Thursday, May 24, 2007

The Truth Hurts McDonalds


McDonalds have launched a petition to get the dictionary definition of a McJob changed.
The Oxford English Dictionary currently describes a McJob as "an unstimulating low-paid job with few prospects" It first appeared in the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary in March 2001. McDonalds are inviting its customers to sign petition books in its outlets , or alternatively via a new website, entitled Change The Definition. Its campaign is further supported by British Chambers of Commerce director general David Frost, British Retail Consortium director general Kevin Hawkins and City & Guilds director general Chris Humphries. McDonald's says that in its staff surveys, 90% of employees agree they are given valuable training that will be of benefit for the rest of their working lives. And 82% of its workers would recommend working at the company to their friends.




"One day our manager pulled us into the office and told us “you need to have a long hard think about why you’re here”. Well we did, and it wasn’t an easy question to answer. It certainly wasn’t for fun- the work was repetitive and monotonous, robotic and likely to cause minor injury. The pay was piss and the uniforms were far from chic. It certainly wasn’t to contribute to the general well being of the world since our principal functions were cooking and serving slabs of dead cow, raised on deforested land in order to be sold to the impoverished parents of emotionally manipulated two year olds. The obvious answer, that we needed money to pay the rent, didn’t explain why we were working at McDonalds as opposed to doing something vaguely useful that might afford us a shred of dignity. In fact, the only reason we could see why we, or anyone else, worked at McDonalds, was because in doing so we made some rich guys we had never met even richer."


“We don't want to prostitute our lives and resign ourselves to drudgery. And that's what McJobs mean- to surrender a piece of your life to an idiotic pursuit of wealth on behalf of those who already have too much...” – Glasgow MWR


"They (crew members) have no guaranteed employment rights. They do not have guaranteed employment or guaranteed conditions of employment" - Ronald Beavers, McDonalds US Vice President, 1995


"We couldn't actually pay any lower wages without falling foul of the law" - Sid Nicholson, then McDonalds UK vice President


“We sold them a dream and paid them as little as possible.” - Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald's, speaking about company employees



7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't think McDonalds can hardly be compared to the Nazis.

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...

I don't think McDonalds can hardly be compared to the Nazis.
2:08 PM, May 25, 2007"

It's just raising a point , moron.

Anonymous said...

I think considering that large corporations have more control over the masses than Governments these days that it is appropriate to compare McDonalds to fascists.
Kx

ajohnstone said...

Rather epithets like moron weren't bandied around . Doesn't really add anything to the issue.
I would say the Brownshirts phase exploiting the unemployed , and those without aspirations , may be more applicable to the para-militarism of McDonalds than the later phase of the Holocaust SS

ellen9 said...

very nice point.

What fascinates me is what McDonald's is trying to accomplish by pressuring the OED (!)

The OED isn't advertising or publicity. It's not where corporations usually define the terms of the debate so blatantly. The editors of the OED may have their own hegemonic issues, but they have not, to date, been so very directly the target or tool of corporate power.

How breathtaking is McDonalds effort to own ALL aspects of discourse about them. All talk about McDonalds must be conducted in that corporation's own language, in all arenas. Words mean what the owners say they mean, everywhere they are used. McDonalds wants to own even our irony; even our mockery; even our thoughts about them.

Of course it does. George Orwell told us that years ago. . . . he just got the actors wrong, not the action.

Anonymous said...

I see in the Mail on Sunday that two Labour MPs given free tickets to last year's football World Cup by McDonald's — Clive Betts and Alan Keen — are using the House of Commons to help the burger chain in their objective. See http://tinyurl.com/26rrem

If McDonalds can bully the OED into banning “McJob”, the OED should see no problem in accurately describing socialism as a classless moneyless voluntary system which has never yet existed.

Anonymous said...

george orwell’s predictions are just wrongful. mcdonalds is just unhealthy.