17 February 2009

Greedy Burger King Owners Bite Employees

Goldman Sachs, US owners of the Burger King chain has tapped into the economic bail out, are paying their financial staff huge bonuses and this all on the backs of the underpaid, hourly employees.
Goldman Sachs, where former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson was once CEO, switched from an investment bank to a bank holding company last year so it could qualify for $10 billion in bailout funds. They then spent $6.5 billion on bonuses for their financial staff. Goldman's recklessness is one of several scandalous stories of Wall Street giants abusing the bailout at the expense of taxpayers and the economy. But in this case, Goldman's excessive spending has had an immediate and profound impact on the American work force....

The average Burger King salary is $14,000 a year--three grand less than the federal poverty line. According to the SEIU and a new campaign from Brave New Films, had Goldman used the $6.5 billion blown on bonuses to help Burger King's woefully underpaid employees, each BK worker would have received an extra $18,000 last year.

Employees are struggling to stay alive in a declining economic market, dishing up tax dollars to assist funding bailout packages and find they are being treated as though they were slaves.

And in Canada?

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