Does McDonald’s owe you money? Tens of thousands of current and former employees of the fast-food mega-chain are reportedly due remediation payments stemming from payroll errors made for over a decade.
There is an important qualification, though. You have to have worked for the company’s New Zealand-based restaurants.
Kiwi nursing student @shavethewhales7 has gone viral after shouting out her friend’s pending payout.
Her TikTok post of Aug. 15 has picked up over 594,000 views and counting.
How did this happen? Why does McDonalds New Zealand owe its workers backpay?
Why would McDonald’s owe you money?
A 2016 audit performed by New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment found that McDonald’s incorrectly calculated holiday pay for their employees.
Three years later, Unite Union “estimated McDonald’s NZ owed upwards of a jaw-dropping $45 million [NZ] to around 60,000 staff,” according to New Zealand news outlet Rova.
The union reached an agreement with McDonald’s in 2019. The company is now reimbursing many current and former employees in New Zealand who are owed thousands of dollars.
The Daily Dot has reached out to McDonald’s via email for a statement.
How do you get your payment?
McDonald’s issued this statement on its website:
“August 5, 2024: McDonald’s NZ has approval from MBIE to begin remediation relating to annual leave and holiday annual leave pay for employees who worked at McDonald’s between 1/11/09 and 6/12/2020. Current and former staff of company-owned and franchisee-owned restaurants, who worked during the remediation period, are encouraged to check the McDonald’s payroll remediation portal:
Shavethewales’ friend recently received her payment, as she discusses in her TikTok video.
The background of her video features screenshots showing the acceptance statement and a figure of $3,654.19 in backpay.
“My friend just got accepted,” she tells her viewers. “It’s approved and it’s pending payment.
According to her, the payments are “gonna differ from franchise to franchise and also there’s only a small amount of people [staff] doing these pays so just be patient but it will be coming.”
@shavethewhales7 I hope you get yours soon! #fyp #nz #mcdonalds ♬ original sound – shavethewhales
Is McDonald’s paying their employees?
According to Radio New Zealand, “McDonald’s employees are running into trouble when attempting to receive money owed to them.”
Unite Union told the news organization that the number of employees the union expected to receive backpay has been disappointing.
McDonald’s is “taking an unders and overs approach which is where they’ve recalculated things.”
He added, “If they think they’ve overpaid you in some circumstance, then they might deduct that from what they actually owe you from your underpayment.”
Furthermore, Crocker stated, “We urge all current and former McDonald’s employees to contact McDonald’s in writing and ‘withdraw your consent to deductions’ and tell them you want the full figure of underpayments.”
How did the viewers react?
Holly Lavery (@h_llylavery), who claimed to be a former employee, commented that she, “got paid the other day, Thank you for posting gal, would haven’t have known otherwise.”
“What’s going on with these big companies? My old employer reached out to me, I stopped working there over a year ago and they owe me $8k,” another viewer asked.
Another added, “Mines been sitting at approved for 2 weeks now.”
However, some viewers predictably took the opportunity to joke about McDonald’s.
Athena Hunter (@athenahunter) wrote, “I think McDonald’s owe everyone money for the amount of times we had to hear the Ice cream machine is ‘broken.’”
One viewer asked, “How do I do this I ordered a Big Mac with no cheese and it came with it?”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Shavethewhales via TikTok Messenger and comment for a further statement.
Internet culture is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
