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Sunday, September 09, 2012

false friends

McDonald’s and Coca-Cola prove capitalism can co-opt anything … even worker uprisings.

“Marketers are adopting the theme of workers’ rights at a time when unions themselves are confronting declines in membership and influence,”
notes the New York Times. “In effect, some labor experts say, they are turning a pro-worker theme on its head to serve the corporate interest.”

Advertisers are urging workers to commit small acts of so-called rebellion — like taking a vacation, or going on a lunch break.nThat’s the message McDonald’s sent this spring with a campaign called, “It’s your lunch. Take it.” Meant to promote the Premium Chicken Sandwich and the Angus Third Pounder Deluxe burger, it included tag lines like “A lunch revolution has begun,” “It’s time to overthrow the working lunch” and “A sesame seed of revolt has been planted.”  In one television advertisement, a woman gets up from her desk and announces, “I’m going to lunch.” Her co-workers try to dissuade her, telling her that the days of taking lunch are long gone. An inspired colleague stands up and says, “I’m going with her.” The music swells, he tears off the lanyard around his neck and adds, “I don’t want to be chicken, I want to eat it.”

The appeals to downtrodden workers keep coming. If a mere lunch break or a weeklong vacation is not enough of a respite, workers can enter a contest called “Take the Year Off,” sponsored by Gold Peak Tea, owned by Coca-Cola, will pay $100,000 to the winner to take a year off work to do whatever he or she pleases. The Facebook page features pictures of office workers under various states of duress. In one photo, a man in a suit rests his head in his hands as paperwork piles up around him. In another, a woman is seen kneeling against a file cabinet, her mouth open in a scream of desperation.

 A television ad for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, called “Take Back Your Summer.” shows a woman who has had enough. Amid ringing phones and clicking keyboards she climbs up on her desk and shouts through her speakerphone: “I have 47 vacation days. That’s insane.” “Let’s take back our summer!” she yells as she raises a sign over her head with the phrase “Vacation Now” on it. “Who’s with me?”

“It’s an effort by management to co-opt the Occupy Wall Street spirit and redirect it to promote its product,”
said Harry Katz, dean of the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. “They are using it in a somewhat manipulative way.”

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