Day 268 - 24 Jun 96 - Page 31
1 Trade Unions -
2 If a trade union did represent members of staff I feel that
3 the staff member's career with McDonald's would not go very
4 far or last very long. However, all current complains are
5 dealt with "on the inside" so people with complaints do not
6 get a very fair deal. If there was an external body who
7 could handle matters for employees, complaints would be
8 dealt with much more fairly.
9
10 When employees join McDonald's they are told that a meal is
11 provided. However, when I worked with McDonald's, the meal
12 allowance worked on the following basis. For every hour an
13 employee works, 35p was allocated to him. Therefore, if
14 employee worked for 8 hours a total of £2.80 was allocated
15 to him for his meal. This £2.80 was then used to pay for
16 his meal according to the retail price of the food.
17 However, if the retail price of the food went up, the
18 employee meal allowance did not. Thereafter, a person
19 would work the same hours, yet would be forced because of
20 the price increase, to eat less.
21
22 This method is particularly silly when a very large person
23 had to have the same amount of food as a very small person
24 despite the fact that metabolic rates are totally different
25 and a large person could not function as adequately as a
26 small person on the same amount of food. Considering the
27 amount of food that is wasted during the day it seems
28 extremely petty to stick so rigidly to such a rule.
29 Flexible hours
30 These become extremely stupid when a member of staff has to
31 work a night shift and then is expected to return to a day
32 shift after having very little sleep, considering that many
33 night shifts did not end until 4 a.m.
34 Food
35 There have been known cases such as
36 1. A star from a crew member's badge has been found in a
37 burger.
38 2. Tiny metal particles from the grill where meat patties
39 are cooked have been found in a burger.
40
41 Staff members and managers are trained to retrieve such
42 items including "additions" from the customer in order to
43 remove all traces of evidence without arousing suspicion or
44 antagonizing the customer. McDonald's Restaurants Ltd.
45 accept no liability. If, for example, a person gets food
46 poisoning and a complaint is made by the customer that a
47 McDonald's milk shake was the cause, by ceasing to sell the
48 milk shake immediately, McDonald's believe they would be
49 accepting liability. To avoid this scenario McDonald's
50 continue to sell the potentially suspect beverage.
51 Overall opinion
52 Looking back over my time of employment with McDonald's
53 Restaurants Ltd, when I initially entered the system I
54 believe that what you put into the system was what you got
55 out of system. If you worked hard you were rewarded. This
56 was a system which I found was run according to the book in
57 the North and Merseyside region where I was initially
58 based. However, upon transferring to the Midlands, I found
59 discontent and racial disharmony was rife. In theory, the
60 McDonald's system is superb. In practice, however, the
