
Issue No 76		03 November 2000

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International

Unions Mac Their Day

By Andrew Casey

McDonald's - the biggest employer of young people around the world - is increasingly becoming the target of union recognition campaigns, backed by human rights groups concerned about the fast food chains practices in countries such as Indonesia, China, Russia, Canada and Germany.

Last week the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions demonstrated outside a McDonald's outlet, and called for a boycott to highlight the deplorable working conditions and the anti-union policies at McDonald's.

While McDonald's seeks to globalize their anti-union US-style employment practices, the international union movement is working hard to publicise their practices, and bring community and political pressure on governments to rein in this anti-union corporate giant.

In Russia

McDonald's has recently taken a beating from local unionists. After a two year campaign at the McComplex food processing factory the union members have forced the company to recognise their union and bargain collectively.

The International Union of Foodworkers (IUF) has for some time actively backed the McDonald's campaign in Russia through their local affiliate - the Commerce and Catering Workers Union - and is now organising global protests to back the workers in China - and demand independent union rights for the workers..

The McDonald's workers in Russia appeared before a parliamentary commission of the State Duma to give, sometimes harrowing, evidence of the poor working conditions they suffer at the food processing factory - and the stand-over tactics the company has used to fight unionisation.

A Moscow Times reporter wrote that the food-processing plant workers told parliament that the food freezer section was so cold that: "One of our colleagues got frostbite on his penis!"

"We regularly get ear infections. Look, we have to work an hour in our freezer shop, where the temperature is minus 26 [degrees Celsius], and we have only 5-minute breaks to warm up."

Innokenty Dukhovlinov told the Moscow Times that when he complained about such work conditions, the personnel department chief told him, "I will draw a circle on the floor with chalk and you will have to warm up in it."

Yevgeny Druzhinin, a forklift operator at McComplex and a member of the union committee, recounted taking management to court after he was reprimanded for breaking a piece of equipment. On Oct. 16, a Moscow court agreed with Druzhinin that the equipment broken was not nearly as expensive as McComplex management had asserted. But he said his path to that court victory was paved with intimidation.

"Igor Lobanov, our security boss, told me that he would have me put in jail," Druzhinin told the parliamentary hearings.

"And indeed, some Captain Titkin called me two days afterward and told me to come to 38 Petrovka [city police headquarters]. Titkin said I must talk less and then there would be fewer problems for me at McComplex. I understood that Titkin was Lobanov's friend."

Arrogantly the company refused two invitations from the Duma's MPs to turn up and give their side of the story.

In China

McDonald's has been exposed for contracting out to toy factories which rely on child labour, the production of the billions of toys McDonald's needs as an integral part of their global promotional strategy.

At a plant in Shenzen - just across the border from Hong Kong -some 2000 workers, mostly young women, work unlimited hours at a fixed daily wage of less than $US 3 per day.

Unpaid overtime - frequently stretching into the early hours of the morning - is typical according to a report in the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.

The South China Morning Post reported last month that workers as young as 14, worked 16-hour days in spartan conditions. The minimum employment age in China is 16.

Some of the young workers were quoted by the Post as saying they lied about their age to gain employment at the company, City Toys, which produces such items as Snoopy, Hello Kitty, and Winnie the Pooh dolls sold with McDonald's meals.

The Post said one of its reporters mingled with some of the youngsters in a guarded factory complex. It said 16 workers sleep in a single room on wooden beds with no mattresses.

McDonald's has poured enormous financial resources into a campaign to bust unions in Canada; in Germany the company aligned itself with a notorious 'union' with a Nazi past, while in Indonesia union organising efforts have been thwarted by sacking leaders and activists.

You can get the a lot more news and details about McDonald's in Russia and China from Labourstart

For more information about the IUF campaign

The Asia-Pacific office of the IUF, which is based in Sydney, has produced a leaflet to hand out at McDonald's outlets . Ring 9264 6409 for more information, and ask for Jasper Goss.

View entire issue - print all of the articles!

Issue 76 contents

Interview: Withering On The Vine
Cooking shows and 'Bugs fucking to Mozart' may become the staple diet on our ABC as news and current affairs face a war of attrition. Quentin Dempster gives Workers Online an insider's view of our endangered national broadcaster .

US Election: Sugar Candy Politics
Like in everything else, Americans like their politics sugar coated. A Nation in denial, they are happier maintaining the fantasy that the world is a fine and dandy place says Michael Gadiel.

US Election: George W. Bushwhacked by Texas Truth Squad
The Texas Truth Squad are a group of Texan union members travelling the US on a crusade to expose the Republican presidential nominee as a corporate rogue who in his time as Governer proved himself as an enemy of the worker.

History: Federation and the Labour Movement
National celebrations will mark the Centenary of Federation next year. The labour movement's opposition to Federation at the referenda held around the Australian colonies in 1899 will attract less commemoration, although the republicans of 1999 might have benefited from reflection on the causes of working class discontent one hundred years earlier says Stuart Macintyre.

International: Unions Mac Their Day
McDonald's - the biggest employer of young people around the world - is increasingly becoming the target of union recognition campaigns, backed by human rights groups concerned about the fast food chains practices in countries such as Indonesia, China, Russia, Canada and Germany.

Satire: Wiranto�s charity album inspires genocidal maniacs everywhere
Indonesia�s favourite former strongman, General Wiranto, has recently decided to record an album of love songs. Entitled To You My Indonesia, Wiranto�s album has already sold 8,000 copies and is raising money for refugees.

Review: What About the Workers?
A big, gruff bloke in a blue singlet, on strike or just not working, and generally being difficult. That's the trade unionist for you. Barry Cohen's new book What About the Workers? shows this image may have a bit of truth about it, but he would be telling a few good yarns while he was standing about.

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