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 -----

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