The way that fast food restaurants treat their employees is horrible. They are dispensable cheap labor, and most of them are teens. Theses teens do not learn the value of work at Taco Bell; in fact they learn the exact opposite. As Schlosser says, "it the job is boring, overly regimented, or meaningless, it can create a lifelong aversion to work" (Schlosser, 80). I think that teens should be the most important workers in the
I was also astounded that the fast food industry “pays the minimum wage to a higher proportion of its workers than any other American industry” (Schlosser, 73). I would expect that multibillion dollar corporations like fast food restaurants could afford to pay their employees more. Their employees are given no benefits and are paid by the hour, but almost none of them qualify for overtime. The fast food industry is squeezing every drop of money they can without giving anything back, except soggy burgers and heart attacks later in life.
I also was completely shocked about the danger fast food employees are in. They are in more danger than people who work at gas stations, and it seems as if it is caused by two main reasons. Unhappy former employees who are fired and corporations that don’t care enough about their employees to make it safer for them in the work place. I could not believe they would not back up a plan to make lighter parking lots so women would not be attacked after closing up and going to their cars. Schlosser stated, “Roughly four or five fast food workers are now murdered on the job every month” (Schlosser, 83). This is an outrage. Corporations should care about the safety of their employees, especially when this many of them are being murdered at work! Maybe if fast food corporations did not fire their employees every time they tried to unionize there would not be so many angry workers retaliating.
Although the first section on the employees was terrible, the second section about employees in slaughterhouses was horrendous. I could not believe how many people get injured working there. Though the most unjust was that, "injured workers are often given some of the most unpleasant tasks in the slaughterhouse. Their hourly wages are cut" (Schlosser, 179). Economically this makes sense because, "injured workers are a drag on profits" (Schlosser, 179), yet this should not be allowed. Workers should be compensated for their injuries, and safety should be the highest priority of the slaughterhouse.
The sanitation crews’ job sounds like sheer hell. Workers are not treated like human beings. One manager said to a man who just lost two fingers, “if one hand is no good... use the other" (Schlosser, 177). It was so disgusting that two men's death was worth a mere 480 dollars for each. This should not be tolerated!
The story that most shocked me was about Kenny. He had the same mentality of the maids in the merry maids business in Nickel and Dimmed. He was so loyal to his employer that he could not see that they were using him until his entire body was broken. Then to top it all off while he was recovering from his heart attack they fired him and did not even let him know. This is total injustice. Employees should never be treated in this way!
1 comment:
I agree that the most shocking and horrific section was the one on slaughterhouses. Just imagining the scene is disgusting— cows dangling from the ceiling, being hacked at with knives, men being slammed to the ground by swinging carcasses— these are definitely not the type of images I want to think about when eating meat! As bad as I’m beginning to feel for the animals, I feel more outraged at the complete lack of human compassion shown by the slaughterhouse corporations. The employees are really trapped in an awful situation— if they were to complain about injuries, they risk getting fired since many are not employed legally. Furthermore, it seems like profits rule over everything, including health and human dignity. The workers have to work at the maximum pace to increase profits, their wages are reduced if they are injured and are not as productive, their lives are valued at a few hundred bucks. Another thing that really concerns me is the mention of abuses, especially against women. The way that all the workers are treated by their supervisors is bad enough, but to add sexual harassment to the mix is really maddening; if workers cannot even report injuries without losing their jobs, imagine how reluctant they must be to report sexual harassment.
With all the horrific accidents that occur in the slaughterhouse business, I cannot understand why there isn’t more mandated federal inspection! Equally infuriating is the fact that congress is always bending the rules for big corporations like the slaughterhouse industry: after a 1,000 percent discrepancy between the real number of injuries and the number recorded for OSHA was discovered involving the IBP beef plant, the fine was reduced from $5.7 million total to $975,000. I think what’s really maddening is when scandals like this one are uncovered, and then no adequate actions are taken to punish the perpetrators!
I agree with Debbie that Kenny’s story was about as sad and infuriating as it gets. The Monfort company took advantage of the fact that he was illiterate and “unskilled” to coerce him into speaking out against unions as a member of an antiunion group. Then, after having saved another employee’s life, worked devotedly for sixteen years, during which he suffered six major job related injuries, the company fired him without even notifying him! This lack of empathy is just unimaginable.
In Chapter Four, I thought it was interesting that the author chose to title a section on franchising “devotion to a new faith.” Kroc, like a cunning leader of any kind, is charismatic, makes people empowered and optimistic, and also demands that followers are completely devoted, forcing them to move far way from their homes to prove their devotion. The more people are devoted to his business, the wealthier he will become. While he “promised to make them rich,” franchisers do not always do as well as the real owners of the company. I really wonder about the government’s role in these mega-businesses. Not surprisingly, the “Small Business Administration” ends up helping new franchisees, and in turn, the huge corporations above them.
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