中国媒体博克

So it turns out that McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut have been cleared of any wrongdoing on the minimum wage flap that erupted recently in Guangdong.

Good for them for not technically breaking the law, but whether there was a real violation or not is almost beside the point now. This has been an utter disaster on the PR front and has caused real damage.

This entire incident will some day in the near future be written up as a case study for budding corporate communications students.

As I've said many times, when the local managers don't talk to the lawyers, and the lawyers don't talk to the PR guys, and no one talks to management at the head/regional office, bad things happen. Usually I say this within the context of IP enforcement, but the problem is certainly a lot more widespread than that, isn't it? This is all much more difficult to do for a franchise, where corporate control can be difficult, but this is all the more reason to pay attention to internal procedures and communications.

Fons at China Herald has more details.