US workers accused fast-food giant McDonald's Thursday of systematically stealing wages through illicit practices like shaved hours and unpaid overtime. Seven class-action lawsuits were filed Wednesday and Thursday in California, Michigan and New York demanding that McDonald's pay back the stolen wages and end the practices that violate state and federal laws, workers and their lawyers said.
McDonald's Corporation is named in all seven lawsuits, while franchisees were included in five of them. The lawsuits argue that McDonald's, which took in nearly $5.6 billion in profits last year, regularly fails to compensate its already low-paid workers for all the hours they work.
It allegedly forced employees to work off the clock, failed to pay them overtime, shaved hours off time cards, and deprived employees of timely meal and rest breaks, among other practices. "We've uncovered several unlawful schemes, but they all share a common purpose - to drive labour costs down by stealing wages from McDonald's workers," Michael Rubin of Altshuler Berzon, who filed the California suits, said in a statement.