McDonald's has been lobbying the Trump administration and Congress to prevent the passage of a coronavirus relief bill in its current form that would require restaurants nationwide to give workers two weeks of paid sick leave, Business Insider reported on Wednesday.
The bill currently requires employers with more than 50 and fewer than 500 workers to provide two weeks of paid sick leave.
McDonald's also objects to plans to use a tax credit to cover the cost, which the company said would not protect franchisees.
"We know that the funding mechanism and the repayment timing could cripple small business owners," McDonald's vice president of US communications David Tovar said in an internal conference call on Monday, according to a recording obtained by Business Insider.
A McDonald's representative told Business Insider that the company “supports the bill that would provide sick leave support to employees impacted by coronavirus… [but] at the same time, we are sensitive to the economic pressures independent owner-operators face and are supportive of efforts to ensure they have the cash flow needed to keep their employees working."
With the coronavirus outbreak, the fast-food industry has faced criticism for its lack of paid sick leave, and a recent op-ed in The New York Times emphasized that McDonald's is the employer in the retail, restaurant, and hospitality industries with the most workers who lack paid sick leave, with 517,000 employees.
McDonald's already has changed its sick-leave policy to give a 14-day protected leave for employees at company-owned restaurants who go into quarantine for coronavirus, but at 95% of McDonald's U.S. locations, owner-operators determine their own sick-leave policies.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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