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Example research essay topic: Code Of Conduct Whats Wrong - 1,804 words

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... the employees when they are supposed to be non-thinkers and constantly supervised for any deviations from the norm. As for a balance of work and life, McDonalds would insist on complete loyalty to the company, but it cannot. Instead, they leave the lowly employee with an erratic unpredictable work schedule that must be planned around. If the employee does not want to comply by these unfair exploitive guidelines, he or she can simply quit and another will fill the spot. Apparently, McDonalds feels that as a member of the global community, it must uphold a high standard of conduct for all of its domestic and foreign employees and corporate staff, as well as for the work staff for all of their suppliers.

McDonalds implemented a Code of Conduct for all its suppliers where they work closely with McDonalds supply chain in order to address possible challenges. The overall goal of such a code was to protect the health, safety, and human rights of their employees. By instating a code of conduct, McDonalds seemed to be claiming responsibility for its suppliers actions. However, in many instances, this is not the case. For example, in August of 2000 in Southern China, a supplier of Happy Meal Premiums was accused of illegally and unethically employing child laborers in horrific conditions.

Although the auditors found nothing of the sort, it still kept the corporation on its heels. However, McDonalds was not ready for such a sting on its corporate operations in the 1990 s when the Mc Libel Trial began. The Mc Libel Trial was a landmark case that exposed many of McDonalds faulty practices including worker exploitation. It began on October 16 th, 1985 when London Greenpeace launched an International Day of Action Against McDonalds. The following year, the radical group produced a leaflet called Whats Wrong with McDonalds? that denounced many aspects of McDonalds corporate practices ranging from outrageous claims of cancerous foods to more mainstream allegations of worker negligence.

McDonalds produced Mc Fact cards in 1989 and hired private investigators and spies to find out the identities of the protestors involved in the leaflet distribution. By 1990 McDonalds served out five libel writs to five identified perpetrators, three of whom apologized. Only Helen Steel and David Morris refused to cave in under the large corporations imposing threats. They decided to take on the corporation in the longest trial in English history beginning on June 28 th, 1994, and ending with a monumental verdict on June 19 th, 1997. The defendants in the Mc Libel Trial attempted to unveil McDonalds using the accusations London Greenpeace put forth in Whats Wrong with McDonalds? Although they did not succeed in proving every denunciation, the defenses work helped to corner and to unmask unethical practices that the corporation wanted to keep out of the public eye.

The defense based their argument off of the extremely high turnover rate of employees. According to the leaflet, 80 % of the McDonalds workers are part-time, but the average yearly turnover is 60 % [for all of McDonalds locations] and 300 % in the United States [alone]. Furthermore, employees in the restaurant tended to quit after a short term. In McDonalds case, they blamed two valid sources. It was true that workers in the restaurant and catering trade make poor earnings and work in less than satisfactory conditions. Hours are long, shifts are unpredictable, and promotions are as scarce as water in a desert.

However, there is no means for the masses of employees to remedy such malignancies. Typically, laborers founded or joined a union to barter with the company, but no such organization exists within the McDonalds corporation, especially for part-timers. In addition, a majority of McDonalds workers were immigrants with limited job opportunities that feared repercussions if they ever attempted to unionize. In fact, the defense accused McDonalds of working under a policy of anti-unions and dealing with pro-union workers.

Another factor was the infrastructure of the basic McDonalds and the type of personnel required to run it. Essentially, the company profited from youth labor considering over 75 % of the work force is under 21. Given the nature of the assembly line, anyone could run an automated grill or perform janitorial services fading out skilled employees, such as chefs. At the time of the trial in England, McDonalds paid their workers as it saw fit because there was no legal minimum wage.

A combination of deskilled work and low pay led McDonalds to find and exploit the cheapest labor source consisting of immigrants, women, and blacks. As the trial went on, witnesses on both sides came clean with what they believed was the true nature of McDonalds employment. However, some of McDonalds own members could not defend the companys practices as various employees testified. Many of the employees testified on behalf of the defense to further uncover McDonalds poor employment values. During the trial, the defense obtained much of its support from actual employees that work or had worked at a McDonalds. One employee commented on the anti-union sentiments and the devious ways that other pro-union workers might be dealt with by saying: Whilst working at the Colchester store, I was told by the managers (particularly the Floor Manager, Simon Gibney) that if anyone joined a union or even seriously considered joining a union, they would be sacked.

