McDonald's

Workforce

Labor crunch triggers widespread effort to loosen teen labor rules

The proposed changes would allow youngsters in their early and mid-teens to work more hours and handle alcohol.

Workforce

Child-labor violations are giving restaurants an even darker black eye

Working Lunch: A few bad players are making the whole business look bad. And yet there's worse to come.

The Bottom Line: The fast-food giant has added about $1 million in revenue per store over the past five years and valuations remain high. Yet that period has been marked by some of the worst franchise relations in company history.

The U.S. Department of Labor fined the three operators for violations involving more than 300 minors, including two children of a manager who were 10 years old.

The Chicago-based burger giant is spending the funds on severance payments to laid-off workers and leases for closed field offices. Its sales also surged in the first quarter.

The fast-food burger chain’s simple name change led to double-digit sales increases of the McCrispy Sandwich in the first quarter, proving again that branding matters.

Restaurant Rewind: A fight over supply prices set what's still the low point in franchisor-franchisee relations. It could be a Harvard Business study of what a brand owner should never do.

The Bottom Line: The fast-food burger giant appears to be hitting on all cylinders. But it warned about the operating environment and remains convinced that a recession is in the offing.

The National Owners Association, an independent group of the fast-food chain’s operators, says it is against new joint employer rules and wants a meeting with the company’s U.S. president.

Two different groups of franchisees issued warring statements on their views of joint employer regulations as the dispute intensifies between the burger franchise and an independent group of owners.

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