The UPS strike lasted 15 days, adversely affecting thousands of businesses, but for the first time in years the American public sided with the union. The company's extensive use of part-time employees, who were paid half that of their full-time counterparts, struck a chord with the public. Even The Economist magazine entered the fray, cautioning against creating "two classes" of workers.

In Quebec, the Teamsters are now trying to organize McDonald's workers. The union drive has received extensive media coverage, both in Quebec and throughout the rest of Canada. In March, a CROP poll found that 9 in 10 Quebeckers surveyed knew about the drive, "a staggering number according to the pollsters," and that public support in Quebec lay squarely with the union.<Mike King, "Public supports union's bid, poll finds," Montreal Gazette, March 28, 1998, p. A6.> In Quebec, Canada's most pro-labour province, 41 percent of the 947 people surveyed were in "complete agreement" with the Teamsters' bid, while another 23 percent were "somewhat in agreement."<Canadian Press, "Poll backs union bid," Montreal Gazette, April 2, 1998, p. A4.>

Later, the program revealed that this modern-day David is, in fact, in league with the Teamsters, a union with 1.4 million members, notorious for its mob connections in the 1970s and '80s, and embroiled in corruption charges today.

Although the Teamsters have been behind the union bid from the beginning, CBC's "National Magazine" characterized the pro-union organizers as "a bunch of kids." CBC's Tassie Notar reported: "At this McDonald's in St. Hubert, the kids who shovelled fries and wrapped Big Macs formed a union, the only one in North America.

"The owners of the franchise made their move. They shut the place down. The multinational corporate giant wasn't about to let a bunch of kids push it around . . . the St. Hubert kids, led by Martin Lepage, launched a campaign to unionize every McDonald's in Quebec. Behind them, the money and muscle of the Teamsters."

Throughout CBC's documentary, there were frequent references to the size, power, and influence of McDonald's even though two-thirds of McDonald's restaurants in Canada are franchises—in essence, small businesses. Although these franchisees have the same financial risks and many of the same responsibilities as other restaurateurs, CBC's "National Magazine" focused on the "kids" taking on a "corporate giant."

Another CBC program, "On the Line," took a more balanced approach. Host Patrick Conlan introduced the May 31, 1998 show with: "[Martin Lepage has] taken on the world's biggest fast food chain because he thinks the company exploits its army of part-time workers. With the backing of the powerful Teamsters, he's on a campaign to make sure a union card comes with that snappy uniform."

Godbout's example was the requirement that employees serve a client within one minute, and the attitude of the owners that if employees could not do the job they should "stay at home."

Similarly, on CBC's "National Magazine" documentary, Tassie Notar reported, "It wasn't about better wages, but better working conditions." Former employee-turned-Teamsters-organizer Martin Lepage explained, "Basically, if you're not fast enough, or if you're putting the pickles not at the right place, then the manager [will] start to yell at you and tell you that you're not doing your job as well as you should."

The vast majority of the debate (77 percent) sided with the union; the bulk of these arguments focused on the grievances of McDonald's employees (see Figure A). For example, Louis Lacroix, Canadian director of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said, "This is no longer the image of a restaurant for happy families. It now involves not respecting workers' rights, and abusing them by cutting seconds off their performance time. This is an important battle for unions everywhere."<Canadian Press, "Teamsters roaring down on McD's," Vancouver Province, March 19, 1998, p. A25.>

The Ottawa Citizen reported that one 51-year-old McDonald's employee at the St. Hubert franchise had talked about "deplorable working conditions" and the restaurant becoming a "production line."<Mike King, "Teamsters set to march through Golden Arches," Ottawa Citizen, March 6, 1997, p. C1.>

Teamster Henri Van Meerbeeck likened working conditions in McDonald's to "sweatshops," claiming that "some parents are becoming concerned about their children working there."<Mike King, "McDonald's fights unionization: Saint-Hubert franchise contests application," Montreal Gazette, March 14, 1997, p. A4.>

The top five pro-union arguments were the one-minute service requirement and productivity measurement, general complaints about working conditions, unpaid overtime, lack of respect, and low wages. The press consistently reported these five complaints which, combined, accounted for over one-half of all arguments presented.

