Fast-food giants break labour laws: authorities

Some international fast-food chains have violated mainland labour laws by making employees work overtime and not signing employment contracts with some staff, Guangdong labour authorities announced yesterday in response to allegations levelled against McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut.

The Guangdong Department of Labour and Social Security yesterday released the results of its investigation into an employment dispute involving the three fast-food giants, but labour lawyers criticised the conclusions as 'ambiguous'.

It is the first official response from the labour authority since the Guangzhou-based New Express Daily accused the chains of underpaying part-time workers, most of whom are students, in several Guangdong cities, and making them work overtime.

'Through investigation, [we] found that some companies have not signed [compulsory] labour contracts with some staff, and some staff were kept working overtime longer than the law permitted,' the department said.

'We have ordered the companies that have not signed labour contracts with some of their staff to rectify their behaviour, and we will further verify the overtime issue and hand down punishments according to the law.'

The report did not specify which companies had violated the labour laws. Department spokesman Zhang Xiang yesterday also refused to name names or say what punishment the authority had imposed.

'It is not good to give the company names since the violations are not very serious,' Mr Zhang said.