A group of powerful investment managers and public treasurers with assets invested in McDonald’s are demanding that the company take tougher steps to address child-labor violations at its franchises.

In letters sent Tuesday, the shareholders urged the boards of directors at McDonald’s and Wendy’s to adopt a zero-tolerance policy for the use of child labor at franchised restaurants. They also asked the companies to conduct third-party human rights risk assessments of their businesses, among other demands.

The letter cited a Washington Post investigation that identified both companies among those with the highest numbers of child-labor violations per store in the fast-food industry since 2020. McDonald’s restaurants have been cited for more than 2,300 child-labor law violations since 2013.

“We are concerned that the McDonald’s Board is failing to appropriately oversee the Company’s employment practices and is failing to mitigate risks to the Company’s reputation,” said the letter to McDonald’s incoming lead independent director, Miles White.

All violations cited took place at the companies’ franchised locations, and so far, McDonald’s has not faced any fines or penalties.

McDonald’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the shareholder letter from this week but has called child-labor violations rare. In a previous statement to The Post, the company said the child-labor violations don’t reflect the experience of most teenagers working in “age-appropriate roles and looking for meaningful jobs in their local communities.”

Wendy’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Among the McDonald’s investors, the letter’s signatories represent some $2.2 trillion in combined assets. And among the Wendy’s investors, the shareholders oversee some $429.5 billion worth of assets.

The effort is led by SOC Investment Group, which oversees union pensions. The investment firms that signed the letter to McDonald’s include Achmea Investment Management, Christian Brothers Investment Services, GuideStone and EFG Asset Management.

Several treasurers also signed the letters, including the Illinois state treasurer, the Colorado state treasurer, the Maryland state comptroller and the Massachusetts state treasurer.

The Post’s investigation found that McDonald’s racked up 15 child-labor law violations per 100 restaurants and Wendy’s had nine violations per 100 restaurants between 2020 and the third quarter of 2023. Nearly three-quarters of the federal child-labor violations in food service between 2020 and the end of September involved minors 14- and 15-year-olds who worked longer and later hours than federal law permits.

The shareholder letter marks an escalation of similar demands made last year. Some of the same shareholders in June demanded that McDonald’s conduct a child labor audit and adopt a zero-tolerance policy in its global brand standards for such violations at its franchises.

The shareholders said in their letter this week that the McDonald’s chairman responded to their 2023 letter by saying he shared their concerns about child labor, while “highlighting that these incidents took place at franchised locations, not corporate-owned stores.”

In the new letter, shareholders have asked McDonald’s and Wendy’s to conduct and publicly release the results of human rights risk assessments by the end of 2024.

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