McDoubtful's Nuggets of Information

You are probably bored with all my talk about McDonald's after yesterday's post.  I think my mind being focused on McDonald's is a side-effect of eating the spur-of-the-moment 6 piece chicken nuggets on Saturday.  I have no regrets about eating the nuggets, but I am seeing a pattern to my behavior which I believe is nugget-related.

I was surprised to receive a prompt response from McDonald's regarding an inquiry I sent yesterday asking about the breastfeeding policy for mothers who need to pump:

Thank you for taking the time to contact McDonald's. We truly appreciate customer feedback and welcome the opportunity to share some information with you.

Approximately 85 percent of McDonald's restaurants are owned and operated by independent businesspeople. As independent owners, McDonald's franchise owners have the authority to make certain operating decisions as they relate to their McDonald's restaurant operations.

Again, thank you for contacting McDonald's. We hope to have the opportunity of serving you again soon under the Golden Arches.

Sara
McDonald's Customer Response Center

I don't know about you, but I thought something was missing... Then I realized that the missing piece was an answer to my question!  That is, Sara obviously forgot to answer my question!  I realize that this is McDonald's defense-mechanism and that the best policy for sensitive inquiries such as this is to give the most generic, automated response possible and move on.  Perhaps she shouldn't have mentioned that 85% of McDonald's restaurant owners are part of a franchise, because that means 15% of the restaurants are managed corporately (in which case, she should have had an answer to supply me).  Let's just do a little calculating based on the numbers we do know:  As of July 2010 there were an estimated 14,000 McDonald's restaurants in the United States. That means approximately 2,100 stores are managed corporately.  Assuming the restaurants are distributed evenly among the states, that is approximately 42 restaurants per state.  If each restaurant only employs 15 people, that is still a minimum of 630 people employed at McDonald's per state. I think it would be safe to assume that at least 10% of McDonald's employees are in their prime childbearing years (that means the remainder of the employees would need to be either male, or they would be women under 20 years old or over age 35), so that would be a minimum of 63 people per state, or 3150 nationally, who would benefit from having a "nursing room" provided by the McDonald's headquarters.  Remember:  Those numbers don't include 85% of McDonald's restaurants which are part of a franchise. 

I am being very conservative with these estimations. 

So what are the 21,000 women of childbearing age who work at McDonald's doing if they need to pump expressed breast milk at work?  Multiply this number across all fast food chains... no, across all businesses!  Do you even realize the numbers we are talking about or how important this is?  What would you do if there was no restroom at work?! 

So, my actual question is:  Why do you believe that designating a private room for nursing mothers at their jobs hasn't been made a priority in the United States?

***Note to McDonald's:  I am not lashing out at you (I happily enjoy your coffee, ice cream, and chicken nuggets as an occasional treat to myself!), but your numbers are just easily accessible and make a good example for my point.  No hard feelings?

Signing off.

BkB