifts on eBay or Craigslist for cash.
McDonald’s called the group’s video an attempt to “undermine a well-intended employee assistance resource website by taking isolated portions out of context.”
“The McResource website has helped countless employees by providing them with a variety of information and resources on topics ranging from health and wellness to stress and financial management,” the company said in a statement.
This is not the first time McDonald’s has doled out advice to its employees about how to manage their money. Last month, the McResource Line suggested workers sign up for food stamps and Medicaid, and created a website for employees in July that recommended employees take on second jobs.
And McDonald’s isn’t the only company offering this sort of service to its employees. A Wal-Mart store in Canton, Ohio made headlines last week for holding a Thanksgiving food drive for its own employees—a move the company defended on Twitter after actor Ashton Kutcher accused Wal-Mart of underpaying its workers.
The solution, of course, would be to pay employees a living wage—something that could be done if Wal-Mart, for example, didn’t buy its own stock, as Salon reported earlier ths week. Both Wal-Mart and McDonald’s have been the target of many labor-rights groups that have urged the companies to offer pay increases to their workers. Earlier this summer, fast-food workers went on strike in major cities across the country in an effort to push for an increase in the federal minimum wage. A bill was introduced earlier this year by Democrats in Congress to raise the minimum wage to $10.10, a proposal supported by President Obama.
McDonald’s said the resource site’s content was provided by a third-party company, “and we will be working with them to review the content and make any necessary adjustments to the information to make sure that it stays a trusted, accurate and useful tool for employees who choose to use it.”
Traci Lee