McJob
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McJob is slang for a low-paying, low-prestige job that requires few skills and offers very little chance of intracompany advancement. Such jobs are also known as contingent work. The term McJob comes from the name of the fast-food restaurant McDonald's, but is used to describe any low-status job - regardless of who the employer is - where little training is required, staff turnover is high, and where workers' activities are tightly regulated by managers. Most perceived McJobs are in the service industry, particularly fast food, coffee shops, and retail sales. Working at a low paying job, especially one at a fast food restaurant, is also often referred to as flipping burgers.
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[edit] History
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McJob was in use at least as early as 1986, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which defines it as "An unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector."[1] It was popularised in 1991 in Douglas Coupland's novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture as one of the margin definitions. It was described as "a low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low benefit, no-future job in the service sector. Frequently considered a satisfying career choice by people who have never held one".[2] The novel never uses the term in reference to McDonald's, though; Andy, the book's narrator, uses the term only once, in reference to the bartending job that his friend Dag does.[2]
The term is used to emphasize the perception that many desirable middle-class jobs are being eliminated,[citation needed] either due to productivity gains (often the result of automation[citation needed]) or due to the shifting of operations to second- or third-world countries where labour costs are cheaper. For example, manufacturing, call-centre, accounting, and computer programming jobs are not as abundant in developed countries as they used to be,[citation needed] as firms have looked abroad to meet these needs, frustrating many people who used to work in these industries. Such displaced workers often spent many years gaining specialized education, training, and experience, and are reluctant to start over in a new industry at the bottom rung.
While McJobs do have many drawbacks, they also have advantages. McJobs are often relatively undemanding and typically offer safe, air-conditioned working environments.[citation needed] While they lack job security, McJobs are typically as easy to get as they are to lose. Also, there are often wide variations in how workers are actually treated depending on the local franchise owner. It is actually quite common for people who started out as entry-level McJob holders to become assistant managers or managers and continue working at the same franchise for many years. McDonald's disputes the idea that its restaurant jobs have no prospects, noting that its CEO, Jim Skinner, started working at the company as a regular restaurant employee, and that 20 of its top 50 managers began work as regular crew members. [3]
According to Jim Cantalupo, former CEO of McDonald's, the perception of fast-food work being boring and mindless is inaccurate, and over 1,000 of the men and women who now own McDonald's franchises started life in the working world behind the counter serving customers.[citation needed] Since McDonald's has over 400,000 employees, not to mention high turnover, Cantalupo's contention has been questioned as being invalid, working more to highlight the exception rather than the rule.
Others[attribution needed] oppose the implicit criticism of service work inherent in the word McJob, arguing that a solution such as automation of these jobs would be condemned by those with the same political perspective as those who coined the term.[citation needed] It is argued that capital will often be attracted to those markets with lower costs in the absence of artificial barriers such as government controls.[citation needed] While some[attribution needed] condemn this as globalization, others argue that this process ensures that prosperity is shared to new communities and people, rather than monopolizing wealth in white, English speaking markets.[citation needed] The emergence of a rapidly growing information technology industry in India and its attendant prosperity is one example cited.
The word McJob was added to the world's best-selling hardcover dictionary Merriam-Webster in late 2003 [2] despite the objections of McDonald's. In an open letter to Merriam-Webster, Cantalupo denounced the definition as a "slap in the face" of all restaurant employees, and that "a more appropriate definition of a 'McJob' might be 'teaches responsibility.'" Merriam-Webster stated that "[they stood] by the accuracy and appropriateness of [their] definition."
In 2006, McDonald's in the UK undertook an advertising campaign to directly challenge the perceptions of the McJob. The campaign was supported by research conducted by Adrian Furnham, Professor of Psychology at University College London, and highlighted the benefits of working for the organisation stating that these benefits were "Not bad for a McJob". So confident were McDonald's of their claims that they even ran the campaign on the giant screens of London's Piccadilly Circus.[4]
On 20 March 2007, the BBC reported that the UK arm of McDonalds is planning a campaign including a public petition to have the dictionary definition of a McJob changed. Lorraine Homer from McDonalds is quoted saying that the firm felt the definition was out of date and inaccurate. [5] McDonalds UK CEO Peter Beresford described the term as "demeaning to the hard work and dedication displayed by the 67,000 McDonalds employees throughout the UK". [6]
[edit] McJOBS, the trademark
McJOBS (plural, uppercase) was first registered as a trademark by McDonald's on May 16, 1984, as a name and image for "training handicapped persons as restaurant employees". The trademark lapsed in February 1992, and was declared 'Dead' by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Following the publication of Generation X in paperback in October 1992, McDonald's restored the trademark.
During the aforementioned arguments that broke out when Merriam-Webster included "McJob" in its new entries, McDonald's officials implied the company might bring a lawsuit against the dictionary based on this trademark issue, but never went through with it.[3]
[edit] See also
- Maxime, McDuff & McDo - a 2002 French language documentary (w/English subtitles) about the troubles of unionizing a McDonald's in Montreal.
[edit] References
- ^ "Merriam-Webster: 'McJob' is here to stay". The Associated Press. November 11, 2003.
- ^ a b Coupland, Douglas. Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. St Martin's Press, 1991. p. 5 ISBN 0-312-05436-X
- ^ [1]
- ^ "Not bad for a McJob?" Management Issues. June 8, 2006
- ^ BBC. "McDonald's seeks McJob rewrite", 2007-03-20. Retrieved on 2007-03-20.
- ^ CNN International, 24 March 2007.
