Audio: McDonald’s Tells Full-Time Employee to Apply for Welfare Benefits

[Coyotl]

Audio: McDonald’s Tells Full-Time Employee to Apply for Welfare Benefits
October 24, 2013 - Joshua Holland - http://billmoyers.com/2013/10/24/audio-mcdonalds-tells-full-time-employee-to-apply-for-welfare-benefits/

The video below, released this week by the service employees’ union, shows a concrete example of how private corporations that pay poverty wages profit by imposing part of their labor costs on the rest of us.

In it, you’ll hear an audio recording of a woman who’s worked full-time for McDonald’s for ten years calling the “McResources helpline,” where a helpful operator encourages her to apply for foodstamps and Medicaid for herself and her two children.

......

[AtomicKitten]

1. It's infuriating that these big corporations

(Walmart, etc.) expect the government to pick up the slack because they won't pay their employees a living wage.

[Recursion]

2. Shameful and enraging

"working poor" should be an oxymoron, but it's anything but.

[They_Live]

3. and remember that, over the years,

part of the profits of these Mega-multi-national corporations go towards paying Congressional lobbyists to make sure that the wages stay at a low level, and that worker's rights are being diminished (e.g. ALEC). We pay for that too, when we buy their goods or "services". Meanwhile productivity is way up (because workers are so desperate) and CEO's keep giving themselves gigantic raises. We are infected with greed, and the whole system is rotten.

[Brigid]

4. You know what's the worst part of this?

They tell their employees -- employees who work their butts off for them -- to apply for SNAP and other benefits, and are not at all embarrassed about it. They just take it for granted that it is OK to pay starvation wages so they can maximize their profits.