Industry's image marred by child labour offences
Many adults would have baulked at the hours Kevin Izatt, manager of two McDonald's restaurants in Camberley, Surrey, was asking his staff to work. But the fact that the employees concerned were 15- and 16-year-old schoolchildren, often working late into the night after school, makes the situation much worse.
Surrey magistrates agreed and fined the franchisee, Ikhya Enterprises, £12,400 plus £60 costs, one of the biggest fines to be imposed on an employer for child labour offences. Ikhya admitted 20 offences of illegally employing schoolchildren at two McDonald's restaurants.
The case came to light in January after Surrey County Council employment officers visited the restaurants following a complaint from a parent and found children working into the night on school days and without work permits. The company was given a formal warning, but follow-up visits during May and June discovered 51 breaches of regulations involving 10 schoolchildren aged 15- and 16-years-old.
Ian Hart, child employment officer at the council, said the case was one of the most serious he had ever come across.
One 15-year-old boy had worked from 4pm to nine minutes to midnight on Thursday night, had been due at school the next day, worked again from 4.15pm to just before 2am that night and had then worked from 5pm to midnight on the Saturday, he said.
In another instance, a 15-year-old girl worked 16 hours on a Saturday, while another child worked from 5pm to 2am the following morning on a school day. Children were found to be working regularly beyond 1am and 2am. "[Working until] around midnight was a commonplace event, it would be fair to say," Hart said.
Children aged 15 and 16 can work a maximum of eight hours on a Saturday during school time. They are also allowed to work for just two hours at the end of a school day, and must stop work by 7pm.
New European Union rules are due to come into force soon, designed to limit the hours that 16- and 17-year-olds can work.
The case also raises serious questions about the level of scrutiny under which franchisees operate. McDonald's has a clear policy not to employ schoolchildren, and as a company that prides itself on being a model employer has already announced it will try to ensure that in future its franchisees follow its rules.
Bharti Patel, director of the Low Pay Unit, said: "I am shocked that a company such as McDonald's, which has a clear policy on this issue and good resources, should not have made its obligations clearer to its franchisees."
The case would also damage the wider perception of the industry, she added. "We know that the catering industry has had a bad image of long hours and sweated labour and this will not help. If the industry is to have a professional image, then abuses such as this have to be rooted out."
Ian McKerracher, chief executive of the Restaurant Association, said the industry had laboured for too long under the "low pay, long hours, slave wages tag", and incidents such as this only exacerbated the situation.
He added that while most employers in the trade were responsible, the case drove home the dangers of franchising. "I imagine that McDonald's must be embarrassed about this. I cannot imagine in any way that it would have sanctioned or condoned this incident," he said.
"A lot of companies have regretted using the franchise model because inevitably you lose a degree of control," he added.
Companies with franchise operations needed to ensure there was an explicit chain of command and that it was clear on employment policy, agreed Martin Couchman, deputy chief executive of the British Hospitality Association.
"Clearly, there has to be an issue of where the responsibility lies. If, like McDonald's, you have franchisees that are using your name, as far as the public is concerned it is McDonald's. Companies have to watch these things very carefully."
For further details of the law on employing children, see manager's office section, under legislation.
