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McLibel Support Campaign
P R E S S . R E L E A S E . 08/10/04
Anti-McDonald's campaigners pour scorn on McDonald's UK's 30th anniversary celebrations (October 9th)
- and celebrate the 20th year of World Anti-McDonald's Day (October 16th)
Media Release: Oct 8th 2004
McLibel Support Campaign/London Greenpeace
This weekend on October 9th McDonald's UK is marking
30 years since it opened its first store in the UK in 1974. As
campaigners prepare for the 20th year of World Anti-McDonald's Day the
following week (Oct 16th), the hamburger corporation has little to
celebrate.
- They are under seige for being identified as 'public enemy No
1' in the public debate over the growing obesity crisis and the
promotion of junk food. People have been
flocking to cinemas around the UK and the world to see the 'Super Size
Me' documentary, and the UK company has announced it is to abandon its
'supersize' portions (as it already has in the USA).
- McDonald's UK have just announced their largest ever drop in
profits (71% in 2003). Profits dropped from a high of £104.3
million in 2001, to £83.8 million in 2002, and sharply to £23.6
million in 2003.
- Only last month on September 7th the 'McLibel' case, the longest
case (a 314-day trial) of any kind in English legal history, was again
in the news as it reached its final stage - the European Court of
Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. A verdict is awaited. This hearing
was the culmination of 14 years of legal controversy, protests and bad
publicity for the global corporation. The public was once again
reminded of the damning judgments made in 1997 and 1999 by the UK High
Court against the global Corporation's core business practices:
McDonald's marketing has "pretended to a positive nutritional
benefit which their food did not match"; that they "exploit
children" with their marketing strategy; are "culpably
responsible for animal cruelty"; and "pay low wages". It
was fair comment that their employees worldwide "do badly in terms
of pay and conditions", and true that "if one eats enough
McDonald's food, one's diet may well become high in fat etc., with the
very real risk of heart disease."
- Campaigners meanwhile are preparing to celebrate the 20th
annual Worldwide Anti-McDonald's Day on Saturday October 16th [UN
World Food Day] - a protest against the promotion of junk food, the
unethical targeting of children, exploitation of workers, animal
cruelty, damage to the environment and the global domination of
corporations over our lives. Launched in the UK in 1985 by London
Greenpeace, the October 16th international protests have continued to
grow, despite - and maybe even because of - McDonald's notoriously
unsuccessful legal efforts to silence their critics with libel writs.
** In 1999, the only year in which we systematically monitored
where the protests took place, we recorded 425 protests and pickets in
345 towns in 23 countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium,
Canada, England, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Malta,
Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Romania, Scotland, South
Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, USA. ** In
2000, there were widespread and large protests throughout Italy -
at one store in Rome 300 demonstrators succeeded in getting it closed
for the day.
** In 2002 for the first time, McDonald's workers joined
in the Day of Action - there were walkouts and other forms of protests
in many countries co-ordinated by McDonald's Workers Resistance (an
international network of McDonald's workers - see www.mwr.org.uk).
Over 3 million 'What's Wrong With McDonald's?' leaflets have now been
handed out in the UK alone since 1990, and it is now distributed
worldwide in over 27 languages.
One example of this year's World Anti-McDonald's Day local protests:
Saturday Oct 16th - Central London, UK:
Leicester Square, 12-1pm. Mass leafleting event.
'The anti-McDonald's campaign has ensured that the public have
had the opportunity to see through the glossy marketing propaganda that
big business continually forces upon us all. The unsavoury reality of
the fast food industry has been publicly exposed. In opposing
'McWorld', we are working for a future without Corporations - a society
based not on profits and power, but in which people control all the
resources and decision-making themselves.' Spokesperson,
McLibel Support Campaign