Today a short article posted by NPR surprised me. In an article titled "McDonald's Fired CEO Is Getting Millions, Putting Spotlight On Pay Gap" the writers posted a brief account of how former CEO Stephen Easterbrook was let go for what the company termed an "inappropriate relationship" with another McDonald's employee. It then went on to categorize exactly how much Easterbrook was getting in severance and how it compared to the average McDonald's worker.
So why did this article surprise me? Was it because of the massive pay disparity between the CEO and the average worker? Nope. That kind of news, sad to say, is no surprise to anyone. We all know CEOs make massive amounts of money not just in direct wages but also in stock options and company equity, things that aren't necessarily as easy to quantify. Am I surprised because a male CEO had an "inappropriate relationship" with another employee? Again, sadly, no. As the #MeToo movement has shown us, this kind of thing is not the exclusive privilege of corporate executives but is prevalent anywhere a certain mindset is allowed to flourish.
So what, exactly, surprised me?
That they even admitted it at all. In today's society of social media vilification and harsh judgement, it's startling to see a company say anything at all about why someone in power would leave. While the article emphasizes that there were no allegations brought against Easterbrook, it made me wonder just what about the whole situation forced McDonald's to act. After all, companies have a long history of ignoring or concealing the policy violations of their highest corporate ranks simply as a measure to protect their bottom line. Learning that they actively enforced company policy against the head of their own company is admirable, if a little suspicious. Again, thanks to social media, it's hard to imagine a corporate body acting this way. The thought that there has to be an ulterior motive is difficult to shake.
More often than not, stories of things like this at lower levels end up with intervention from the EEOC. The internet is rife with stories of harassment, retaliation, worker revenge, hostile corporate actions, and the executives who somehow think they're above company policy. If even a third of them are fully true, then America has a far more serious problem with accountability than most people think. While it is refreshing to see a corporation hold its most prominent representative responsible for violating its policies, it would be more helpful to see it make full and meaningful changes to accountability across all levels of the company. Nor does it seem like much of a punishment to read that he was fired, yet given almost $42 million in severance. Not only does that make it seem less like a punishment for policy violations, it makes it seem more like he was being paid to leave quietly.
Time will tell which view of the company's actions is the correct one to take.