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fast food nation
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, by Eric
Schlosser.
Perennial of HarperCollins Publishers, 2002. 383 pp., $13.95.
³As American as a small, rectangular, hand-held, frozen, and reheated
apple
pie.² (p. 3)
Far from being a run of the mill expose on calories and fat grams in
fast food, Fast Food Nation is a hard-hitting critique of the
industrialization of Americaıs and, later, the worldıs food supply. The
consequences of this industrialization have far-reaching effects on
working
people around the world. Fast food chains are at the pinnacle of a
giant
food-industrial complex that controls the nationıs food supply.
Schlosser begins with some thumb nail sketches of fast foodıs ³founding
fathers.² None of todayıs fast food giants were started by large
corporations. They were all started by people of very modest means.
Harland
Sanders is a good example. He ³left school at the age of twelve, worked
as a
farm hand, a mule tender, and a railway fireman. At various times he
worked
as a lawyer without having a law degree, delivered babies as a
part-time
obstetrician without having a medical degree, sold insurance door to
door,
sold Michelin tires, and operated a gas station . . . . and at the age
of
sixty-five became a traveling salesman once again, offering restaurant
owners the secret recipeı for his fried chicken. The first Kentucky
Fried
Chicken Restaurant opened in 1952 . . . . Lacking money to promote the
new
chain, Sanders dressed up like a Kentucky colonel² (p. 23).
But despite the modest beginnings of Harland Sanders, William Rosenberg
(Dunkinı Donuts), Dave Thomas (Wendyıs), Thomas S. Monaghan (Dominoıs)
and
others, they have created giant empires that brutally exploit millions
of
underpaid workers across the globe.
Next, Eric Schlosser describes how McDonaldıs and others market to
children.
Many of these companies have ³ıcradle-to-graveı advertising
strategies.²
Apparently, ³ıbrand loyaltyı may begin as early as age two. Indeed,
market
research has found that children often recognize a brand logo before
they
can recognize their own name² (p. 43). Under the heading ³mcteachers
and
coke dudes,² Schlosser describes the cradle-to-grave strategy that fast
food
chains use to market to children.
This strategy reaches new highs (or lows) all the time. Not content to
market ³to children through playgrounds, toys, cartoons, movies,
videos,
charities, and amusement parks, through contests, sweepstakes, games,
and
clubs, via television, radio, magazines, and the Internet, fast food
chains
are gaining access to the last advertising free outposts of American
life² (
p. 51) public schools. In 1993, District 11 in Colorado Springs became
the
first school district in the U.S. to have ads for Burger King inside
their
schools and on their school buses. However, the school district
netted
little from this, gaining only $1 per student.
In his next chapter, entitled ³Behind the Counter,² Schlosser describes
the
life of a young woman of sixteen by the name of Elisa, who gets up at
5:15
in the morning to get out the door by 5:30. She and the manager arrive
at
work, and for the next hour or two, they get the place ready. The two
of
them turn on the ovens and grills and get the food and supplies, cups,
wrappers, styrofoam containers, and condiments, for the morning shift.
They
get frozen bacon, frozen pancakes, and frozen cinnamon rolls from the
freezer. Plus, they bring out frozen hash browns, frozen biscuits, and
frozen McMuffins. Then they get packages of orange juice mix and
scrambled
egg mix. The restaurant opens at seven and for the next couple of
hours
Elisa and the manager work alone, taking all the orders. Later, as
more
customers arrive, so do more employees. Elisa works the counter from
breakfast through lunch. She then walks home after standing for seven
hours
at the cash register. Totally wiped out, her feet hurting, she plops
in
front of the tv and gets up the next morning at 5:15.
The entire fast food industry seeks out teenage, part-time (no
overtime,
please), unskilled workers like Elisa, because theyıre willing to
accept low
pay, are cheaper than adults, and are easier to control due to their
inexperience. Although recently, middle class teenagers are shunning
jobs at
McDonalds and Burger King and are being replaced by poor immigrants and
the
elderly (The New York Times, January 8, 2001).
³The labor practices of the fast food industry have their origins in
the
assembly line systems adopted by American manufacturers in the early
twentieth century² (p. 68). In a restaurant assembly line, tasks are
broken
up into small, repetitive bits requiring little or no skill, while
machines
and operating systems do the things that require timing and training
(p.
69).
In addition, the fast food industry generally pays minimum wage, moreso
than
any other industry. The result has been that the real value of
laborersı
wages have fallen for the last three decades. Worse yet, the industry
almost
never pays overtime. Bonuses for managers at many fast food restaurants
are
tied to holding down labor costs. The result being that many workers
are
forced to wait until the restaurant gets busy before punching in.
