The Netherlands: McDonald’s Netherlands gets hip with “McTrax” interactive placemats

The placemats are printed with conductive ink and connect to your smartphone via Bluetooth. Once diners sync the placemat to their smartphone, they just have to hit the paper keys on the place-mat to begin creating beats.

Just try not to get any ketchup on it.

Read more: McDonald’s Netherlands gets hip with “McTrax” interactive DJ placemats

Corporate Tax Evasion: Activists look to take bite out of McDonalds for EU tax avoidance - by Obert Hackwill

:America’s fast food giant McDonalds is being accused of setting up an elaborate tax avoidance scheme.

Labour unions backed by the War on Want charity have asked the European Commission to expand an existing investigation into Fiat and Amazon to include the burger chain, and look into where more than a billion euros of unclaimed tax went between 2009 and 2013. They say revenues were routed through low-tax Luxembourg, making royalty payments to a subsidiary.

“More and more companies do it, it’s becoming almost impossible to supervise the companies, while millions of citizens have to pay their taxes everywhere,” says the European Union Public Services’ Federation’s Pablo Sanchez.

McDonalds insists its actions have respected existing legislation and that it has done nothing wrong. The fast-food firm adds its tax bill last year in France alone was over a billion euros.

Read more: Activists look to take bite out of McDonalds for EU tax avoidance | euronews, world news

USA - Minimum wage: McDonald's and America's new low-wage economy explained - by Josh Freedman

Recently week, more than 2,000 fast food workers and activists picketed outside McDonald's (MCD) annual shareholder meeting to protest low wages.

The demonstrations in Oak Brook, Ill. are a reminder of the growing economic inequality in America. At McDonald's, workers making the federal minimum wage earn $7.25 an hour, while those in Illinois take in $8.25 at the state's minimum wage. By contrast, the chain's CEO Don Thompson made approximately $9.5 million last year, which means it would take a minimum wage worker more than a million hours of work to earn Thompson's annual salary.

We could blame greedy corporate executives for the pay gap, but that would be too simplistic. It doesn't capture the changing corporate structures central to understanding the rise of low-wage work at some of America's biggest companies.

McDonald's, for instance, doesn't actually employ most of its workers; instead, they work for individual franchise restaurants that operate as independent businesses and pay fees to use the company's brand and sell its products. Beyond that, however, the individual franchise owner is technically the employer and therefore responsible for setting and paying workers' wages.

Read more: McDonald's and America's new low-wage economy explained - The Term Sheet: Fortune's deals blogTerm Sheet