Ever since the Trial began, a stream of information damaging
to the junk-food giant has emerged, both in the court room and
elsewhere. Some highlights:
In the UK, McDonald's has produced a primary school teaching
pack in which Ronald McDonald relates maths to counting cartons
of French fries and geography to the location of its restaurants.
Hard-up schools are resorting to free educational packs from
McDonald's to teach children maths, geography and English. Use of
the teaching aids -- packed with references to the hamburger
giant -- was slammed as a "frightening intrusion". Some
parents feel vulnerable children are being brainwashed.
More than 1,000 educational packs have already been sent to
teachers unable to afford anything else. The teaching packs make
obvious references to the hamburger chain. Some examples:
Geography: Do you know where in England McDonald's restaurants
are? Maths: Add up a collection of baskets of fries. English:
Identify words like Chicken McNuggets, Happy Meals and milk
shakes.
The National Confederation of Parent Teachers' Associations
criticised the company for targeting young children. Membership
secretary Belinda Yaxley said: "This is subliminal
advertising, brainwashing of the most vulnerable people in our
society". Mrs Yaxley, of Norwich, a mother of four, called
for legislation to ban such a "frightening intrusion".
She said that although the packs met all educational
requirements, they also "rammed the message of McDonald's
down children's throats".
A former assistant manager, Simon Gibney, told the mammoth
'McLibel' hearing in the High Court how the world's biggest fast
food chain:
- Watered down milkshakes, drinks, ketchup and mustard, then
slashed portions of salad and cheese.
- Poured cooking fat away until drains overflowed and flooded the
kitchens with two inches of stinking sewage.
- Broke employment laws by forcing staff under 18 to work past
midnight when the restaurant was busy.
- Ordered other employees to work gruelling 18-hour shifts
through the night without any overtime pay.
- Then, when trade was quiet, saved money by sending people home
for having "long hair" or a "creased shirt".
Mr Gibney, 27, a graduate of McDonald's "Hamburger
University", also told the court that customers would
complain about partially raw meat in their burgers.
A former staff member of McDonald's in Australia reported that at
the junk-food giant's store in Queen Street, Brisbane, staff were
taught how, by holding pre-folded cardboard french fries'
containers in a particular way when pouring fries into the
cardboard containers, fries would fall into the containers at an
angle which ensured that a minimum number of fries was required
to make the containers appear full, saving McDonald's up to a
third of the fries in a container of large fries. There was also
a special technique for pouring sundaes so that an air bubble
formed in the centre. Thus it appeared to customers that they
were getting a container full to the brim, only to find a hollow
centre -- a phenomenon which could be said to exemplify the whole
McDonald's dining experience.
In the US, it was claimed that McDonald's "negotiated vital
information" out of press releases released by government
bodies. The Corporate Crime Reporter (Monday Oct 23, 1995)
reported that McDonald's and Government bodies resolved a dispute
over playground injuries at McDonald's stores, but the total
number of injuries involved was not listed in the resulting press
release. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the
US Dept. of Justice announced an agreement with McDonald's in
which the junk-food chain will finance a $5 million safety
campaign to be overseen by the CPSC and will report to the CPSC
any future defects in playground equipment at its restaurant
playgrounds.
A Consumer Product Safety Commission press release noted that
"McDonald's became aware of numerous injuries, including
broken bones, to children who played on the
"Tug-N-Turn" merry-go-round rides installed between
1982 and 1987, but did not report the information to the
CPSC." The press release did not quantify the injuries or
broken bones. When asked by a reporter how many injuries and
broken bones were sustained at the merry-go-rounds, CPSC
spokesman Ken Giles said that he couldn't say. "Everything
in this press release is carefully negotiated"he said. But
when asked the same question CPSC general council Eric Rubel did
answer, saying that there have been at least 104 reports of
injuries to children, including at least 48 children with broken
bones.
Rubel said that the press release "was discussed with
McDonald's and we received comments from McDonald's on it."
Rubel said that when reporters have asked about the injury
figures, he has responded with the numbers. "I'm not aware
of a draft of the press release going to McDonald's with injury
numbers in it and the numbers subsequently being removed from the
release." Rubel said. Rubel said that the Justice Department
negotiated the settlement.
George Philips, head of the Justice Department's Office of
Consumer Litigation, said he "did not think it was
appropriate to include a line in the press release detailing the
number and nature of the injuries given the cooperation that
McDonald's had shown during the negotiation of the
agreement." A monetary penalty of up to $5 million, more
than three times the maximum fine provided by the act, is
provided by the agreement for knowing failure to report future
defects. To further ensure compliance with the agreement,
McDonald's will perform regular safety audits of its restaurants.
McDonald's hostility towards trade unions and its exploitation of
its workers has been exposed at the trial. Hassen Lamti, a
current McDonald's crew member in Lyon (France) and a trade union
representative related:
- how five McDonald's managers were arrested for trying to rig
union elections in July 1994;
- how he was harassed for union activity - he was wrongly accused
of making bomb threats to the store and of other criminal
activities; an attempt was made to frame him for armed robbery,
and McDonald's offered him a bribe if he renounced the union;
- how the union branch, now established, has so far won over 20
court judgments against the company to stop harassment and
illegal business practices.