However, I was told that the management would not attribute the sackings to trade union activities. A different reason would be given or the management would simply make life unpleasant so that the crew member left. Still another witness mentioned that if a member of staff was sick, the staff schedule was often rewritten so that they were not 'meant' to be there on the relevant days and were, therefore, not entitled to sick pay. These are just two examples of the corporation and its managements deceptiveness to corner, trick, and eventually exploit its workers. Other testimony revealed sentiments that could possibly represent McDonalds feelings as a whole concerning the value of the employee. An employee named I.

Whittle mentioned on one occasion he prevented the Store Manager, Phil, from being assaulted by a customer, but managers would often allow staff to be abused and threatened rather than lose a customer. If employee testimony was not enough to sway the verdict in favor of the defense, surely the failure of McDonalds own corporate employees to argue for their corporation would. Sid Nicholson, McDonalds United Kingdom Vice-President, and Jill Barnes, McDonald's UK Hygiene and Safety Officer, could not adequately refute any of the accusations of anti-unionization or employee negligence. Nicholson insisted that McDonalds was not anti-union, but did not persuade workers to join them. In fact, he said that any McDonald's workers interested in union membership would not be allowed to collect subscriptions...

put up notices... pass out any leaflets... to organize a meeting for staff to discuss conditions at the store on the premises... or to inform the union about conditions inside the stores" and that overall [employees] would not be allowed to carry out any overt union activity on McDonald's premises" without reprisal.

As for worker treatment, Nicholson had more to say. The wages for most McDonalds employees were "consistently either exactly the same as the minimum rates of pay set by the Wages Council or just a few pence over them. " However, when he was more forthcoming, he admitted the company couldn't actually pay any lower wages without falling foul of the law" concerning the wages of employees of age 21 or over. More concerned with the topic of worker safety was Jill Barnes. She could not discredit the statements of a Health & Safety Executive report of 1992 insisting "safety is not seen as being important at store level" and the application of McDonald's hustle policy [ie. getting staff to work at speed] in many restaurants was, in effect, putting the service of the customer before the safety of employees. " In light of this testimonial evidence, the judge still had to declare a verdict in order for the protestors to claim victory or defeat. Although the Mc Libel Trial ended in a legal failure for the defendants, they succeeded in bringing McDonalds operational and ethical faults into the critical limelight of the public.

The judge ruled that Helen and Dave had not sufficiently proven all their accusations and fined them a significant sum of 60, 000 pounds for libeling McDonalds. However, McDonalds made the wise decision not to pursue the fine and save what had been readily exposed to the public. The Mc Libel Trial did not greatly hinder the expansion of markets or the growth of profit, but instead left McDonalds ego scarred and the golden arches a little tarnished. In future years McDonalds had to be more cautious and more responsible for all branches of its company and not just profits.

It seemed as if McDonalds was sure that it could keep the employment practices under a close and private eye, but it comes to show that not even the biggest most successful pioneers of an industry is above treating employees as mere cogs in a machine. As a result, organizations such as Mc Spotlight formed to monitor every move that McDonalds makes, while seeing that employees are treated as people instead of drones. However, every company even McDonalds goal is to maximize its profits by all and including devious means. What makes McDonalds so different from any other big company that exploits its workers to obtain the greatest revenue?

McDonalds is merely a microcosm of what may be wrong with profit-maximization in business. Its practices are not much different from any other restaurant or business, where its success lies in its relationship to the community and its image. With a jaded image and generally an abuse of the community that serves it, business could also be negatively affected. McDonalds is a large target for groups because of its far-reaching influence, but why do people care what goes on behind the scenes at a restaurant as long as they get their food at an affordable price? People generally want to have quality at an inexpensive price, which McDonalds supplies, but people also do not want to be subject to the forfeits and conditions necessary to provide such goods at an affordable price.

People, being humans, are selfish at heart and would rather have someone else do the work instead of them, while still feeling somewhat bad that that type of work has to be done. Bibliography Leader, Robin. Fast Food, Fast Talk. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1993. Reiter, Ester. Making Fast Food.

Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press. 1991. Whyte, William F. Human Relations in the Restaurant Industry. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company Inc. 1948.

Vidal, John. Mc Libel. New York: The New Press. 1997.


Free research essays on topics related to: code of conduct, whats wrong, union workers, fast food, mcdonalds

Research essay sample on Code Of Conduct Whats Wrong

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