Day 302 - 18 Nov 96 - Page 17
1 that the owner/manager was not sacked.
2
3 Now, we obviously accused the corporation of double
4 standards, especially when comparing this with crew members
5 who face summary dismissal for single minor, if not even
6 trivial, offences against company rules. Some of the
7 offences are outrageous that they should even be in there,
8 because they are, as we have heard with the union ones,
9 they are against the internationally agreed conventions.
10
11 And he had earlier said that higher standards of honesty
12 and ethics applied to those in the company's hierarchy.
13 That was day 123, page 27, line 24, and page 30, line 2.
14 But, despite that, he could not think of a single example
15 of anyone being sacked for violating company policy -
16 anyone, sorry, in managerial positions.
17
18 I think that is quite a remarkable admission that the
19 company does have double standards and it is clear that the
20 whole weight of, if you like, authoritarian management is
21 on the crew member and people at the bottom in terms of
22 discipline and -- well, in terms of discipline.
23
24 He said that McDonald's workers are inexperienced - his
25 word - and "often looking for an identity". This is day
26 124, page 12. He agreed with that. And he explained how
27 management are trained to motivate staff. "We introduce
28 psychology", he said, into their hamburg university
29 management courses. Further, young workers "are taught to
30 identify with the goals of the company". That is day 124,
31 page 10, line 51, and the psychology quote is day 124,
32 page 9, line 44.
33
34 He said that their young workers are "taught to identify
35 with the goals of the company", and that "discipline" is a
36 "basic value". And the point is that we believe this
37 reveals one of the reasons why they target young workers in
38 their recruitment, because they are mouldable, because of
39 their inexperience, because they are looking for an
40 identity, you could not have a stronger identity in the
41 world than McDonald's Corporation. Here we have a
42 corporation absolutely fanatical about their identity and
43 they know that young people, by the use of psychology and
44 other careful strategies developed at their hamburg
45 university for their management grades to use in their
46 stores, they know that they can motivate and hype up and
47 get more work out of people who are inexperienced,
48 especially of course when they have got no unions or
49 whatever to protect their own interests. I think
50 really.... Yes. Mr. Beavers agreed it was fair, his
51 quote, "fair" to describe the work as "menial". That was
52 on day 4, page 67, line 8.
53
54 So here we have the ingredients of menial work, low paid.
55 I am coming on to the pressure of work in a minute. And,
56 on top of that, trying to get people hyped up to believe in
57 what they are doing, when all they basically want is to get
58 some decent pay and buy things they need for themselves.
59
60 Coming on to pressure -----
