Part 4 - DW062 001 028 004

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4 A DIFFERENCE AT MACDONALDS? The adverts say, "There's a difference at MacDonald's you'll enjoy." Well, their hamburgers might make a cha- nge for the better from Wimpeyburgers, but they are still a firm that mass prod- uces a limited range of food which is sold by poorly paid staff in order to make the company huge profits-just what Wimpey's have been doing for years. And people won't enjoy the "difference at MacDonald's" much when every major street in every major town has its own Mac- Donald's restaurant. This situation could well come about in Britain, since the company intends to expand here. MacDonald's is among the fastest growing monopolies in the USA. It has overtaken all its competitors to become the most profitable "fast foods" chain in the world. In the USA, MacDonald's com- mands 20% of the market, ag- ainst its nearest rival's 8% and it is still opening stores at the rate of 400 a year. HAMBURGER CENTRAL The company's headquar- ters is "Hamburger Central," Chicago, where it has a com- puter which keeps track of sales and stocks throughout the world. It also has a "Hamburger University" where it trains managers. The firm is very anti- union. It takes advantage of high youth unemployment to take on young people for poor wages. Workers have to "qualify" for wage-rises- they don't get them on the basis of seniority. Their performance is reviewed every threemonths, and if for some reason it is thought to be not good enough ("You have a bad attitude towards the job-you don't smile en- ough"), they don't get a rise. Now MacDonald's is ex- panding into foreign markets too. It operates in 24 count- ries besides the USA, and has well over 500 restaur- ants in them. It plans to open another 150 this year, including some in Britain. This is part of the reason for its current advertising campaign here. The international expan- sion of MacDonald's and sim- ilar companies might seem menacing, but, on the other hand, it makes more clear the common interest of the workers of all lands in org- anizing to smash, by social ist revolution, the system of exploitation of which MacDonald's is part. PUBLIC MEETING OF CWM AND RCLB Speakers from the Communist Workers Move- ment and the Revolutionary Communist League of Britain on the struggle to unite the Marxist-Leninist movement. 2-5 P.M., Saturday, April 29th at the Public Hall, Old Town Hall, Haverstock Hill, London N.W.3. (Near Belsize Park Tube Station) A ZANU speaker will also talk on the Zimbabwe Liberation Struggle. POLISH REVISIONIST- A GUEST OF THE LABOUR PARTY. Edward Babiuch a leader of the revisionist "Polish United Workers Party" that exercises brutal dictator- ship over the Polish Work- ing class and people was recently a "fraternal" guest in London of Ron Hayward General Secretary of the Labour Party. Babuich also hobnobbed with Michael Foot, David Owen, leaders of the revisionist "Communist" Party and the TUC. These actions of Foot and Hayward show what sort of social fascist dictatorships these "left" labourites would like to impose on the British working class. In Poland the genuine Marxist-Lennists organised in the Communist Party of Poland led by Comrade Mijal work under ground and face brutal re- pression. Soviet troops are in Military occupation of Poland. RELF Robert Relf, the racist who advertised his house "For Sale To An English Family" (meaning to a white family) has sold it to a Sikh. His neighbours wanted nothing to do with him, and when a Jubilee street party was organized, he was the only person in the road who was not invited. He thought he would upset his neighbours by selling to a Sikh, but no-one seems bothered. BAD AIR A survey of air pollut- ion in London at the end of last year revealed that the levels of ozone and sulphur dioxide in the air over the city are poisonous. The World Health Organ- ization (WHO) has recommend- ed certain levels of air pollution as"acceptable" upper limits, beyond which certain gases produced by industry become dangerous to the people who have to breathethem. For ozone, the "safe" level is 10 parts ozone to 100 million parts of air, but levels above London were 21 parts per 100 million. Sulphur dioxide levels were 16 times the"safe"level. The tests were carried out by the Greater London Council, the Medical Re- search Council, the Atomic Energy Research Establish- ment and the Department of Industry. Obviously, poison in the air concerns all the people of London, but part- icularly working class people, who live in the areas of greatest industrial pollution. Why then, has there been hardly any pub- licity about this survey's findings? The answer is that if many people realized how their health was being aff- "JUST GOING OUT TO PLAY, MUM..." ected by air pollution, they would pressurise local and national government to con- trol pollution levels more strictly. That would cost businesses more money and government bodies have no intention of leaning very heavily on them to fork out more cash to protest Lon- doners' health. It is clear that business and government put profits before people's health. This is a very different situation to that which is found in big cities in soc- ialist China. In places like Peking and Shanghai, indus- try is steadily growing year by year, yet pollution of all kinds is being reduced, with some of the waste prod- ucts even being put to good use. This only happens bec- ause in China the working class has power, and indus- try exists to serve the needs of the Chinese people, not for the benefit of a few parasites. JAWS In Britain, dentists are paid on the basis of a fee for each item of work they do. Many dentists do a good job of looking after their patients' teeth but others only think about totting up as many fees as possible for extractions and fillings. They do not think about prevention and the qual- ity of their work which has led to lower standards of care. The emphasis in dental health work is on treatment rather than prevention. In 1975, £191.5 million was spent on dental treatment in England and Wales but less than £2 million on prevention. 力更生 Taching, an oilfield in China. There is little pollution there, and crops grow all around the oil wells. (Papercut)

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