Day 301 - 15 Nov 96 - Page 37
1 "could probably be terminated". That is day 119, page 49,
2 line 25.
3
4 Basically, what McDonald's do, and this is our case and
5 I think that Robert Beavers to some extent touches on this
6 as well -- and I will go into that later -- is they not
7 only exploit the work of the workers, as we have heard,
8 with low play and poor conditions, but on top of that they
9 try and hype up, understand the psychology of their
10 workers, try and hype them up and involve them in the goals
11 of the corporation to try to get them to work faster and
12 more obediently. Of course, it has the effect that if some
13 people actually do end up believing in the corporation and
14 its goals, they can be recruited as managerial potential.
15
16 But, for the majority of staff, it is another imposition
17 and a particularly annoying and obnoxious imposition,
18 especially because they are mostly young people who have
19 had no experience of employment elsewhere and certainly,
20 generally, no experience of trade union protection. They
21 do not get any at McDonald's. They are, like David Green
22 would say, virgin material, or virgin ground, as regards,
23 not advertising in this case but as regards employment
24 conditions.
25
26 So without, sort of, elevating it too greatly, which I
27 could do, I would say that it is part of the poor
28 conditions of workers at McDonald's that you get all this
29 company hype, which not only are you expected to put up
30 with, but, at the same time, you get marked on it, and that
31 if you do not have what they call attitude to store
32 success, you could even be sacked, which of course is
33 always a way of getting rid of anyone who criticises the
34 company. Criticise McDonald's, you are out of the door.
35 Because of your attitude, as admitted by Mr. Nicholson.
36
37 Now, despite working continuously, as we have heard, in a
38 hard working and hot environment, workers have to have
39 permission to have a drink. That is day 119, page 20, line
40 32.
41
42 Now, just to digress a bit, Phil Pearson said that it is
43 generally management prerogative to say when someone can
44 have a drink, a break, although at McDonald's the
45 impression I got was that you get very few of them and they
46 are very short, which is bad in itself. On top of that,
47 I think it is unacceptable to have to ask permission to
48 have a drink, and that if there is this happy family
49 atmosphere, as McDonald's claim, then people are quite
50 capable of having other people cover for them, unless, of
51 course, they are so understaffed that if they walk off
52 their station for five minutes or for one minute, they
53 could not possibly find someone else to cover, which would
54 indicate massive understaffing, that everyone is basically
55 at full stretch the whole time. So I think it is
56 unacceptable. I certainly never tolerated that when I was
57 at work, to ask permission to go for a drink or toilet.
58
59 We put to Mr. Nicholson, I think it was on day 121,
60 page 26, the crew handbook listing dozens of examples where
