Labour Relations in the Global Fast Food Industry

Citation

Roper, I. (2002), "Labour Relations in the Global Fast Food Industry", Employee Relations, Vol. 24 No. 5, pp. 561-563. https://doi.org/10.1108/er.2002.24.5.561.4

In recent years, there has been a steady increase of books addressing the previously neglected area of industrial relations in the service sector (Royle’s (2000) book, being closely related to this one, is one of these). Given the over‐emphasis in industrial relations with patterns and trends in manufacturing and/or public service sectors, characterised by union recognition and by collective bargaining (Wood, 2000) this can only be seen as a welcome development in the discipline.

Moreover, there is a clear need for an antidote to many of the consultancy‐led orthodoxies about “the new” employment relationship. Assertions that the growth in service work and associated decline in collectivism are due to the raised aspirations of a “generation X” who shun manufacturing work in favour of the more empowering work in services, goes largely unchallenged because of the relative lack of research into this growing sector. Of course some of this is understandable, given that access to these organisations is notoriously difficult. If groundbreaking works such as Beynon’s (1984) faced access difficulties at Ford in the late 1960s, what risk and access problems are likely to be confronted in an industry characterised by the McLibel trial? This methodological issue is strongly implied at the outset in this book – even to the extent that the authors “… offer no apology … that some chapters have, to a lesser or greater degree, not systematically accessed management representatives in the companies concerned” (p. 6).

If this poses methodological problems for researchers, what of those involved in what the focus of this book is concerned with: trade unions? It is only relatively recently that the union movement itself, in its “organising approach” (Heery et al., 2000), has placed much emphasis on this sector of the economy for growth. Now that it has, how easy will organising be? What role will national legislative intervention play in supporting this? On the latter point, the international case studies in this book suggest a limited role. With these points in mind, this book is invaluable. What comes across strongly in this work is that there is greater convergence between the employment relations systems in the various countries studied than ever was the case in the automotive industry – always seen as the most likely candidate for a vanguard industry for setting such precedents. However, this brings me to the first criticism of this book, for in the opinion of this reviewer this point regarding convergence could, perhaps, have been drawn out more in the final chapter.

In terms of the chapters in the book, the introduction provides the framework for the individual country‐based case studies. The global nature of the fast food industry is contextualised along with some discussion of the nature and development of fast food itself and of the organisation of the industry as a whole (use of franchising etc.). While “labour process” issues of fast food work is ruled out of the remit, it would be fair to say that an appropriate level of discussion of work organisation is included in many of the case studies (indeed it cannot be fully separated from any discussion of labour relations). The actual remit of the individual chapters is, perhaps, ambitious. Each author is asked to cover issues related to national labour market regulation, the specific political and economic context of the country concerned, the effect of market competition, the influence on and the effect of union organisation and collective bargaining/consultation (or lack of) processes. Invariably the remit is met, though the first of these necessarily appears in the final chapter.

On the whole this book’s strength is in the number of case studies covered. True, there is a bias toward Anglo‐Saxon countries, but this is probably legitimate given the greater entrenchment of this industry in these countries. Outside the USA, the UK, Canada and New Zealand, however, Western Europe is covered (Germany, The Netherlands) along with Russia and Singapore. The background information on national industrial relations institutions and the profile of the fast food sector is informative and not overly lengthy – although there is, perhaps, a tendency for repetition when making international comparisons on the latter issue.

Overall, the research material in each of these case studies is very rich. Given the potential access difficulties already mentioned, the chapters on the UK and Canada are particularly so. The use of common themes also makes each chapter easy to follow with regard to writing style – although the tone of the chapter on Russia seems slightly at odds with the other contributions.

One other complaint to be made is on the amount of minor errors and/or typos in the volume. One example is an inconsistent approach to US/British English (chapter 2). Another example is inaccuracies (for example, mention of “the 1999 Employment Act” pp. 48, 49). Less problematic, but still provoking some further questions, are a few ambiguities. In the chapter on Australia, it is claimed on page 159 that 65,000 young people work in only 600 McDonald’s restaurants in Australia. This seems unlikely in itself, but in table 9.1 on page 163 it is stated that total McDonald’s employment in Australia is 13,871. As a reader I was also intrigued to learn that the practices adopted in Russia were taken from Canada (rather than the USA), yet was not sure how Canadian (management) practices themselves differed from US practices.

Despite these problems, the book is to be recommended as a key case‐study, in itself, of the issue of globalisation. Paradoxically, fast food in the twenty‐first century appears to have the ability to homogenise employment relations on an international basis, in a way that the emerging global automotive industry could not hope to have achieved at the height of what we often term “Fordism”. This book illustrates this well.