Some math to really drill this home: that's 32K per employee. Literally a livable wage around 50% higher than the minimum they offer currently for someone working 40 hours year round, no vacation.
The restaurants are almost entirely owned by franchisees and run on fairly tight margins. You can argue that the corporation makes too much money or whatever, but they’re not the ones who will be screwed if I’m right.
I’m arguing that the restaurants aren’t especially profitable and their margins are thin. It’s a bit like a rental property, in the sense that you have to have more than a couple in order to make much money at it.
This has never been my understanding about the major ones, at least. The licenses are incredibly expensive to buy, but they are quite profitable. But I recognize we're both speaking totally vaguely and without sources, so I'm not sure why I'm replying when I have so little to add myself :)
If those franchises will not be able to make ends meet, corporate will have to reduce their tithe. Trust me, there's a lot of money that can be squeezed from the shareholders.