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Editorial

Holding McDonald’s Accountable

For nearly two years, fast-food workers nationwide have been striking and demonstrating with increasing frequency and in increasing numbers. They want to be paid at least $15 an hour; the average fast-food wage is currently about $8.90. They also want to be able to form a union without retaliation.

Their efforts received a well-deserved burst of momentum this week, when the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, Richard Griffin Jr., ruled that the McDonald’s Corporation is jointly responsible for the treatment of workers at its franchisees’ restaurants. The ruling, which followed worker complaints about illegal intimidation for pro-union activities, undercuts the corporation’s longstanding claim that independently owned franchises are solely responsible for labor violations.

More broadly, it is a potentially disabling blow to the low-wage, anti-union business model of McDonald’s and other fast-food giants. So far, industry executives have ignored or dismissed workers’ calls for higher pay, largely on the grounds that wages are set by franchisees. The ruling on joint responsibility will put more pressure on them to acknowledge and negotiate with their workers and, by extension, the Service Employees International Union, which has supported the drive for higher pay.

McDonald’s said it would contest the ruling, a process that could end up in the Supreme Court. That would delay any final accord between executives and workers, but it will not change the basic facts. Fast-food companies like McDonald’s and Yum Brands, which owns KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, are profitable and lavishly reward their executives — which means there is money available to raise wages. But those raises have not been forthcoming, forcing taxpayers to pick up the tab for food stamps, Medicaid and other public assistance that many McDonald’s workers use to get by.

That sorry situation is perpetuated, in part, because nonunion workers have no bargaining power. When corporations oppose reasonable calls for better pay and unions, they are fighting for a status quo that has served corporate interests well, but has largely failed workers, as reflected in stagnating wages and rising inequality.

McDonald’s seems determined to fight for the proposition that the well-being of the workers is not its responsibility. But true corporate leaders would find a workable compromise. Splitting the difference between the roughly $9 that fast food workers now make and the $15 they are demanding would result in an immediate boost to $12 an hour, still hardly enough to live on, but an improvement. From there, a union could work for steadier raises and better working conditions, which in turn would help to spare McDonald’s from more class-action lawsuits like the ones it currently faces over its labor practices.

Self-interest is something McDonald’s understands. Enlightened self-interest is something else entirely.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 22 of the New York edition with the headline: Holding McDonald’s Accountable. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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