From the McLibel mailing list:

McSpotlight note: The following article leads off about public concerns
over modern techiques used in the controversial mass production of meat.
The cruel conditions for animals being reared and slaughtered for profit
is matched by the health risks to those who consume the products. These
major concerns of critics and campaigners, brought up in the McLibel
trial in the 1990s, are forcing the companies involved onto the defensive.

But despite the impression given to the contrary in the article below,
the systematic and irresponsible use of antibiotics to compensate for
the unnatural, cramped and unhealthy conditions will continue. Except it
will be 'justified' as 'concern' for the animal welfare. Bob Langert,
McDonald's Corporation 'Director of Social Responsibility' (and a
witness during the McLibel trial), stated on June 18th 2003: 'Suppliers
will still be able to use antibiotics for therapeutic purposes and
disease prevention'. This was exactly McDonald's line during the McLibel
trial. So no change there then... just more greenwash from McDonald's to
con people.



(part two follows in second post)

the rest of the message:

Victory at McDonald's
By William Greider, The Nation

August 5, 2003

Since McDonald's is a global icon of cultural imperialism and the target
for numerous other social complaints, it's a little awkward to celebrate
the world's largest fast-food corporation for a progressive political
breakthrough.

Nevertheless, McDonald's has taken on what American politics lacks the
nerve to confront: the dangerous practices of agribusiness in producing
chicken, beef and pork - that is, the food McDonald's sells to families.

The company formally acknowledged in late June that the heavy use of
growth-stimulating antibiotics by the meat industry threatens human
health. It advised its poultry suppliers to phase out the practice or
face the prospect of losing the business of America's largest buyer of
meat products. The warning is less firm for hogs and cattle, but those
suppliers know they are on notice too. Mickey D is listening to his
customers. "We would love to be a catalyst for change industrywide,"
McDonald's director for social responsibility affirmed.

Let's hear it also for the galaxy of civic-action groups, from the Union
of Concerned Scientists to Environmental Defense, from the Humane
Society to the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, who made this
happen. A coalition of thirteen organizations put aside cultural and
political differences to educate the McDonald's management. Some, like
the Sierra Club, delivered the message by direct action, picketing
Golden Arches outlets with signs like Get Food Off Drugs. Others, like
Environmental Defense, pursued a lawyerly inside track, negotiating in
"partnership" with the company's proclaimed commitment to social
responsibility.

The victory at McDonald's is but one small piece in a much larger
subject - the politics of food - but it demonstrates that people are not
powerless against corporate behemoths, even the market leaders, if they
find the right points of leverage. In an era when politics is paralyzed,
unable or unwilling to advance government regulation of food and
agriculture, some Americans have figured out how to achieve the next
best thing - consumer power that changes industry behavior, not by one
purchase at a time but on a grand scale by targeting large brands in the
middleman position. We'll see a lot more of this consumer jujitsu,
because it works.

Michael Khoo, a campaign leader at the Union of Concerned Scientists,
explains: "It's definitely not perfect and it's an unfortunate
substitute for law, but people do have the power to change things. In a
sense, McDonald's is playing the role of what would be the USDA
inspectors. If there's going to be a choice, I would definitely rather
have the government do it, but right now we don't have a choice."

The antibiotics problem is widely understood though not yet candidly
addressed by industry scientists or the federal government. Their
egregious overuse encourages the development of resistant strains of
bacteria that then may migrate into the environment at large, including
perhaps human bodies. The supposed efficiency of corporatized
agriculture is riddled with many such contradictions - the company cuts
costs and boosts profits by growing the chickens or hogs faster, often
in brutal conditions, then somebody else (usually the taxpayers) pays to
fight newly created strains of disease. Given market competition, each
company typically claims it has no choice but to adopt the various
practices of so-called efficiency that also produce collateral damage to
society, health and the environment. Then they hear from their customers
- not just scattered objections now and then, but in concerted,
coordinated, well-informed waves.

Yes, it definitely helped that the long-running record of McDonald's
sales growth has stalled. When you're losing customers or not gaining
enough new ones, it does focus the company's mind on what might be wrong
with the product. Nike underwent a similar conversion experience on the
issue of sweatshops when its market share began to decline. Who knows
why this happened, but Nike couldn't ignore the possibility that all
those crazy kids campaigning against foul labor practices in Asian or
Mexican sweatshops might have something to do with falling sales.

In other words, winning reform is not a sentimental question about
whether the CEO has a conscience. The mechanism for change is market
power, something even a retrograde executive like Nike's Phil Knight has
come to appreciate. Nike, like McDonald's, naturally has a long way to
go, but it does now respond to those activists from United Students
Against Sweatshops, exposing factory conditions of the Nike contractors
who actually make the shoes.

"Buy green" activism has been around for decades, of course, but with
exceedingly modest impact on industrial practices. What has changed is
an essential strategic insight. In the nature of American capitalism,
consumers are in a weak position and have very little actual leverage
over the content of what they buy or how it is produced (aside perhaps
from feeling personally guilty about destructive consequences). Instead
of browbeating individual consumers, new reform campaigns focus on the
structure of industry itself and attempt to leverage entire sectors. The
activists identify and target the larger corporate "consumers" who buy
an industrial sector's output and sell it at retail under popular brand
names. They can't stand the heat so easily, since they regularly
proclaim that the customer is king. When one of these big names folds to
consumer pressure, it sends a tremor through the supplier base, much as
McDonald's has.

