Sunday, March 18, 2007

Working Sick

A study published by ACORN shows a pattern of companies not providing paid sick leave to their employees, and those employees are the least likely to be able to afford to take days off without pay in the first place. Cruising through the list of stingy companies, I saw that many of them are the traditional landmarks around our town.

Look at these examples…
Outback
Cracker Barrel
Burger King
Jack in the Box
Kohl's
McDonald's
Wendy's
Ruby Tuesday's
Applebee's

Now just to throw a little balance into the mix, take a look at CEO pay in 2005 for these same companies:
Outback: $22,000,000
Cracker Barrel: $8,800,000
Burger King: $7,900,000
Jack in the Box: $2,800,000
Kohl's: $1,600,000
McDonald's: $3,400,000
Wendy's: $5,300,000
Ruby Tuesday's: $5,300,000
Applebee's: $2,900,000

I certainly don't fault employees who come to work sick, especially if they have families to provide for. Oh, did you think it was only teenagers who flipped burgers at McDonald's? But think about what gets sneezed onto your food as it's being prepared.

Do you suppose the CEOs of these companies are concerned about their own health care? Oh how silly of me to ask such simple questions!

1 comment:

edpickersgill said...

I doubt any of those CEO's actually eat at their front line franchises... which may in fact prove they are concerned about their own health.