Anne Casey and Sean Mrozek, are former McDonald's workers and
union activists from the historic, successful 1979 seven month
McDonald's strike for union recognition at two stores in Dublin
(Ireland). After the bitter strike ended with a labour court
ruling that McDonald's should recognise the union, the main union
activists were nevertheless sacked or otherwise victimised for
union activity. Evidence was also been heard from a number of
other Defence witnesses, ex-employees from the UK, Ireland, and
USA, and also the General Secretary of the International Union of
Foodworkers based in Geneva.
A sweetener called Aspartame, marketed as NutraSweet, Equal &
Spoonful, is added to "diet" drinks sold to children at
McDonald's stores. Multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus are
often associated with the consumption of three or four diet
drinks a day. In the keynote address at a World Environmental
Conference, the American Environmental Protection Authority
announced that there was an epidemic of these diseases, and they
did not understand what toxin was causing this to be rampant
across the nation. Betty Martini from "Operation Mission
Possible" told the conference that she was there to lecture
on exactly that subject.
She said that: "the wood alcohol in aspartame converts to
formaldehyde and then formic acid, (ant sting poison) and causes
metabolic acidosis. That methanol toxicity mimics multiple
sclerosis and that people were being diagnosed with it in error.
That multiple sclerosis was not a death sentence but that
methanol toxicity is." Martini claimed that "systemic
lupus has become almost as rampant, especially with Diet Coke or
Diet Pepsi drinkers, also with methanol toxicity the victims
usually drink three or four of them a day." "In the
case of systemic lupus which is triggered by aspartame", she
said, "the victim usually does not know that aspartame is
the culprit and continues its use aggravating it to such a degree
that sometimes it is life threatening. When we get people off
aspartame, those with systemic lupus usually become asymptomatic
but we can't reverse the disease."
"On the other hand" said Martini, "in the case of
those diagnosed with MS when in reality its methanol toxicity
most of the time all symptoms disappear. We've seen cases where
their vision has returned and even their hearing has returned. It
causes a good deal also of tinnitus." Martini warns:
"If it says sugarfree - don't even think about it!"
* The German-language RTL television network, which broadcasts
to most German-speaking areas of Europe (and is available
elsewhere in Europe on satellite and cable), covered the McLibel
trial on a programme called "Spiegel TV". A team from
that programme spent several days in London preparing an item on
the case. They talked to the Defendants and to other people
involved in the McLibel Support Campaign. McDonald's UK refused
to grant them an interview
* Protests against McDonald's have been staged at Melbourne,
Australia, and in New Zealand. In Dunedin, New Zealand, on
January 16 1996, the opening of a new McDonald's store was
attended by a number of children and a group of protesters. Some
protesters wore face paint and costumes. Their props included
placards and a big stick with dead animals and bones attached.
They chanted and made a lot of noise. Chants included 'McDeath,
McLitter, McLibel', 'Eat clean and green, Don't eat McDonald's',
'Big Mac, Big Crap, McDonald's Milkshake, Chicken Fat', and 'You
are what you eat, Don't eat McDonald's'. They also distributed
leaflets with information about 'What's wrong with McDonald's'
abbreviated from a British leaflet.
It seems that some Australian McDonald's branches have some bugs
to iron out of their service if recent newspaper reports of
cheeseburgers with 'extras' are anything to go by. Hot on the
heels of a report from Newcastle (NSW) of maggots being
discovered in a McDonald's cheeseburger served to a schoolgirl,
the Bankstown local newspaper, The Torch, carried details
of another young girl getting an unexpected free gift with her
meal.
The half-page article appears under the headline "Not so
McHappy over hamburger" on page 5 of the December 27 edition
and contained the following excerpts:
A father said he would 'go for the maximum payout' in a compensation suit against the McDonald's Bass Hill store over claims he found a spider in his hamburger. Mr Zeljko Golijan's claim follows a visit to the restaurant on the Hume Highway on the afternoon of October 12. The cheeseburger had been unwrapped, Ana (his daughter) went to pick it up to bite into it, and as she put her hands in the region of the hamburger, the spider came out from the burger. "I put a drink container on top of the spider and called for the manager", he said. [The Torch}
The manager, after being told of the incident, said that he
didn't see any spider." I then lifted up my drink to reveal
the spider. The manager saw it, had it killed and thrown in the
rubbish." His daughter complained after the incident that
her "finger was hurting."
She was taken to a medical centre and given a referral to Camperdown Children's Hospital (quite a distance away), however Mr Golijan took her home instead and monitored her condition. These hours of checking young Ana were stress ridden and would be the centre of his compensation claim. "Apart from coughing and sneezing a few times, in the end she was fine." But for the next couple of weeks "She was waking up saying there were spiders and snakes in her bed." The Torch spoke to John Blyth, communications manager for McDonald's. "McDonald's is not prepared to accept that it was in any way at fault," he said."The (store) manager offered to replace or refund the man's meal." He said that one of these offers was taken up by Mr Golijan. Mr Blyth said Mr Golijan and his family are invited to a store inspection and to be the guest of the restaurant for a meal. "Beyond that, we wouldn't expect the matter to go any further." [The Torch]
As with the Newcastle complaint, Health Department inspectors
later gave the Bass Hill franchise a clean bill.
If this case does get to court, some defences that McDonald's won't
be using ...
"The spider was included in the cheeseburger in response to
customer concerns about maggots."
"You say that you are bringing this action as a responsible
parent, worried about the effects on your daughter's health of
receiving a meal containing a spider, and yet you purchased this
meal for her knowing full well that it contained a McDonald's
cheeseburger!"