Huntly McDonald’s – from sauna to cool oasis

A routine site visit to Huntly McDonalds on Wednesday 12 March turned into more of a sauna visit with the temperature in store exceeding 30 degrees in all areas from foyer through to kitchen. Staff were clearly not happy and were relieved to see me onsite even wanting to walkout.

According to the workers, this has been an ongoing issue as their air conditioning system is prone to breaking down and sending temperatures in the store above 30 degrees. On this occasion, the office temperature reading was 31 degrees so you could imagine what the cooking area was like.

After notifying the Restaurant Manager that this clearly was a risk to the health and safety of workers onsite and that workers were well within their rights to walk out, the air-conditioning system was immmediately fixed and will be continually monitored to ensure it remains that way.

Staff were elated that their work place air-conditioning system has been fixed and an oasis of calm has returned to their work site. Customers have also relayed how pleased they are at how cool the restaurant is and that I should do site checks more often.

By Angelyse-Heitiare Armstrong, Unite Organiser for South Auckland/Waikato