STAFF at the Bolton branch of burger giants McDonalds claim they are having to wait to reap the reward for working flat out in the company's two-for-one promotion. As reported in the BEN, the company spent last week dealing with complaints from customers after the massive response to its Big Mac promotion. Now staff are complaining.

They claim they were offered time and a half to cope with the rush during the week long promotion that ended on Sunday.

Mid-week, however, the "buy one get one free" Big Mac silver anniversary promotion backfired when some McDonalds ran out of burgers.

Bolton staff say that they expected their extra payment to be handed over in today's wage packets. But they say they are furious after being told that payment will be made at a later date.

One furious employee, who refused to be named, said: "This promotion has been a farce from start to finish. Firstly, customers complained because they couldn't get burgers and now we're complaining because we're not being paid."

Shifts

She said that many employees had signed up to do extra shifts, some as long as 16 hours, on the strength of the bonus payment.

"But we had expected to be paid this week and many people have written out cheques and are expecting to pay bills with their wages. But now the bosses have turned around and said payment won't be made until the next pay day, which is two weeks away."

Company spokesman, Stephen Hall, said he was surprised that staff had approached the BEN to complain. "The reaction I've had from staff has been one of delight."

He explained that during normal promotions staff are paid as usual, and because McDonalds expected the Big Mac promotion to attract the normal sort of response, staff were originally being paid the usual rate.

However, by mid-week when the scale of demand for the Big Macs was recognised, staff were offered time and a half and this was to be paid retrospectively from the start of the promotion.

Mr Hall went on: "McDonalds decided to pay staff extra in recognition of the outstanding efforts made by them during a particularly busy period.

"As far as I understand no actual date was given for payment because the decision to reward employees with extra money was made mid-week.

"We have 60,000 employees and it was just too late to process all those wage packets."

As reported in the BEN, trouble flared last week at the Leigh branch in Bradshawgate when three men failed to get their free burgers and outlets across the country were inundated with complaints from customers who had queued for hours only to be told that stores had run out of burgers.

McDonalds issued a nationwide apology and admitted that it had vastly underestimated the demand. They had estimated that over the opening weekend of the promotion about two million Big Macs would be sold, but twice as many customers - four and a half million - swamped its 922 stores.

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