McDonald’s loses court case against worker

This video, the trailer of the film Super Size Me, from the USA, says about itself:

Super Size Me is an Academy Award-nominated 2004 documentary film, directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, an American independent filmmaker. It follows a 30-day time period (February 2003) during which Spurlock subsists exclusively on McDonald’s fast food and stops exercising regularly. The film documents this lifestyle’s drastic effects on Spurlock’s physical and psychological well-being and explores the fast food industry‘s corporate influence, including how it encourages poor nutrition for its own profit.

Translated from Blik op Nieuws in the Netherlands:

McDonald’s loses court case after dismissing a worker about a slice of cheese

Monday, January 25, 2010 16:38

Leeuwarden – This Monday, the District Court has judged against McDonald’s in Lemmer after it had dismissed a female employee on the spot, because she had given a slice of cheese on a hamburger to a colleague while that colleague had paid only for a hamburger.

That slice of cheese, according to McDonald’s, made the hamburger no longer a hamburger, but a cheeseburger. “A cheeseburger is more expensive; that higher price was not paid. Giving away the slice of cheese is in breach of the McDonald’s corporate rules, which state that it is prohibited to give away products to family, friends and colleagues, ” the US American hamburger chain stated.

The district judge judged that the dismissal had been an excessive measure. The district court noted that the initiative for giving away the slice of cheese did not come from the employee, but from her colleague. According to the district court, however, McDonald’s did not take any measure against that colleague, and did not give a plausible explanation for that.

“McDonalds also did not give the worker an opportunity to explain her actions,” the district court says. The district court therefore believes that McDonald’s apparently uses a double standard, firing that worker on the spot, but not her colleague.

“Only a slice of cheese”

“Moreover, this is merely a slice of cheese,” said the magistrate. He believes that McDonald’s could have taken a less drastic measure, like a written warning.

‘Expensive’ slice of cheese for McDonald’s

The ruling of the district court means that McDonald’s still owes the worker her salary over five months, the remaining time of her contract.