by frog
The simmering dispute between McDonald’s and its New Zealand workers over wages, and just as importantly, guaranteed hours of work is one we should be watching as it is an issue that extends beyond workers’ rights and industrial relations.
MacDonald’s heavily marketed and low priced food that our children eat is the direct result of the savings that come from cheap wages and poor working conditions. Workers have the right to know what hours they will be working, and how much their next pay check is likely to be. A lack of guaranteed working hours undermines that right. There is little point having a wage rate if the hours you work fluctuate and change either amount or schedule unannounced.
Perhaps we could benefit from this man, at number eleven on the Green Party list, coming in parliament to speak to these issues?
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare by frog on Fri, November 7th, 2008
Tags: , fast food, Gareth Hughes, McDonalds, wages, workers rights
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Frog!
now that’s viral …
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So who is paying for this young fool to have fun ? The taxpayer via the dole or even worse a govmnt salary ? Or the same poor workers via a union salar ?
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what? Ronald McDonald is standing for the Greens?
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More a bunch of clowns…
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“Workers have the right to know what hours they will be working, and how much their next pay check is likely to be.”
Really? I guess you’ve never been in small business, then.
The answers are usually “a lot” and “whatever we made this week”.
And we get SFA help from the government, but they do like to tax the hell out of us. In advance.
Perhaps there would be more left for “the workers” if the government pulled back a bit…
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Very good Blue Peter, very good
Mc Donalds employees appear to be almost all students who have as much need for flexible hours as the the employer. I assume they all get paid the minimum wage which seems more than adequate for standing behind a till speaking from a script.
I think perhaps that many young workers are exploited more by ambitious union officials looking to make a name (in order to further political ambitions) than employers. Mc Donalds is an easy target, a multi-national hated by the left. Don’t see too many protests outise Cezannes cafe in Ponsonby ehich I am sure pays the same wages with worse conditions.
BTW Good luck to the Green Party tomorrow. Have already cast special votes for Nikki Kaye and Act but you guys deserve to get your 8%.
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“Mc Donalds is an easy target, a multi-national hated by the left. ”
More evidence I’m not a leftie – I like McDonalds both the food and the company, though less so than I did some decades ago. However, if Ray Kroc, the (effective) founder of the McDonalds corporation were alive today and active in the corporations management then I think he would quosh this stupidity; he believed in “his” people, he believed in “his” suppliers, and ensured they were all treated well, to the point that in the early days the McDonalds corporation nearly hit the wall several times over.
Mikkie Dees is not the great company it once was. Corporate greed has sucked many of its great priciples dry. And thats what happens when you let MBAs run a company. In the great days of McDs, MBAs were not welcome in McDonalds.
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>>So who is paying for this young fool to have fun ? The taxpayer via the dole or even worse a govmnt salary ? Or the same poor workers via a union salar ?
You will be delighted (I am sure) to know that this image (which has travelled around the world and landed in local newspapers from Chile to Israel) was a Greenpeace protest. So you can rest assured that your precious tax dollars where not in use!
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The first McDonalds I ever went to was the one on Arthur St in Thunder Bay, Ontario, in 1970. It opened around the corner from our school and we used to run over there for lunch. A Quarter Pounder was 25 cents. A hamburger was 15 cents. You could buy 6 hamburgers and a drink for $1.
My friends got jobs there. As long as they got along fine with the manager or franchise-owner, they got lots of hours. The minute they didn’t do all they were asked to do, their hours were cut as punishment….and if the manager was displeased enough, they would get no hours at all.
It wasn’t all bad. If the manager was a decent person and fair, the system worked OK. But if the manager was a prat, the system became one for bullying teenagers into complying with whatever was demanded of them. This caused a lot of stress as I recall….and the decisions made were unaccountable and beyond appeal. It was a recipe for dysfunction and a very one-sided working relationship.
For this reason, I’d never recommend anyone work at McDonalds (or anywhere, for that matter) unless you know the operator personally and know they are good people who will be fair to employees.
Best to withhold your Labour from arseholes by simply never working for them i the first place.
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So Meghan are you saying he is an employee of Greenpeace or that Greenpeace where organising the protest ?
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Meghan: I love your sarcastic use of the word precious. Yes my tax dollars are precious and they are mine not the Governments.
Will this young chap be continuing to protest against businesses going about their lawful business if he gets in on the list and starts drawing a taxpayer cheque ?
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Sorry Bryan, I was aiming for playful, not sarcastic. Any insult wasn’t intentional.
