Strike in Mexico Hits McDonald’s : Nation’s One Golden Arches Under Siege; Union Vote Set

At the sparkling new McDonald’s hamburger shop here, the Ronald McDonald playground toys are defaced with a spray-painted inscription that reads “Long Live the Strike.” The familiar golden arches are draped with banners calling for a collective union contract.

Inside, the kitchen grills are cool and the plastic dining chairs empty. Outside, self-described union “shock troops” munch on tortillas, beans and peppers.

McDonald’s, the giant hamburger chain that is trying to extend its kingdom to the land of the taco, has hit a snag at its first Mexico City restaurant.

A leftist union seeking to represent McDonald’s workers has closed down the shop, which is located at the edge of an affluent neighborhood. A vote on whether the workers will accept the union is scheduled for today.

Although the issue is unionization, underlying it is clash of cultures that often pervades relations, business or otherwise, between Mexico and the United States.

McDonald’s tried to enter the Mexican market for several years. It has come into a country with a strong tradition of militant unionism and one that is alternately fascinated by and mistrustful of things American.

Obstacles to opening in Mexico abound. For instance, McDonald’s needed to find Mexican farmers who could grow the sort of elongated potato from which fries can easily be cut. There also was the matter of perfecting the cheese and meat so that a Big Mac would taste the same in Mexico as in suburban Chicago, where McDonald’s is based.

In addition, through the years, necessary government approvals had been withheld. Some politicians and political writers warned that the introduction of McDonald’s into Mexico would erode both traditional Mexican eating habits and the country’s sense of nationhood.

$120-Million-a-Year Market

Several home-grown fast-food chains already do business in Mexico, dominating a market reportedly worth $120 million a year in sales. Kentucky Fried Chicken also operates in Mexico. McDonald’s, founded by the late Ray A. Kroc, had sales of $3.4 billion worldwide last year.

The first Mexican McDonald’s debuted Oct. 28. The inaugural coincided roughly with a government drive to ease entry of foreign investment into Mexico.

The opening was--excuse the expression--a whopping success.

Hordes of well-dressed patrons lined up for blocks for a chance to taste a Quarter Pounder. Cars jammed the drive-in Auto-Mac window. The franchise operator claimed that he sold 10,000 hamburgers on the first day.

But problems surfaced almost immediately. Jorge Soberon, who says he is a law student, won a job at McDonald’s cleaning floors. He says he was shocked that workers were unrepresented. He ran to the Confederation of Revolutionary Workers and Peasants and charged that the company was paying neither social security nor other benefits to workers.

The confederation, known by its Spanish acronym as CROC, sent a band of its “shock troops”--picketers customarily used in Mexican strikes to seal off target businesses. They clashed with McDonald’s security guards and each side accused the other of brutality.

CROC soon blocked off the house of Kroc. The unionists sprayed graffiti on the store as the lines of customers disappeared.

CROC leaders insist that they are not picking on McDonald’s just because it happens to be a U.S. firm.

“We are happy to welcome McDonald’s. It is a big company and we want the workers to get their fair share,” said Marco Antonio Torres, the director of CROC’s hotel and restaurant union.

However, in conversations with Torres and CROC members, various other resentments surface, including charges of latent racism.

“McDonald’s doesn’t want a union because it wants only to hire blue-eyed workers to deal with the public,” said Soberon, the law student-turned-labor agitator. “They don’t want brown folks.”

Torres and Soberon also complained that the franchise was hiring students and part-time workers who don’t really need the job but work to earn frivolous spending money, all at the expense of Mexico’s poor, to whom the hourly wage of more than $4 represents a windfall.

Jorge A. de Regil, a lawyer for the Mexico City McDonald’s, denied all of CROC’s charges and said he would present proof to the government that McDonald’s was paying full benefits and complying with the law.

“The fact is, the workers don’t want CROC,” he said.

De Regil produced workers, some of them as brown skinned as Soberon, who said they were opposed to CROC. They said they feared that the union would only collect dues, then forget about its members. Some had hopes that they could go far in McDonald’s without union help, perhaps even attend McDonald’s Illinois training center, known as Hamburger University.

Today’s vote probably will hinge on a ruling determining the number of employees who actually worked at McDonald’s when the strike began. De Regil claims that the company employed 210 workers. CROC says it was 400. Government arbitrators will decide.

McDonald’s officials in the United States are taking a hands-off approach to the controversy, although at least one company official flew to Mexico on Thursday to witness the vote.

“Oh, I’m just going down for an education,” said Robert Keyser, media relations director. “This is a Mexican store using Mexican meat and Mexican cheese. Even the Ronald McDonald sign is Mexican-made.”