Originally published at: McDonald's franchisee had 10-year-old kids working until 2am | Boing Boing
…
7 Likes
$40K is a mere drop in the (slop) bucket…
21 Likes
EMPLOYED!?
How many hours for an I’m-Unhappy Meal™?
15 Likes
And the franchisee throws the parent under the bus:
Bauer Food franchise owner Sean Bauer told CBS News that the children were visiting their parent, who works as a night manager. He said the kids were not approved to be in that part of restaurant by franchisee organization management and that any work the children did was at the direction of, and in the presence of, the parent.
17 Likes
That’s the bullshit cop-out, huh? Little Jenny was just waiting for her mom and copied her, she wasn’t really cleaning tables.
12 Likes
For Mcdonald’s corporate? change in the couch cushions. For the franchisee? Unknown, but it probably stung a bit.
13 Likes
They word it like the employee would have brought the kids there if they had the time off too. 
It’s not like it’s their family restaurant or something… there’s no asset protection going on for anyone but the franchisee who is just openly exploiting the employee’s children.
20 Likes
I went into a Jersey Mike’s (first time; it was fine) a couple of weeks ago on a day that happened to be a school holiday. There was a little girl maybe 8 years old who was clearly there on her mom’s shift. She had her blanket, iPad and some activities like coloring books. At one point she got up and restocked the straws and utensils from the under cabinet. It was cute and sweet and you could tell she felt a little pride in helping mom out.
It was not 2 am. And she wasn’t using a damn fryer.
20 Likes
Bauer added there was a further misunderstanding with his manager, whom he had told that there were “no issues with hiring below minimum wage.”
8 Likes
It’s the Republican dream. Gingrich has been pushing child labour for years.
21 Likes
I remember my mom not being too excited when I was around 10 and thought I could make a chocolate bar by creating a Lego mold, pour Hershey’s syrup in it and put it in the freezer.
I’m not entirely sure how this relates to this story, but I stand behind sharing it.
15 Likes
I feel like A LOT of small shops/restaurants have their kids working for them. Sorta understandable if it’s your own little store. Bob Burger’s, anyone? Or that documentary on The Donut King (which was an amazing story, if you haven’t seen it.) It shouldn’t be happening, but I bet a lot of these struggling businesses don’t have other options.
Shouldn’t be happening at all with a national franchise. It was unclear if all of these kids were related to managers or not, but I bet the answer is no, which doubly shouldn’t be happening.
8 Likes
Decades ago I ran a few McDonald’s places and the thought of having little kids running around there, even if they are just “helping mom” sounds horrific. There’s tons of stuff that can easily cause injury if you’re just the least not paying attention. The cooking setup isn’t built for comfort - it’s built for speed with the absolute minimum of safety.
I started there at 14 and remember how stupid I was. I remember later being a manager leading 14 and 15 year olds and they were stupid. Now we have some states passing laws allowing kids as young as 12 to work there and it boggles my mind. How about we let the kids play for a bit before they have to start working a 9-5 like us old people?
19 Likes
I actually have a story where me and my GF tell where we witnessed a local vegan Mexican joint in Austin that had a (maybe) 8yo kid behind the counter when i went once to go pick up an online order. Later my gf goes in to eat at a different time and is served the food by the same kid, and also watches two other young kids roam around the restaurant, collect some balloons from valentines day by using a ladder that was taller than they were. The whole situation was super weird and i haven’t been back since
10 Likes
The 305 children number is crazy. It makes me sad that a mom had to bring her kids to work, but that’s not the whole story. That number is not an isolated event.
14 Likes
There are specific exceptions in the labor law for the children of the owners of small, family owned businesses. I don’t know the details, but I do know they still aren’t allowed to do “dangerous” work like operating a deep fryer.
14 Likes
I’m appalled that Kentucky lets 16 year olds operate the deep fryer! That’s a large, dangerous vat of life-ruining hot oil, and is not to be messed with.
12 Likes
It’s probably changed by now, but many, many moons ago I had a classmate in NYS that worked at McDonalds. After he lowered the basked into the fryer, he didn’t notice his hand went in too. He noticed later. He would’ve been about 16-17 at the time.
8 Likes
It sounds like what would’ve helped her mom out more is better childcare options. Maybe I’ve read too many stories about mothers who were penalized for bringing kids to work. 
The GOP probably won’t be OK with reducing the retirement age to reflect their version of the head start program, either. So, these kids would be expected to work for maybe 60+ years. 
that!
13 Likes
Some kids are easily taken advantage of, but a little bit of compensation can cloud their judgment. My first restaurant job was a local mom and pop spaghetti place around the corner from my street. I was 13, paid below minimum wage, and learned all the wrong ways to serve food. There were plenty of nasty things occurred that you don’t want to know, and that I care to forget. The only good thing was that I worked there for less than two months, and once I left, never looked back.
6 Likes
