: I have worked at McDonalds for over a year now. It is a great place to work. I can work as many hours as I want, or don't want to, and have my flexible hours so I can go to College at the same time. You are a part time worker. I worked there, on and off, for a total of 3 years. At one point I was working 24 hour shifts. In September 1996, I told my store that if they didn't cut my hours, I would have heart attack and die. We had a visit on by the then vice president of the UK, Mr. Andy Taylor (Now president.) This visit was scrapped two or three times. We still had to keep doing all nighters, getting out at 4 or 5 in the morning, in case he came that day. I ended up leaving work at 3:30am, and had a cardiac arrest at 4 am. I was 23 years old at the time. This happened 6 months after I had fractured my back working there.
Its not that I want to stop people eating there, I don't. I believe in freedom of choice within a capitalist society. However, I do want to get McDonalds to look at some of their employment tactics.
You say you can do as many or as few hours as you like. If the store manager doesn't like you, s/he can give you 1 hour a week full time working, because mcDonalds won't give guaranteed hours. If they need you until 3 am because of a visit, and you have to be in college at 9am, they can start the proceedure to sack you for not staying on until 3am. You may have it good, but you will find (in the evidence section of this here web site) many people who didn't have it so good.
In Darlington,England, a store manager was having trouble keeping her daily and weekly figures the same if not higher than the year before. She was put under immense pressure to keep those figures. Eventually she and some salaried managers, in a bid to boost figures, called in a bomb scare at the Burger King accross the road. Some of them went to prison for that. What for, so that head office would be happy that the pounds were flooding in. Its a high pressure job, and McDonalds can make it easier, but they don't.
On a Floor managers training, many are told that to be promoted further they have to look at crew as the enemy. 'Get more work out of the.' 'leaning time is cleaning time, relaxing time is ajaxing time.' 'Make more use of hustle.' It ends up with people slipping on wet floors, customers getting shit service from staff that don't want to be there or are too stressed to care what the customer thinks.
So, in closing, I'm not trying to shut McD's down. I do want them to allow Unions into stores, give better pay and conditions. Further, see the judgement of the Court of Appeal and the trial (Before his hon. Mr. Justice Bell) and look at what they all said about advertising, pay and Conditions, treatment of animals, store conditions etc. etc. Its pretty horrible reading.
See also some of my earlier articles here in debate, and please try to understand why some of us do this. There are 101 reaons behind, with 101 desired outcomes, but not many of here are trying to stop you eating or working there, although some are.
And remember, its your opinion, you make your own mind up. I just want to pass om some of the information McDonalds try to stop by using libel action threats.
None.
