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Former president: McDonald's didn't create wage discrepancies

August 26, 2013

Less than a week before a planned nationwide quick-service restaurant employee strike, former McDonald's president, U.S., Ed Rensi appeared on a handful of talk shows to defend the company and other restaurant/retail giants that have been on the receiving end of wage protests throughout the past year.

One of those shows was "All In" with Chris Hayes, on MSNBC. Hayes greeted Rensi by asking "Why can't an enterprise as profitable and successful as McDonald's afford to pay its workers a living wage?"

Rensi responded by disagreeing with the way the question was posed and told Hayes he thinks the minimum wage does, indeed, need to be adjusted over time for inflation, and done so on a state-by-state basis. He also said the federal number needs to go up periodically.

However, Rensi takes issue with the demands of this striking movement of employees, who are asking for $15 an hour in wages. This, he said, is too extreme from the average $7.50 to $8-minimum wage levels now.

"People will lose their jobs with such a jump," Rensi said. "The minimum wage increase needs to be increased periodically, but not from $7 to $15. That will put 20 percent of small restaurants out of business. It means that 30 people out of each of those restaurants will lose their job."

He added that minimum wage jobs are meant to be entry-level positions, not careers.

Hayes responded that most of the people now working minimum wage jobs aren't doing it necessarily by choice, but rather because many of the jobs created in the economic recovery are "at the low end of the wage scale. They've got the jobs that they can get," he said.

This trend, however, is not McDonald's fault, Rensi said. "Our politicians have failed at creating jobs of substance."

Rensi also said the Affordable Health Care Act has compounded the issue, as restaurants are now limiting the number of hours their employees are working in response to the presumed added cost from the law's implementation next year.

Hayes said this trend preceded the ACA's passage and even Obama's presidency.

Rensi served as McDonald's president from 1991-1997. He most recently founded America's Better Burger LLC, parent company of Tom & Eddies.

The protests for a higher minimum wage — and the right to form a union without retaliation — are picking up momentum. On Aug. 29, quick-service and retail employees are expected to strike in at least eight major cities across the country.

The movement of QSR workers fighting for $15 an hour got started in New York City last November with a strike by 200 workers. So far this year, workers in eight cities have walked off their jobs in protest of these issues, including in New York City again, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Milwaukee, Seattle, Kansas City, Mo., and Flint, Mich.

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