Don't let your boss steal your lunch
break.
Do
you eat lunch at your desk? Alone? Continuing to work as you chew?
Welcome
to the new wondrous world of work in which employees feel intense pressure from
bosses to labor right through lunch. In a survey, 62 percent of people with
desk jobs said they grab a snack
and keep working during lunch, rather than taking a pause to step outside, clear their heads,
socialize with co-workers, and recharge.
By creating a nose-to-the-grindstone climate, companies are able to extract an extra hour of work — unpaid — from every cube captive who foregoes taking that noontime pause. This is yet another product of the corporate autocracy’s tightening grip over a union-free workplace. It’s not exactly a morale-builder, for it increases both stress and resentment.
So
guess who’s doing something about the corporate usurpation of lunch?
Corporations! Not by empowering workers, of course, but by exploiting their
resentment. McDonald’s, a notorious union buster in its own workplaces,
recently launched a perverse, workers-of-the-world-unite advertising campaign
under the slogan, “It’s your lunch. Take it.”
By
“take it,” McD’s is saying that distressed desk jockeys should “overthrow the
working lunch” by darting out for a calorie-packed Third Pounder Deluxe burger
at McDonald’s. Likewise, KFC and Applebee’s have concocted crass PR pitches to
divert legitimate worker anger into lunch consumerism in their chain store
eateries.
The
corporate theft of the lunch hour is not some hokey ad gimmick — it’s a real
assault on the basic ethic of workplace fairness. For information and action
check out a “Dear Abby”-style column written by AFL-CIO’s organizing director,
Dave Wehde. Called “Dear David,” the weekly column addresses problems that people are having in
their workplaces. Read it at www.WorkingAmerica.org.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio
commentator, writer, and public speaker. He's also editor of the populist
newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. OtherWords.org
