Workers in the fast food industry face strenuous and inadequate conditions in their workplaces for little pay and long hours. Fast food chains purposely hire socially marginalized workers because they have limited skill-sets and are ideal contenders to endure such conditions. Meatpackers are frequently injured on the job; they suffer stabbings and lose limbs, as well as the sanitation workers who clean up after in the slaughterhouses. The employees in the restaurants experience poor working environments while the physical laborers risk losing their lives in such dangerous surroundings. Improvements are vastly needed in the fast food workplaces and actions can be taken to provide considerably better working circumstances such as enforcing stricter health sanitation laws, specific instructions for handling food, higher pay for workers, and safety regulations involving machinery. Fast food chains target marginalized groups to hire and take advantage of them. Companies target limited skill-sets and hire teenagers as a source of cheap labor. The workforces in the fast food industry rely on it to survive, many of them being illegal immigrants, disabled people, and the elderly. Workers in the slaughterhouses are considered “disposable” laborers that consist of untrained, poverty-stricken, illiterate people; fast food corporations can and will easily replace them if they are injured or killed with no sweat off their back (Schlosser 178). Many of them are underpaid, sometimes below the minimum wage of $7.25, and are treated unfairly; McDonald workers have filed lawsuits over hours being erased from their timecards, employers ordering them to work off the clock, and not being paid for overtime work (Greenhouse). Several fast food ... ... middle of paper ... ...eir regular wage on an eight-hour workday. Improving working conditions will require fast food franchises to spend some money on their workers, and many companies will not do that voluntarily. It would not drive the fast food industry out of business to raise their minimum wage to $15 but it would affect the number of employees they would hire. Workers will have to continue protesting to make their demands heard; the government must come into play as well by political officials voting for an increase in minimum wage or voting against. Fast food workers and slaughterhouse workers have to be well-kept Fast food employees endure various working conditions, such as low pay, dangerous machinery, long hours, and more, that are all in need of great improvement that can be fixed with simple safety policies, increased sanitation laws, higher pay, and worker benefits.
People slave for a number of hours of work and find themselves with minimum wage salaries and working with people they don’t want to be around with. In her article Serving in Florida, Barbara Ehrenreich goes undercover as a low-wage worker for various jobs to expose the working conditions of working class Americans. Throughout her essay, she discusses how the employees are fearful of losing their jobs even though they are forced to work in inhumane conditions such as long hours, with no breaks between shifts. While undercover, Ehrenreich attempts to make an argument on how the upper and middle class can find it difficult to survive under minimum wage jobs and allow readers to figure out what can be done to change the restaurant business.
The term “fast-food” is usually distinguished by food served very quickly to a customer by drive-through or carry-out. Fast-food restaurants are highly associated with low-cost and malnutrition foods with brief consumer and employee interaction, and below average cleanliness based on restaurant health inspection reports. Chick-fil-A has changed the usual perception of fast-food restaurants. Rather than burgers and potato fries, Chick-fil-A serves chicken sandwiches and waffle fries. Chick-fil-A also shows their appreciation for employee to customer relations, rather than ignoring the social aspect of serving customers when operating at a fast pace. Chick-fil-A’s menu selection, customer interaction, and clean eating
Etzioni states that when people work at fast food businesses, it sets an nonacademic standard of working conditions. Workers are being taught specific roles in the workplace that are mapped out for them the way it is required to be, which leaves “[...] no room for initiative, creativity, or even elementary rearrangements” (Etzioni). Etzioni shares his idea that fast food industries are training “robots”. These “robots’ follow commands mindlessly, whether it be cutting into homework or family time, dropping out of school, or doing whatever it takes just to keep a job that is supposed to be the initial training ground in work experience.
The editorial discusses minimum wage disparities in the restaurant industry. It starts by discussing what a “minimum wage worker’s” day might look like, giving an example of a dishwasher, who has scars on his arms. The author uses this imagery
Section 1: Typically, we need a well-balanced meal to give us the energy to do day-to-day tasks and sometimes we aren’t able to get home cooked meals that are healthy and nutritious on a daily basis, due to the reasons of perhaps low income or your mom not being able to have the time to cook. People rely on fast food, because it’s quicker and always very convenient for full-time workers or anyone in general who just want a quick meal. Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation argues that Americans should change their nutritional behaviors. In his book, Schlosser inspects the social and economic penalties of the processes of one specific section of the American food system: the fast food industry. Schlosser details the stages of the fast food production process, like the farms, the slaughterhouse and processing plant, and the fast food franchise itself. Schlosser uses his skill as a journalist to bring together appropriate historical developments and trends, illustrative statistics, and telling stories about the lives of industry participants. Schlosser is troubled by our nation’s fast-food habit and the reasons Schlosser sees fast food as a national plague have more to do with the pure presence of the stuff — the way it has penetrated almost every feature of our culture, altering “not only the American food, but also our landscape, economy, staff, and popular culture. This book is about fast food, the values it represents, and the world it has made," writes Eric Schlosser in the introduction of his book. His argument against fast food is based on the evidence that "the real price never appears on the menu." The "real price," according to Schlosser, varieties from destroying small business, scattering pathogenic germs, abusing wor...
Minimum wage should be raised to at least $15 an hour. Doing so would benefit lower classes of people greatly. Higher minimum pays will keep people from doing illegal things for money, give them more money to spend, and it would make minimum wage do what it’s intended to do.