The number one argument against unionizing McDonald's was that union fees would not be worth any benefits gained by the employees. The Edmonton Journal reported that protestors at an anti-union demonstration said that "they doubted a union could help them and did not want to pay union dues out of their modest salaries."<Canadian Press, "Fast-food workers take to Montreal streets to show their lack of appetite for unions' overtures," Edmonton Journal, March 21, 1998, p. A8.> The position that McDonald's workers are better off without unions constituted 8 percent of total arguments presented by the media.

In a related article, Mark Startup, president of the Retail Merchants Association of BC, argued, "The fact that joining a union may destroy a job escapes the knowledge of many service sector employees who are being enticed by mega-unions promising fatter pay cheques. In reality the bigger bucks are rarely there; the recent contract at Starbucks gave workers an extra 75 cents an hour, not the $3-an-hour more the union wanted. In the end, union dues end up taking back more than half of the pay increase for Starbucks' employees at the starting wage."<Mark Startup, "Unions should look inward for change," Vancouver Sun, August 8, 1997, p. D2.>

Ten percent of debate on the Team-sters' bid to unionize McDonald's focused on the implication for the union. Slightly more than half of these arguments supported the bid, claiming that the Teamsters needed to expand their membership and that the swelling service sector was an obvious target.

For example, the March 24, 1998 Montreal Gazette editorial commented: "There are a number of reasons the union movement is so excited about the prospect of unionizing McDonald's. The employees fit the profile of the kind of workers whom unions are going after. They are young and at the bottom of the wage scale, and they're employed in the expanding service sector where unions are scarce. . . . Organized labour is looking for fresh blood."

The "National Magazine's" Tassie Notar concluded the CBC documentary on the Teamsters' unionization drive with the statement, "one union, one food chain, but every union needs new members. As `McJobs' become `real' jobs, the fast food industry becomes ripe for the picking. Can the industry avoid being picked?"

Similarly, on February 13, 1998, CBC's Mark Kelley of the "National" reported: "High unemployment means flipping burgers has become a career for some and they want union benefits to go with it."

In contrast, other media outlets, such as "CTV News," reported a changing work force in which low-wage workers are likely to be "older" and "full-time." On September 2, 1997, CTV's Scott Laurie reported, "Many workers say they get paid barely more than minimum wage and also say their employer must adapt to a work force not all part-time and young, but full-time and older."

Who are low-wage workers? In the fast food industry, they are primarily women. According to Statistics Canada, there were 22,225 Canadians working as "food service counter attendants and food preparers" in 1995, and three in four of these workers were women.

One study found that low-wage workers are fairly evenly split between young people—teenagers and those in their earlier 20s—and people 25 years old or more, although increasingly low-wage workers include older people. For instance, in 1988, 58 percent of low-wage female workers were categorized as young, but by 1995, just 46 percent were young. <Nicole M. Fortin and Thomas Lemieux (1997), "Income redistribution in Canada: Minimum wage vs. other policy instruments," Paper presented to the IRPP conference "Adapting Public Policy to a Labour Market in Transition," convened in Montreal, Quebec on April 18-19, 1997.>

The Globe and Mail's Terence Corcoran, in a column entitled "Workers of the world, forget it," reported that after the Teamsters' UPS strike, "Many in the media are going along with the union victory spin. The Sunday New York Times carried a major report on how union members' wages and benefits are 20 percent higher than those of non-union workers . . . [but] the report only touched on the fact that such union wages have the effect of reducing employment and slowing economic activity." <Terrence Corcoran, "Workers of the world, forget it," Globe and Mail, September 3, 1997, p. B2.>

In discussions of the Teamster's bid to unionize McDonald's, macroeconomic arguments accounted for less than 5 percent of total arguments. Discussion was split between alleging that "McJobs" are becoming "real" and therefore low-wage service sector workers need unions to ensure better treatment and higher wages, and the argument that unions raise costs for businesses and lower productivity, causing lay-offs and, in some cases, bankruptcies.