When I read a news report saying that present and former employees of Starbucks and Mcdonald's in Malaysia are calling for an end to a boycott of the two franchises, saying their livelihoods have been severely impacted by it, I couldn’t help but laugh.
I couldn’t help but laugh, because I know in the heart of my heart, that the present and former employees of Starbucks and McDonalds couldn't give a fig as to the fate of Starbucks and McDonald’s. If they are calling for the boycott of Starbucks and McDonald’s to end, it is almost certainly because 1) their bosses forced them to do it or 2) their bosses paid them to do it.
Personally, I hope that it is that latter that is true because as a member of the working class myself, I am always happy to hear that my brothers and sisters in the working class have gotten paid by a stroke of luck. But otherwise, like the former and present employees of Starbucks and McDonalds, I couldn’t really give a fig about whether Starbucks or McDonald’s stays open or closes down.
Now mind you, I am not for the boycotts personally. I am not pro-Palestine and my view of the war in Gaza is that it is a foreign war. I don’t see clearly justice on the side of the Palestinians and it is not obvious to me that Israel is definitely on the side of wrong. The way I see the war in Gaza is actually very similar to the way that I see the war in Ukraine. I just see two sides fighting, that is all.
I also still go to Mcdonald's, despite the boycott, although I prefer Burger King these days, and I wouldn’t mind going to Starbucks to meet someone either, although I wouldn’t go to Starbucks by my own volition – I don’t really enjoy things like caramel Frappuccino or matcha latte - I prefer Teh Tarik and I find the prices at coffeehouses like Starbucks to be akin to daylight robbery – but my point here is that though I don’t participate in the boycott against McDonald’s or Starbucks, I find the concept that people need to stop boycotting Starbucks and McDonalds because the fate of the working class depends upon it to be hilarious.
First of all, I am quite sure that the fate of the working class doesn’t depend on whether a burger and coffee franchise remains open or not. If McDonald’s or Starbucks closes down, we will just get our coffee and burgers somewhere else, and I am sure the employees who work at McDonald’s and Starbucks can find employment in the new place where we will be going to get our Coffee and Burgers.
Secondly, as EAM Jaishankar told the Europeans last year, at some point, the people who run companies like McDonald’s and Starbucks “need to get out of the mindset that their problem is everyone else’s problem, but everyone else’s problem is not their problem.”
Earlier this month, when Vincent Tan, the boss of Starbucks Malaysia asked Malaysians to stop the boycott against his company because the boycott was only hurting fellow Malaysians, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The only person who is hurting because of the Starbucks boycott is Vincent Tan, but he is assuming that just because he is in pain, all of us must also be in pain because of it. I think Vincent must be really rich because only the filthy rich have the luxury to indulge in such rich assumptions.
The way Vincent Tan is conflating his difficulties with everybody else’s difficulties is actually a common problem with the bosses and top management, by the way. Whenever the company is doing well and raking in profits, it will make it sound as if it deserves the lion's share of the rewards because it is solely because of their talent and skill that the company is making money, and the working class are just people who work there and should be happy at whatever pittance that they throw at the working class.
But when the company faces a crisis and the top management or the bosses are facing the heat, then they will quickly change their tune and make it sound like their problem is not only their problem but the problem of the working class, the country and all of humanity as well.
Anyway, while I can’t really appreciate the theme of the boycott against companies like Starbucks or McDonalds, which is basically to protest against the actions of Israel in Gaza, I do hope that this boycott will serve as a lesson to all the top management and bosses of a company.
I hope in the future, they will remember that times change and fortune is fickle.
When times are good and you appreciate the contribution of the working class by sharing the good fortune of the company with the working class, when the bad times come, and the bad times will always come at some point, you can expect the working class to go above and beyond for the sake of the company.
But if you are forever acting like the company belongs solely to you, and you deserve to have the lion's share of the company's good fortune when the times are good, when the bad times come, it will be up to you and you alone to save the company la.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy is the author of “While Waiting for the World to end”. He was a columnist at FMT and a frequent contributor to the South China Morning Post, The Star, Malaysia-Today, MalaysiaNow, MalaysiaKini and Focus Malaysia.
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