My name is Ben, and I worked for McDonald's for two and a half years
from October 1993 to February 1996. What I experienced there was a
company typical of the American corporate ideology that if it makes money
you can justify wholesale corruption. I initially worked in a franchise
store at in Birmingham owned by a S*** R****.His rates of pay were lower than even the McDonald's company standard which meant that
his 16 year old employees were being paid between 2.35 and 2.65 per hour.
He also deducts money from people's wages for cash discrepancies on
tills, which he usually did without without providing notification or
statig it on terms of employment at the orientation. This practice later
changed and it was made legal, howevera large number of ex-employees
would be able to testify that he did it while he was breaking the law
(wages act).His treatment of people was shabby to say the least;when I
became a floor manager I was often reprimanded for not being hard enough
on the crew, and for generally complaining about working conditions,
understaffing, poor food quality and lack of cleanliness.Because of his policy on spending as little as possible on cleaning
supplies there were rarely any clean cloths or other materials, and we
often used externally purchased chemicals without filling out a risk
assesment form which is against COSHH regulations. His wife was also
notorious for demanding cleaning tasks to be done, despite lack of crew
and few materials. You were expected to just get the job done with no
excuses.Food was always overheld from cooked food to raw items. If a
product ran out of date it was still used. This applied to the salads
which he claimed were "tossed fresh every day" therby breaching the
trade descriptions act, and shake mix which has a fantastically high
bacteria content even when it is within its use by date. He only threw
the shake rerun away every couple of months! This meant a very long
bacteria chain! If food was dropped it was generally picked back up, I
was told by two managers Mr W**** and Mr S**** that if you were
going to cook it at such temperatures it would be okay.The DPSC was rarely completed properly,one Saturday (Mc Happy Day 1994)
there were so few crew that it was not filled in at all, and it was later
discovered that the grills were at the wrong temperature. This meant
undercooked products were served all throughout the day shift!
The turnover was extremely high with very few people staying longer than
a year.I moved to a company store expecting it to be different, but instead
found it to be worse. At first it was OK, but then I discovered how the
store manager R*** P** victimised crew. He would dicipline them and
not tell them their right of appeal as he was supposed to. If McDonald's
had trade unions this guy would have been out of a job a long time ago.
If you voiced a complaint against the way things were run he took it as a
personal insult and usually intimidated you.Aiding him in this task was the second assistant S**** A*** whose poor treatment of people is
legendary. He would shout at and insult people, give them poor marks on
performance reveiws, schedule them low hours, give them the worst jobs,
and put an uneccesary amount of pressure on them to work faster. He had a
low opinion of crew.For example in one incident there was a heater in
the drive thru booth 1, this was because it got cold with the window
always being open. His opinion was that crew did not deserve this luxury
besides it also put up the heating bills, so he removed the fuse. Upon
discovering this I put the fuse back and wrote a damning note explaining
the implications of such an act on health and safety law, for this action
I received a reprimand being described as "unproffesional". I also
received reprimands for disposing of out of date food, telling crew their
rights of appeal, threatening to complain about the store manager and
putting up a notice in the crew room which asked for people to come
forward if they had a problem with R**** P*** in the hope action would
be taken.I eventually left after a sexual harassment claim was alledgedly filed by
my ex-girlfriend, which turned out to be a complete lie. It was in fact a
pack of lies told by a crew member who thought they would curry favour by
sucking up to the boss, a practice that was encouraged.After leaving I waited over three months for my P45, even a letter to the
head office got me nowhere.There is probably a lot more to tell, but one doesn't know where to
start. Working for Mcdonald's taught me that if you want to get anywhere
you have to be prepared to step on other people.