
Issue No 35		15 October 1999

Review

McLibel - The Mice That Roared

This documentary is the classic tale of the little guys against the system, a battle for the right to dissent.

Dave Morris and Helen Steel are members of a branch of Greenpeace who battle to save the world by standing outside the Golden Arches and handing out pamphlets telling customers how bad the mega-national is.

It's the sort of innocent, na�ve grassroots campaigning that really gets under the skins of the Big Boys who spend hundreds of millions each year taking credit for every facet of the good life, from birth the dignified old age, through the sale of junk food.

Even the claim "junk food" above would have been enough to give Maccas a go at Workers Online in court before Helen and Dave fought what became Britain's longest ever running case.

Scores of publications had received the same treatment, a legal summons demanding a grovelling Mc-Cheesy apology or the prospect of a costly court battle against an opponent you could never outspend. They all ate the brown matter.

Except Helen and Dave have no money, so they have nothing to loose. They say "buggar you", we have nothing to apologise for, and even less after this little incident.

And so the case begins. Pitted against a team of QCs and their highly-paid juniors, Dave and Helen represent themselves, establishing a network of volunteers and arguing the case against all the allegations they had made on the pamphlet. And McDonalds defends itself.

As they make their way painstakingly through the evidence from rainforest clearance in the Third World to the health implications of its product, its treatment of its workers and manipulative advertising, McDonlads is called to account.

Dave and Helen don't win legally on every count, but they force a public examination of corporate practices that unfold into a public relations disaster for the Big M - ensuring they will never launch another McLibel for a long time to come. This means can now say that McDonalds are "bastard bully boys whose corporate practices are a blight on humanity wrapped up in cynically manipulated McSmiles" without running the risk of sending the Labor Council bankrupt.

This documentary is as delightfully understated and wry as our two heroes, a great modern day fable.

And Dave and Helen? Still without having paid McDonalds a cent, although paying for their commitment in more tangible ways, they've turned their little environmental cell into an international organisation dedicated to calling Maccas to account, through the website McSpotlight: http://www.mcspotlight.org.uk. whcih will this weekend hold Worldwide Anti-McDonalds Day. Only this time, they won't be sued.

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Issue 35 contents

Interview: Strategic Responses
NSW Police Association president Mark Burgess has worked in the coal mines and the waterfront - now he�s the public face of NSW police

Republic: Negative Campaigning
If the Republic fails, one of the main complaints which should be leveled against the ARM is its refusal to play dirty.

Unions: Interpreter smooths the way for Kosovar Refugees
�The people really appreciate what Australia has done for them but they still want to go home," said Ariana Biba, a HREA member who has been worked recently as an interpreter assisting newly arrived refugees from Kosovo.

Education: Count Yorga's Evil Plot
NTEU president Carolyn Allport looks at Kemp's brazen attack on univestities and warns the battle is not won yet.

Safety: Death in the Snowy
Beyond the engineering achievements of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, there is the tragic story of those workers killed or seriously injured in the construction of the project.

International: Why Is the WTO So Anti-Labour?
Driving the cost of labour down appears to be the main priority of the World Trade Organisation

History: The Importance of Tradition
Historical documents bring us into closer contact with the past and its concerns as this 1945 extract from the NSW Nurses Association journal, The Lamp, shows.

Review: McLibel - The Mice That Roared
This documentary is the classic tale of the little guys against the system, a battle for the right to dissent.

Satire: Government Privatises Numbers
Prime Minister John Howard released a new policy on numerals yesterday, to bring them in in line with the Liberal Party's plan to privatise �Pretty much everything before we lose office.�

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