I can assure you, this ‘young chap’ has the most integrity of anyone I know, so if he was to enter parliament after the elections, I can safely say he will not be leaving his conscience behind.
But I guess in the case of your last comment, you are now the one resorting to sarcasm.
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Bryan Spondre: If you have ever been in a McDonalds, you must be blind. They do a lot more than standing behind a till speaking from a script. open your eyes next time, please. Those kids work very hard for their money in often unpleasant conditions (hot and greasy air, slippery floors)if that McD’s is a busy one or at busy times if it isn’t flat out all day.
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dbuckley: I met Ray Kroc when I was in my teens. He was working behind the counter at our local McDonalds not long after it opened.
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Well Meghan I guess that is one of the challenges for MP’s in the Green Party (and the Maori Party perhaps). They get to be MP’s by being successful protestors and that often means engaging in unlawful actions e.g. land occupations, criminal dammage etc. Then they get into parliament and suddenly responsible for upholding the law. Not so easy having principles when you have to deal with real life.
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I don’t know who you talk to when forming your opinion of working conditions in MacDonalds. For one thing a huge percentage of students who graduate in the US have paid their way through college working at MacDonalds.
But they find they get more than money.
When I met my own bank manager for lunch to discuss general business he told me that the best management training he ever got was during his time at MacDonalds. THey were the only organisation which impressed him with the value of the customer and the need to recognise customers as people, not cash machines. Since then many others have made the same point.
When I was negotiating technology licenses in China I once asked why they had invited MacDonalds into China so early. The officials explained that they regarded MacDonalds as an excellent management training school. Their young people had no experience of business, customer relations or anything related to business operation (fortunately many of their older people did which is why they were running everything) and MacDonalds provided this basic training to many young people at no cost to Government.
The reason these officials new this was they had studied in the US and worked in MacDonalds themselves.
So what is Greenpeace on about? Why are they opposed to foreign aid of the best kind.
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OutinFront Says: “I met Ray Kroc …”
I think I’m vaguely jealous. He is a business leader I admire(d) enormously, his insight on issues such as quality were years ahead of their time.
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“So you can rest assured that your precious tax dollars where not in use!” I didn’t know the police force had been privatised. Or do you mean it’s fully funded from speeding tickets
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>>So what is Greenpeace on about?
The f*r left loathe business, which is fine by me. I just wish they’d remain morally consistent and stop taking the money my business generates. All US earnings. All IP export. (virtually) Zero c02 emissions.
What do we get for it?
Derision.
That, my green flippered friends, is why we’re voting ACT & National.
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Bryan Spondre. Haven’t you heard of “white collar crime” that goes unpunished in this country. Think John Key in a former life. Think any one of the finance companies that went belly up this year causing many people to lose substantial parts of their life savings whilst the directors got to keep their fancy houses in places like Kohimarama.
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Owen McShame. If you consider the sheer number of employees that go through companies like McD, Burger King and the like and think of the tiny number of them that actually get on the management trainging programs, let alone get to be store managers or franchisees you will see the joke of your justification. All that these fast food chains have done is encouraged us to believe that what they serve is food and to shut down some of our neighbourhood chippies.
Actually I have to smile when I consider the management training to Chinese officials and then think of an environment where officials turn a blind eye to melamine in milk. (actually the smile should be tears)
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Scott: what has white collar crime got to do with anything ???
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Gee Scott,
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If people don’t like working at McDonalds, surely they can leave?
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” If people don’t like working at McDonalds, surely they can leave?”
Standard right wing comment – actually NO they can’t always leave.
Could miners leave the pit? Could the match stick girls leave the factory? – The young people in the “hospitality” industry today are the matchstick girls of the modern era. They are taken for granted by their employers. Its not always easy to just walk away – although many do. Evidence the huge staff turnover in many cafe’s and food outlets – McD’s included. What these young people are wanting, is for the McD’s etc to acknowledge the worth of their efforts with decent working conditions. Something that will be even MORE difficult if the NACTUF team get the nod tomorrow.
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macro: relax Comrade. I am predicting a crushing defeat of the Capitalist scum by the victorious armies of the left. Comrade Kedgley will finally become Minister of Health and be able to replace expensive doctors, radiographers and surgeons with homeopaths carrying bottles of magic water.
The Revolution cometh: belive Comrade, believe!!!
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“- Evidence the huge staff turnover in many cafe’s and food outlets – McD’s included. ”
So, yes, they can just leave.
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What did youth do for income before McD’s?
They left school at 15 and spent three years working for apprentices wages, that’s what they did. Bring back apprentice wages and make the world a better place!
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