McDonald’s in British

The UK is the largest European market for fast- nourishment, probably because the market is more true than in other European countries. McDonalds first British unit overt in Woolwich, London, in 1974. Its produce from the first restaurant was dramatic. At the end of 1999, it had over 1,000 outlets in the UK, of which 302 were run by franchisees. McDonalds employed over 48,000 people a further 16,500 worked in its franchises. The total sales from both its company owned restaurants and its franchised outlets reached cd million and it catered for 2.5 million people a day.By the end of the twentieth century, McDonalds logo was no agelong confined to the high streets but extended to leisure centres and retail parks as well as airports and cross-Channel ferries. McDonalds has gone beyond this by opening its own motorway service station called McDonalds Services which it opened on the M5 in Devon in 1999. In February 2001 McDonalds bought a 33 per cent stake in Prt Manger. McDonalds d ominates the concatenationed fast-food welkin both in terms of company and brand terms, taking a share, by value, of 52 per cent n 1999. Together McDonalds and Burger King had 73 per cent of the market in 1999.In a busy world where one does not even have time to salmagundi out of his work clothes to spend quality time with his or her daughter, McDonalds is there to help. The food is undeniable to have the fun and companionship, but what the food consists of is irrelevant. Love (1995) points out that as McDonalds started to expand in the lately 1960s it realized that to cultivate a national mass market, it needed to develop a media move that focused on the family rather than the fruit and price.When McDonalds returned to their complete American menu, altered their buildings to be more quasi(prenominal) to their American architecture, and modified their ad campaigns to food, folks, and fun, the myths of hard work and leisure, Americana and American culture and consensus did their work. In Britain the McDonalds ads proclaimed, The United Tastes of America. In the UK, adverts were aimed in the middle of the biggest market, the family segment. If children wanted to have fun at McDonalds, their parents would take them, and they would be McDonalds customers for life.From my perspective, the McDonalds success is establish upon its ability to tell a story, a story that does not make sense from a analytic perspective but rather from an aesthetic one. The story has coherence and fidelity and helps one solve his or her problem through the purchase and possession of commodities. McDonalds is successful not through the components of a rational st accountgy that includes efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control, but through its advertising campaign that hails each of us to come in and buy its product of food, folks, and fun, to come in and fulfil our American dream.Although most Americans would not consider McDonalds to make the stovepipe burger i n their home towns, McDonalds is hugely successful on an international basis. One does not go to McDonalds expecting the best hamburger in town. One goes to McDonalds expecting the image. McDonalds success is due to their creation of a narrative that is not needfully true but rather provides us with a sense of personal identity, a sense of fellowship life, a basis for conduct, and explanations of that which cannot be known.Labour shortages encourage fast-food employers to alter their work systems in ways that belittle the demand for labour through reorganization or technological change. Subway Sandwiches supplies franchisees with pre-portioned sandwich ingredients from centralized food preparation plants McDonalds has experimented with robotic french fry makers, automated touch-screen ordering machines, and automatic electronic payment systems for cashless drive-through service. McDonalds also expects its unused Made for You food preparation system to reduce employee turnover and provide some labour savings.in the beginning the imposition of the minimum wage McDonalds employees worked in the regions under 18 started on 3.25 per hour and those over 18 started on 3.50 per hour. In the UK McDonalds has three sepa point pay scales for inner London, outer London and the provinces and it has both under-18 and over-18 starting signal rates. In fact McDonalds increased its UK pay rates again by a flat rate of 10 pence on 28 March 1999 to bring the over-18 starting rate to 3.60 outside London. Something like 70 per cent of McDonalds UK employees are under 21, and approximately 30 per cent are under 18.In October 1999 McDonalds was the lead of the leading fast-food chains to remove the youth rate for under 18s. In 2000 McDonalds increased its minimum rate outside London to 3.75, once again probably in response to the small increase in the minimum wage for that year of 3.70. Figures from IDS (2001) suggest that McDonalds does not pay the lowest wages in the sector i t actually appears somewhere in the middle compared with other companies. However, its dominance in the market place doubtless has a constraining effect on wages amongst its competitors. The evidence at the McLibel trial also confirms this. Vidal (1997312) states that the referee commented that the British McDonalds operation pays low wages and it depresses wages for other workers in the industry.Of course McDonalds has been progressively concern in the acquisition of other companies in recent years. In the UK the purchase of the Aroma coffee chain and more recently Prt Manger may signal a new bodily strategy. In any case the relatively small number of restaurants in Europe compared with that in the US suggests that the European market is likely to experience a lot more expansion in future, although McDonalds is already the market leader in the UK.The UK McDonalds is, as in many other countries, expanding rapidly and becoming an increasingly important feature of modern employm ent. Although the majority of outlets in the sector are independent trading operations, it is the chain operations often owned by large multinationals which are the most profitable and which are driving growth. It is a highly competitive industry and labour costs are a large percentage of the boilersuit costs of the business. It is hardly surprising therefore that there is likely to be a continual and unyielding downward pressure on wages and conditions in this sector.BibliographyIDS. 2001, The national minimum wage in pubs and restaurants, Incomes information Services, March 1-8.Love J. F. 1995, McDonalds Behind the arches. New York Bantam.Vidal, J. 1997, McLibel Burger Culture on Trial, London Macmillan.