Over the last 50 years, the fast food industry did not only sold hamburgers and french fries. It has been a key factor for vast social changes throughout America. It has been responsible for breaking traditional American values and reinstating new social standards that specifically aims to benefit the industry’s growth. These social standards have inevitably changed the way the American youth respond to education and self-responsibility. Eric Schlosser, an author of Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, excellently uses logic to present the tactics used by the fast food industry to cheapen and promote labor along with the social changes that occurred in the American youth as a result. Schlosser aims to dismantle and dissect
Almost everyone has eaten fast food at some point in their lives, but not everyone realizes the negative effects some fast food can have on our nutrition. My family especially is guilty of eating unhealthy fast food meals at least once a week because of our budget and very busy schedules. In Andrea Freeman’s article entitled, “Fast Food: Oppression through Poor Nutrition,” She argues that fast food has established itself as a main source of nutrition for families that live in average neighborhoods and have low-incomes. Freeman begins the article by explaining how the number of fast food outlets is beginning to grow in poor communities because of the cheap prices and quick service these restaurants are famous for. The overabundance of fast
Many people do not realize that the jobs in the fast food industry are very dangerous. These are the jobs that no one realizes what it’s like behind the scenes. The workers face high rates of injury in the factories and in fast food restaurants, so we feel like we shouldn’t support the fast food industries. In chapters three and eight of “Fast Food Nation,” Eric Schlosser uses pathos to highlight the fact that fast food jobs are difficult as well as dangerous. The jobs involved with fast food are so dangerous that more regulations should be reinforced more firmly, as well as more laws should be put into place.
Fast-food workers have been protesting for a minimum wage of $15 dollars an hour and the freedom to unionize. The workers have organized numerous protests this year. During the protests they have walked out and chanted slogans regarding their pay. The main fast-food companies that are effected is McDonald's and Burger King. They both have stated that they will not press charges and indeed are allowing the workers to return. These workers that are participating in the strike doesn’t represent the majority of the fast-food employees. The people participating in the strike are not only youths but adults and elders as well. Due to the countries low employment rate many of these workers are supporting a family or other dependents. This is where most of the fast-food workers are getting their motivation to protest this industry. Unfortunately, many Americans are questioning the negative economic effects of their proposed wage and their lack of worthiness to receive that big of a pay raise. However, I believe that with some adjustment and research we can find a way to make everyone happy. My solution advises that we support Obama’s nine dollars an hour minimum wage proposal. It will give the fast-food workers financial support, release the burden of the taxpayer’s assistance, and keep inflation balanced.
The minimum wage will always be a controversial topic to debate. People are going to protest someday to raise their salaries because they cannot struggle to pay off the increased cost of living expenses. Also, more employers are going to cut off their worker’s hours or get the worker lay off. By raising the minimum wage to $15, people must accept the pros and cons because this a topic will always affect the entire community.
In the book Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser talks about the working conditions of fast food meat slaughterhouses. In the chapter “The Most Dangerous Job,” one of the workers, who despised his job, gave Schlosser an opportunity to walk through a slaughterhouse. As the author was progressed backwards through the slaughterhouse, he noticed how all the workers were sitting very close to each other with steel protective vests and knives. The workers were mainly young Latina women, who worked swiftly, accurately, while trying not to fall behind. Eric Schlosser explains how working in the slaughterhouses is the most dangerous profession – these poor working conditions and horrible treatment of employees in the plants are beyond comprehension to what we see in modern everyday jobs, a lifestyle most of us take for granted.
...es of cattle, which resulted in the increase of suicidal reports. Slaughterhouses and meatpacking companies have amplified the amount of cattle slaughtered each hour to fulfill the amount of meat consumed in the United States due to the cause of fast food. The damage that fast food had placed on illegal immigrant workers and sanitary workers that are employed in slaughterhouses are as much as murdering the men and women, minute by minute. The growth of fast food is too fast for our voices to be heard and fast food had implemented too much innovation in agriculture today for us to fix. We can still change the society that we live in today, as long as we withdraw our arrogant and selfish thoughts on fast food and think of ways to improve and recover what the fast food industry had done.
“Out of every $1.50 spent on a large order of fries at fast food restaurant, perhaps 2 cents goes to the farmer that grew the potatoes,” (Schlosser 117). Investigative journalist Eric Schlosser brings to light these realities in his bestselling book, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Schlosser, a Princeton and Oxford graduate, is known for his inspective pieces for Atlantic Monthly. While working on article, for Rolling Stone Magazine, about immigrant workers in a strawberry field he acquired his inspiration for the aforementioned book, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, a work examining the country’s fast food industry (Gale).
Presently, workers in the fast food and minimum wage jobs seek respect and an increase in wages as it is a sector of the food industry that is underrepresented by unions. As cost of living increases in cities nationwide and the government subsidizes underpaid employees with welfare funds, organizations such as Real Food Real Workers and the Fight for $15 are demanding a raise in the minimum wage, particularly for food workers. Similarly to the food workers at UNC Chapel Hill, many minimum wage workers in the fast food industry are women and minorities, sectors of the labor pool already marginalized by wage disparity. The Fight for 15 movement has recently gained momentum in raising the minimum wage to $15 in California, New York, Seattle and the District of Columbia, and this year Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and Washington state voted to increase the minimum wage as well. In the 21 states where the minimum wage is still as low as $7.25, s minimum wage increase movement should partner with other organizations from outside labor unions such as women 's rights organizations and organizations similar to the BSM, including mass participation of solidarity with college campuses, to make a substantial statement about their work