Politics: McDonald’s Strike Over Zero-Hours

McDonald’s workers have launched their first ever British strike in a dispute over irregular work patterns and poor pay and conditions. Workers from the Crayford store in south-east London and another in Cambridge walked out for 24 hours on Tuesday, with the support of Jeremy Corbyn and trade unions. Employees wanted a pay rise from £7.50 to £10 for those over 25 and more stable working shifts, reigniting the debate about controversial zero-hour contracts.

Zero-Hour, No Power

Conditions and pay are not new problems for the chain. An investigation by the Guardian in 2013 showed that McDonald’s was the UK’s largest zero-hour private sector employer with 90% of its workers tied to zero-hour contracts.

Those contracts are half the reason workers are now walking out; they don’t guarantee regular work so they offer no income stability. Employees can be picked up and dropped with little warning, leaving many without regular pay.

Zero-hour contracts are part of a heated country-wide debate. The McDonald’s strike comes just months after the Government-commisioned Taylor review into UK working practices demanded that all work should be “fair and decent”.

The report by former Tony Blair aide Matthew Taylor also put a spotlight on “one-sided flexibility”, the term used for when “employers seek to transfer all risk onto the shoulder of workers in ways that make people more insecure and makes their lives harder to manage.”.

Taylor found that flexible hours were important and lifted employment to record levels but that too many employers were relying on zero-hour contracts, which treat people “like cogs in a machine rather than human beings” and don’t allow for job progression. Jeremy Corbyn’s call for an outright ban on these contracts may not be the answer but something has be done to give workers more security. Theresa May has ruled out curbing the contracts, effectively leaving employers to police themselves.

Same Old Story

According to the Taylor Report, workers on zero-hour contracts have to be able to easily pass the minimum wage for flexible work hours to work for both sides. McDonald’s track record doesn’t bode well for proving that is the case. The firm has had pay scandals from the US to South Korea, and embarrassments about the treatment of workers.

In 2015 workers in the US alleged they were told to treat oil burns with mayonnaise because they lacked the necessary first aid supplies.

The company is also the record holder for the longest-running libel case in English history after it accused two environmental activists of making up lies about the company.

Unfortunately for McDonald’s, some of the allegations were deemed true by the presiding judge, including the fact McDonald’s endangered the health of workers and consumers, exploited children, was averse to worker’s unions, was culpable for animal cruelty and paid workers low wages.

Thanks for McNothin

All that comes as no surprise to McDonald’s employees. While teenagers receive as little as £4.75 an hour the salary of CEO Steve Easterbrook works out to £5,684 an hour for a 40-hour work week.

The pioneering UK strike was supported by the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union as well as Corbyn and the Labour Party. The union claimed that “despite all the attempts to change McDonald’s approach and help them become a fairer employer, nothing has been done on their side.

Nothing has changed. Empty promises have been made.” Corbyn said the workers’ demands for “an end to zero-hours contracts by the end of the year, union recognition and a £10 per hour minimum wage are just and should be met.”

Similar strikes in other countries have received mixed responses from McDonald’s. Steve Easterbrook, the chief executive, has admitted that increasing wages and benefits in the past has improved customer satisfaction by 6% and increased revenue but there have been few recent changes apart from the addition of some fixed-hour pilot projects.

There’s hope in consumer pressure, though. McDonald’s has already ditched supersized meals, battery-farmed eggs, gestation-crate pigs and GM food thanks to customer demand, so a combination of worker pressure and consumer publicity may bring about reforms to help both McDonald’s and its staff.

 

by Jo Davey

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