Log in

View Full Version : Protests against McDonalds



Forward Union
17th April 2005, 10:12
Over the past 2 weeks me and a few friends planned a 3 day campaign against all 12 McDonalds in our local area.

The first day wasn't very eventful, we handed out leaflets until the manager told us to get off their land. We went to the edge of McDonalds property and handed them out there. Also putting up posters in the bus stops nearby.

Second day we handed them out in the town centre, this attracted popular attention, and McDonalds called the police. The police couldn't really do anything, but told us to move on for causing a disturbance, this shocked many customers, and gave credibility to the content of our leaflets. One customer actually spat his food out whilst reading the leaflet, congratulated us for our courage, and pretty much went right into the managers face and said "You just lost yourself a customer"

The third day all we done was discretely stick up posters, no public attention.

Overall we got loads of positive feedback, many people took what we were saying very seriously and agreed to either stop eating there or rarely eat there.

...the story doesn't end here..see, the manager gave me a contact number so I could look into McDonalds and hopefully change my mind.

With the information he gave me I discovered:

-Although McDonalds claims to recycle, this isn't strictly true, all they do is reuse the crates and tyres used for transporting their food to each restaurant.

-After 30 mins of being transferred to other customer service workers, I found out that the staff are "not entirely sure of the quantity of beef contained within its burger" but assured me it might very well be "of the highest quality"

-I did find out that the Chicken McNuggets have only 53% chicken (at most) and McDonalds aim to keep their environmental care to "Minimum standards"

-Ingredient lists are available, though hard to aquire, beyond being frightningly vague they do list many unusual and unnecessary chemicals, fatty acids, processed this, modified that. You'd be surprised to find what's in the bun! let alone the "meat"

Guest
17th April 2005, 20:34
Make sure all your facts are true, I think it would be hard on you if we saw another Mclibel case. Seems good work except don't get bogged down in slagging off the vile company, remember fellow workers still have to work there and they are not part of decision making so don't give them stress. Make sure to highlight the workers if you do follow up, they can't form unions are paid shite etc.
Class struggle as well as showing that their food and enviro policies are shite

Forward Union
17th April 2005, 21:08
Originally posted by [email protected] 17 2005, 07:34 PM
Make sure all your facts are true, I think it would be hard on you if we saw another Mclibel case. Seems good work except don't get bogged down in slagging off the vile company, remember fellow workers still have to work there and they are not part of decision making so don't give them stress. Make sure to highlight the workers if you do follow up, they can't form unions are paid shite etc.
Class struggle as well as showing that their food and enviro policies are shite
yea of course. The workers are important, it gos without saying. We dedicated a large section of the leaflet to them. I felt it also important to mention that even though we protest McDonalds, if it were to collapse; another company would just take its place, the fundamental problem is Capitalism.

Like I said, I think it was fairly sucessful.

Jesus Christ!
18th April 2005, 19:25
Good for you. I was wondering what type of info you had on your leaflets.

T_SP
18th April 2005, 19:33
A good job, glad you really looked into everything before you campagined (you can end up looking real stupid otherwise) on a personel note that movie 'supersize me' put me off eating Mcdonalds quite so regularly!

RedLenin
18th April 2005, 21:49
Nice job. It is great to see that people actually listen to you and considered what you had to say. If anyone here still does eat at mcdonalds, i would advise not to. I havent eaten at mcdonalds in 2 years and i am healthier. Really its best just to boycott fast food in general. Anyway, good job with your activism its great to see results like this.

Forward Union
18th April 2005, 22:01
Originally posted by Jesus Christ!@Apr 18 2005, 06:25 PM
Good for you. I was wondering what type of info you had on your leaflets.
Just to bullet point, our leaflets included information on

-The animal cruelty

-Over production

-no solid recycling policy

-They cut corners in food production, and as a result the food is near enough trash for the body.

-The McDiet is linked with diseases such as Diabetes, Obesity etc....

-Workers are underpaid, from the people that slaughter the animals, to the people that serve the food.

-Unions are penalised by the company.

And some other stuff about what you can do, boycotting, etc. Enough to fill an entire A4 sheet of paper with information and a couple of pictures.

bed_of_nails
19th April 2005, 00:48
Very impressive. Where I live, we have no large food chains. All of the resteraunts here are locally owned and run, so I would be incapable of doing that form of protest.

Forward Union
19th April 2005, 15:44
That's not necessarily a bad thing :D

chebol
21st April 2005, 15:27
A number of years ago i campaigned on a similar platform. we managed to get the maccas in Newtown, Sydney, to shut down by handing otu leaflets every day, putting poster and smearing paint on the windows.

This was the first Maccas to shut down EVER. I mean 'shut down', not 'transfer', because that is what they usually do. This branch was shut. (Since then, others have been shut in SE Asia).

Good luck to you.