Rainforest Action Network was one of the pioneers in this approach. It
organized actions around Kinko's, Home Depot and other big purchasers of
paper and wood products. When hundreds of those middleman companies
adopted RAN's policy objectives for their suppliers - no harvesting of
old-growth forest - the issue could no longer be ignored by the timber
industry. This is a hard, long, messy way to change things, no question.
Rainforest Action put the heat to Boise Cascade, a belligerent opponent
of environmental regulation, and the company finally "capitulated" with
a new policy statement. The commitment was bogus, RAN decided, and
continued its organizing.

The McDonald's commitment is regarded as genuine, despite some obvious
fudging, but only a first step too. The fast-food giant is already
working with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to reform the
ways in which animals are raised and slaughtered. One of the strong
points in the McDonald's declaration is a commitment to continuous
improvement and an auditing system of regular inspections that allows
outside critics to judge for themselves whether the progress is real.
The activist groups well understand that they can't walk away after the
corporate press release. They have to stay on the case. This private
process, despite the weaknesses, may be developing new models for how to
achieve industrial change - perhaps a prototype for more effective
regulation if government ever finds the will to act on these issues.

The notorious "hog factories" of capital-intensive agriculture are among
the ripe targets for similar campaigns. Smithfield Foods, the largest
pork producer, continues to gobble up other major companies, tightening
the market noose around smaller independent farmers whose incomes have
been devastated by the spread of the factory model for raising hogs. But
Smithfield's many retail brand names are highly vulnerable, once
consumers learn what they are buying with the bacon. The food we eat
relies on extraordinarily inhumane methods that also sow destruction in
surrounding environments while concentrating economic power in a handful
of dominating corporations.

All these issues are the subject of contentious conflicts around the
nation, especially in the farm states, yet the politics of food is not
on the agenda of either major party. Does Ronald McDonald perhaps know
something about Americans that the pollsters for Republicans and
Democrats have overlooked? The explanation for their indifference is
well understood. Both major parties (and most state governments) are
fully aligned with the big names (and campaign contributors) of
corporate agriculture. Most politicians embrace the industry's economics
- the logic that says big is better - and pols typically hide behind the
veil of "sound science," that is, industry claims that public complaints
about health, environmental damage or the destruction of rural
communities are mere sentiments.

Republicans are hopeless - no surprise. Some Democrats (including
Representative Dennis Kucinich, a presidential candidate) do understand
the centrality of food as a public concern - and recognize that the
issue of food can unite people across the usual political divisions. A
new presidential campaign is under way, and voters should listen
carefully. Are any of these candidates brave enough to talk about
hamburgers?

The Nation's National affairs correspondent William Greider has been a
political journalist for more than thirty-five years. A former Rolling
Stone and Washington Post editor, he is the author of the national
bestsellers 'One World, Ready or Not', 'Secrets of the Temple' and 'Who
Will Tell The People'.


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Off topic but I didn't want to start a new thread..
Here now McDonalds are giving cellphones to those who work for them
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepress/0,2106,2668642a6530,00.html

^^^Aw.. Thats the cellphone I have..

They also pay REALLY well for people under 18...

Hell if I didn't think they were evil, and if I wanted to smell like animal fat for the rest of my life..
I'd work for them! But somehow I don't think that will happen!!

Good article. I think big corporations are aware of the inevitable seeds of gradual change. It will take a significant percentage of veg*ns before food or any form of AR becomes a political issue (like at least 15%), but I think / hope it will happen in the next couple of decades.

Here's a victory against McDs etc.

http://smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/24/1064083060358.html


The Sisters order fast food to go
By Stephanie Peatling, Environment Reporter
September 25, 2003

The chances of the golden arches lighting the road to the Three Sisters have been quashed, with the Blue Mountains Council going as far as planning laws allow to ban "formula fast food".

The council's local environment plan, passed late on Tuesday night and believed to be an Australian first, bans large takeaway food chains from setting up outside the Katoomba and Springwood shopping centres. The council has imposed strict design guidelines within the two areas.

The Mayor, Jim Angel, said a decade of community campaigns against various proposals for fast food chains to set up operations had prompted the action.

"We received legal advice that we couldn't ban them completely but we could use planning processes to stop the proliferation," Cr Angel said.

"I'm not satisfied we'll satisfy everyone on either side of the debate - some people thought we should try and ban them altogether and some people were against a ban."

In 1998 the residents of Newtown ran a successful campaign to rid King Street of its McDonald's store. The next year the Oxford Street McDonald's closed because of a decline in customers.

But rumours of a resident campaign preventing McDonald's from opening in Balmain were an "urban myth", said a spokesman for Leichhardt Council, Peter Flynn.

The Blue Mountains move is believed to be the first time an Australian local government has tried to prevent the growth of fast food chains on planning grounds.

The only similar initiative was a 1988 Byron Bay Council decision to ban drive-through restaurants.

Anne Elliott, a member of the Mountains Against McDonald's group, said the Blue Mountains move did not go far enough.

"Over the years thousands of ordinary mountain people have said they want this region protected against any more fast food chains," Ms Elliott said. "There is a mandate for prohibition [and] our mountains deserve better."

The decision will not apply retrospectively, which means the Blaxland McDonald's and Katoomba Burger King will remain open.

McDonald's Australia said it had "no plans to set up there".