Chow Man-wai. / Thesis submitted in: August 2002. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-107). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgement --- p.iii / Table of Content --- p.iv / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Scope of Study --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Literature Review --- p.5 / Chapter 1.2.1 --- Capitalist Labor Process --- p.5 / Chapter 1.2.2 --- Fast Food Jobs --- p.7 / Chapter 1.2.3 --- Youth and Part-Time Work --- p.9 / Chapter 1.2.4 --- No Shame in my Game --- p.11 / Chapter 1.2.5 --- Social Class --- p.11 / Chapter 1.3 --- Methodology --- p.12 / Chapter 1.3.1 --- Participant Observation --- p.13 / Chapter 1.3.2 --- Interviews --- p.14 / Chapter 1.3.3 --- Written Materials and the Internet --- p.15 / Chapter 1.4 --- Theoretical Framework --- p.16 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Portraits of the Fast Food Workers --- p.17 / Chapter 2.1 --- General Understandings of the Hamburger Flippers --- p.17 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Age --- p.17 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Gender --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- Education --- p.20 / Chapter 2.1.4 --- Family --- p.23 / Chapter 2.2 --- The Young Burger Master Workers --- p.24 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Ah How's World --- p.25 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Ah Tung's World --- p.28 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Kat's World --- p.32 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- Ada's World --- p.34 / Chapter 2.2.5 --- Ah Yan's World --- p.38 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Working at Burger Master --- p.41 / Chapter 3.1 --- QSC --- p.41 / Chapter 3.2 --- Inside the Restaurant --- p.42 / Chapter 3.3 --- Learning the Job --- p.44 / Chapter 3.4 --- Teamwork Spirit --- p.49 / Chapter 3.5 --- The Management Ladder --- p.52 / Chapter 3.6 --- Hidden Skills --- p.53 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Cultural Challenges --- p.55 / Chapter 4.1 --- Public Perceptions --- p.55 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- Having No Future --- p.55 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- Any Idiot Can Do It --- p.56 / Chapter 4.1.3 --- Toilet-Washing Job --- p.58 / Chapter 4.2 --- Organizational Culture --- p.59 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- The Burger Master Family --- p.60 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Handling Insults --- p.66 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- "Providing ""Opportunities""" --- p.68 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Dead End Work? --- p.70 / Chapter 5.1 --- Part-Time Workers --- p.70 / Chapter 5.2 --- Full-Time Workers --- p.72 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- An Honored Identity --- p.73 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Temporary Shelter --- p.75 / Chapter 5.2.3 --- No Alternatives? --- p.77 / Chapter 5.2.4 --- Importance of Family --- p.78 / Chapter 5.3 --- Quitting --- p.81 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Part-Time Workers --- p.82 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Full-Time Workers --- p.83 / Chapter 5.4 --- Entering the Real World --- p.84 / Chapter 5.4.1 --- The Outside Track --- p.85 / Chapter 5.4.2 --- The Inside Track --- p.88 / Chapter 5.5 --- Acquiring Human Capital --- p.89 / Chapter 5.5.1 --- Rediscovering the Value of Education --- p.90 / Chapter 5.5.2 --- Discipline --- p.91 / Chapter 5.6 --- Dead End Work? --- p.92 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.93 / Appendix --- p.102 / Bibliography --- p.104

Thesis (MTech (Busines Administration))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2011. / Motivating employees in fast food outlets plays a major role towards improving the commitment and performance of workers. However, it has been confirmed that there is low levels of employee motivation in some fast food outlets, which has led to negative results and poor performances. Therefore, improving employee motivation in fast food outlets has become a necessity. The main aim of the study was to investigate causes of low employee motivation in fast food outlets within South Africa. The present author was able to discover the causes of low employee motivation levels such as poor supervision, little or no training, poor pay and poor working conditions. Hence, factors that could improve levels of motivation of employees in fast food outlets were identified; for instance, motivating fast food employees through genuine appreciation, recognition, compensation and inspiration. The researcher further suggests strategies, which may improve the quality of work-life for employees with fast food outlets training and developing employees, reducing their workload; and initiating incentive programs and retention strategies. This will help the management at fast food outlets to improve levels of motivation of their workers, and also assist them to retain their talented staff. The case study method was used for this research since the study involved fast food outlets in Cape Town. The triangulation method was applied to solicit information from staff members, managers and store managers/franchisees. Semi-structured interview questions were used to obtain information from franchisees/store managers, senior managers, floor managers, and supervisors, while closed-ended questionnaires were used to interview other staff members. This study has confirmed that there are no motivation policies at most of the fast food outlets which were studied that can guide employers to motivate their workers. It is clear from the study that there is low employee motivation at some fast food outlets, and hence the researcher has proposed recommendations, which will help the management of fast food outlets to enhance the levels of motivation of employees, and their work performance. It is suggested that employees should be involved in the decision making of their organization; the quality of work-life of employees should be improved; a harmonious working environment should be promoted; and workers should be empowered and allowed to participate in the profit sharing of the organization. This will improve workers' levels of motivation and better results will be achieved for the organization at large.

Although conscious consumers flock to sustainability-branded restaurants and grocery stores to "vote with their forks" for environmental sustainability and vibrant local economies, workers in these industries face the same poverty wages, discrimination, and exploitative labor practices that plague the food service and retail industries at large. Despite rapid growth and labor degradation, low-wage workers in these industries have largely been left behind by the mainstream labor movement and the alternative food movement. Whereas in the past, progressive social movements worked to alter power relations between labor and capital through collective action, today's mainstream labor movement focuses on servicing its dwindling membership and winning minimum wage increases through local ballot box measures and legislation. For its part, the alternative food movement focuses narrowly on achieving environmental sustainability through market-based mechanisms and consumption politics that do not adequately attend to the struggles of food chain workers. Through research conducted in partnership with the Burgerville Workers Union (BVWU) and the Industrial Workers of the World, I investigate three empirical research questions: 1) How do sustainability-branded institutions deploy values-based discourse and how does this relate to labor practices?, 2) How do worker-organizers understand and expose the contradictions of sustainability branding?, and 3) How do worker-organizers engage with social reproduction as a terrain of political struggle, and to what ends? I attend to these questions through activist scholarship aimed at informing my broad theoretical question: How might social reproduction "as discourse and practice" be marshaled to generate more inclusive organizing strategies, forge more just conceptions of sustainability, and build worker power? Drawing on over two years of ethnographic research, content analysis, and interviews with 48 worker-organizers involved in four labor organizing campaigns, I examine their efforts to build worker power through mutual aid programs, political education, and coalition politics. My analysis reveals that these strategies embody an inclusionary intersectional politics that prioritizes the needs of women, parents, and people of color, but that worker-organizers also face significant challenges. I demonstrate that organizing against neoliberal policies and practices requires moving beyond consumption politics and single-issue campaigns and deploying what I term (re)production politics which are fundamentally about how work is organized and how we care for society and the planet. Politicizing the labor, locations, and practices of social reproduction as landscapes of struggle, I conclude, offers an opportunity to build a broad class consciousness across interconnected issues and envision more liberatory ways of organizing social reproduction based on solidarity, mutuality, and interdependence.