McDonaldization and low-wage work--what does it mean??

The Four principles:

1. Efficiency
   1. Streamlining processes
   2. Customers perform labor (significance?)
   3. Efficient for whom?
2. Calculability
   1. The profit thing ... (hours, human capital development)
   2. Quantity over quality (version 2.0)
3. Control
   1. Automation, capital substitution, mechanization, etc.
   2. Behavior--controlling, enforcing patterns of speech
4. Predictability
   1. Reducing the likelihood of human 'error' or variability--doesn't align with business model
   2. Uniformity in products/services

Some outcomes of a trend toward more low-wage, and an increasingly McDonaldized, workforce (and the risks of such pioneering):

• Little opportunity for advancement—low wage, low-security, low human capital, low social mobility
• McDonaldized workers (or employers?) need for public subsidies--are taxpayers picking up the tab between wage and cost of living?
• More control, less creativity--control, specialization, and . . . . family values???
• Work and satisfaction--is this an unrealistic expectation? Do some just have to work for da man?
• Feminization of low-wage work? In the film Fast Food Women, a few interesting statements are made:
  • 'Men won't apply for these jobs, especially if they've got a wife and kids at home'
  • These workers don't need benefits, cuz Dad's got all the benefits 'under the sun' (or did until he was laid off)
  • Women may be doing more of the low wage work, especially in economically depressed areas where poverty may be chronic if not endemic
• Drive to efficiency--does this dilute the quality of product, work? Are people being replaced by machines? Is labor perceived by management as a cost?
• The ironies, continued--what sorts of products/services can workers in such settings afford?
• Applied to the welfare state--are parts of this McDonaldized as well (apply the four principles)?