Around the US there are many jobs, some of which are fast food restaurants and entry level jobs that pay minimum wage .Thomas Frank published, “Home of the Whopper”, November of 2013 in Harper’s Magazine describing the strikes that went on in Durham, North Carolina where the employees are sick and tired with minimum wage. Thomas Frank uses “Home of the Whopper” to expose the different risks that could be faced while working at a fast food or entry level job.
Frank began the article by vividly describing the setting of the various restaurants in the local area of Durham, North Carolina. Since the area was meant to be driven through instead of walking , when one walked through the area, one will notice that the ground is filled with litter. He then stated that North Carolina was the least unionized state in the union and employees were not a custom to strikes.One of the stops made was in front of a cathedral where they were accompanied by a pastor who showed his support.
Fast food jobs are mainly known for entry jobs and for teenagers, but Frank saw the opposite in North Carolina. In North Carolina they went by the motto “a job is a job in times like ours regardless of qualifications and degrees”. Frank then states that the people who go by this motto doesn’t know that so much effort goes into keeping fast-food pay low.
Frank then introduces Eric Schlosser ‘Fast Food Nation’ (2001) which states that virtually no skills are required to work and the machines that cook are fool proof. Because the job has been deskilled the workers can easily be replace.
Frank closed the article on Boddie- Noell enterprises a successful restaurant selling cheap burgers after McDonald’s model. It is a family-owned business whose slogan is “We Belie...
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...because they would leave their jobs, close it down, and march across town. There was a woman who marched in a black dress and heels; she stated that she didn’t know that it would be so physically demanding. Frank also stated that at the protest the most visible organization at the rallies was not a union but a community organization called Action NC. Action NC is an organization that allows low to moderate-income communities to speak out publicly on differently issues and concerns they have.
Throughout Frank’s article on minimum wage and entry level jobs, he uses symbolism and amplification to convey his view on the protest in North Carolina and to expose the different risks that comes with working at fast food restaurants. At the end of the article Frank makes all his points clear. Frank makes it clear how minimum wage is causing dissatisfaction and vexation.
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
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.
“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).
He begins his book in Colorado Springs showing a common scenario of Domino’s pizza delivery boy driving to Cheyenne Mountain Colorado home of a top security military installation relating future archeologist will find used paper goods of the fast food restaurants in the compound (Schlosser, 2004). It is true that fast food is in just about every major city in the United States and often across the world. According to an article in 2011, Gazette columnist Andrew Wineke claims: “Colorado Springs may have been the setting for Eric S...
Fast food has changed farming, ranching, and meatpacking to an extent where it is nearly impossible to recover due to the amount of meat that is being consumed in the United States and the amount of meat that are required to prepare those products in America and other foreign countries. The author of Fast Food Nation stated, “Ranchers currently face a host of economic problems: rising land prices, stagnant beef prices, oversupplies of cattle, increased shipments of live cattle from Canada and Mexi...
...idden truths and in essence, portrays a minimum wage worker quite well. But for those that must live this life style on a daily basis, simply writing about their injustices will never be sufficient. Government action is the next needed step to help modify minimum wage, and the answer is clear: raise the accepted standard. However, with all the other issues in this country, when will the government finally realize it is time to take action?
‘Fast Food Nation’ by Eric Schlosser traces the history of fast food industry from old hot dog stands to the billion dollar franchise companies established as America spread its influence of quick, easy and greasy cuisine around the globe. It is a brilliant piece of investigative journalism that looks deep into the industries that have profited from the American agriculture business, while engaging in labor practices that are often shameful.
“Somebody should research that.” (Ehrenreich, 2001). During the final course of her 30.00 lunch with Louis Lapham, editor of Harpers, Barbara Ehrenreich wondered how people could survive on minimum wage. She would soon be eating her words as Lapham pointed to her and said, “You”.
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.
According to Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, "Fast food has had an enormous impact not only on our eating habits but on our economy, our culture, and our values"(3). According to Roni Rabin on any given day, about one quarter of U.S. adults visit a fast-food restaurant. The typical American now eats about three hamburgers each week (2). Schlosser also writes that “thirty years ago Americans spent about six billion dollars annually on fast food. In the year 2000 they spent over one-hundred and ten billion dollars, more than on higher education, personal computers, or new cars (3). The reality of fast food is regarding the spreading and feeding of illness and disease; as well as the inhumane treatment of animals through modern meat farming practices. Our society imagines images of happy animals living on farms where the cows graze in lush green fields and the chickens run around as they please. This vision of free-roaming animals living out their days in sunny fields is very far from the reality. A majority of the animals that are raised for food live miserable lives in dark and overcrowded facilities. These facilities are commonly called "factory farms"(Maguire 5).
Logos are an extremely effective way to convey to the ready the severity of the situation at hand. Schlosser uses this often with death tolls, injury rates, and pay. “Many slaughterhouse workers make a cut every two or three seconds, in which adds up to about 10,000 cuts during an eight-hour shift. If the knife has become dull, additional pressure is placed on the worker's tendons, joints, and nerves." (P. 173) This is extremely dangerous for the employees. The author describes the fast food industry as a business which has “infiltrated every nook and cranny" in America, and a result “in 2000 they (Americans) spent more than $110 billion." (P. 3) "The average American ate three hamburgers a week... children between the ages of seven and thirteen ate more hamburgers than anyone else." (P. 198) These statistics show just how
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.
Teenage workers are more likely to be untrained, and for this reason the job becomes more dangerous because the workers don’t know what they’re doing and could injure themselves by doing the wrong thing. Schlosser states, “The most common workplace injuries at fast food restaurants are slips, falls, strains, and burns” (Schlosser 83). While talking about the likelihood of injuries happening while working in a fast food restaurant, Schlosser mentions that armed robberies are more likely now in fast food restaurants than banks or even convenience stores (Schlosser 83). Although most of the robberies do not end with death, the chances of a violent crime in a fast food restaurant are high. Schlosser uses pathos because we view teenagers as innocent and as still being children, so we don’t want them to be in any danger. We feel sympathy for them because it’s unfair to have to work knowing that they are risking their safety. While the industries try to take action by “spending millions on new security measures,” the chances of a robbery happening are still
Barbara Ehrenreich is a journalist who wrote the book Nickel and Dimed. She goes undercover to see how it feels to work for $6 to $7 an hour. She leaves her regular life to explore the experiences of a minimum wage worker. Ehrenreich travels to Florida, Maine, and Minnesota, looking for jobs and places to live on a minimum wage salary. At one point in time, she had to work two jobs to makes ends meet. As she worked all these jobs, she discovered many problems in the social world. The things she went through were not the types of situations that she usually experienced. She wasn’t used to living and working environments of the poor. She had to deal with the different personalities and customs of her co-workers, their living arrangement, and the management hierarchy in each job. She worked as a waitress at two different restaurants, as a maid service cleaning houses, and as a dietary aide at a nursing home.
In today’s society, the question of minimum wage is a large political topic. Many people argue that it is impossible to live on a minimum wage lifestyle. In her novel Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich looks into this issue. In an experiment in which she mimics the life of a single woman, she moves into the low-wage workforce in three different cities in America. Within these cities, she attempts to make a living off of low-wage work and records her experiences, as well as the experiences of the true low-wage workers around her. Throughout Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich utilizes both vivid imagery and data in order to persuade the audience to agree that the low-wage lifestyle is truly un-livable.