Workers
are forced to do clean-up after theyıve punched out. One Taco Bell
employee
²regularly worked seventy to eighty hours a week but was paid for only
forty² (p. 75). Taco Bell has been sued for this in a number of states.
The fast food industry is not alone in doing this kind of thing.
Wal-Mart
is being sued in 28 states for forcing workers to work off the clock,
as
reported by Steven Greenhouse in his expose ³Suits Say Wal-Mart Forces
Workers to Toil Off the Clock,² in the June 25, 2002, New York Times.
To add insult to injury, the status of fast food workers is so low that
customers feel justified in heaping abuse on them. This writer was once
told
to his face that ³Your job is so simple that a monkey could do it.²
Another customer grabbed me and ripped my shirt when he didnıt get a
³Jimmy
Special.² There was no ³Jimmy Special² on the menu, nor did I know it
was a
sandwich. Incidents like this are so common that web sites are devoted
to
them.
If low wages, no benefits, low status, and hard work are not bad
enough,
more restaurant workers are murdered on the job in the U.S. than are.
police officers. Most restaurant crime is committed by current or
former
disgruntled employees.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire
If the life of a fast food worker is bad, workers in the meatpacking
industry have it much worse.
In 1961, two former Swift & Co. executives, Currier Holman and A. D.
Anderson, started Iowa Beef Packers better known as IBP. Over the
course of
twenty years, these two lead the meatpacking industry back to the days
of
Upton Sinclairıs The Jungle. IBP created ³a mass production system that
employed a de-skilled workforce, . . . put its new slaughterhouses in
rural
areas . . . far away from the urban strongholds of the nationıs labor
unions² (p 154). In 1970, the IBP broke its labor unions with the help
of La
Cosa Nostra, and the stage was set for sweatshop heaven.
At a ConAgra slaughterhouse in Greeley , Colorado, the workers mainly
come
from Mexico, Central America, and Southeast Asia. Base pay is $9.25 per
hour; when adjusted for inflation, that's one-third lower than the same
plant paid forty years ago (p.160). The annual turnover rate is 400%.
On average, a worker quits or is fired every three months. But ³far
from
being a liability, a high turnover rate in the meatpacking industry--as
in
the fast food industry-- also helps maintain a workforce that is harder
to
unionize and much easier to control² (p161).
³Meatpacking is now the most dangerous job in the United States. The
injury
rate in a slaughterhouse is about three times higher than the rate in a
typical American factory. Every year, more than one quarter of the
meatpacking workers in this country--roughly forty thousand men and
women--suffer an injury or a work related illness that requires medical
attention beyond first aid² (p172). However, there are big incentives
not to
report injuries. ³The annual bonuses of plant foremen and supervisors
are
often based in part on the injury rate of their workers² (p175). The
main
cause of the high injury rate is the speed of the disassembly line. The
list
of the injuries is long and bloody.
But, speaking of speed, itıs the speed of the disassembly line thatıs
one of
the major causes of food borne illness from E.coli 0157:H7. The other
major
causes are crowded feedlots and industrial-size hamburger grinders. The
stomachs and intestines of cattle, where the E.coli 0157:H7 live, are
still
removed by hand. This job takes about six monthsı practice to do well.
But
with high turnover and the high speed of the line, itıs not done well.
Twenty percent of cattle can have their guts spilled onto the carcasses
being processed on the line, which can then contaminate many others (p.
203).
This willful disregard for the consumerıs health is all done in the
name of
profits. But, because capitalism lives by the profit, for the profit,
and of
the profit, decades go by, Republicans then Democrats rule, but still
little
or nothing gets done. However, if not for the sake of profit, the whole
meatpacking industry could be cleaned up in just six months, yes, just
six
months! This according to David M. Theno, the man who cleaned up Jack
in the
Box after its outbreak of E.coli 0157:H7 in 1993 (p. 210).
If thereıs one big weakness in Fast Food Nation, its while correctly
criticizing the Republicanıs support for agribusiness, he seldom
attacks the
Democrats. Eric Schlosser acknowledges this himself in an afterword.
³In
retrospect, I could have been more critical of the Clinton
administrationıs
ties to agribusiness. Had I devoted more space to the poultry industry,
for
example, I would have examined the close links between Bill Clinton and
the
Tyson family² (p.277). Both the Democrats and Republicans are tools of
big
business. Only a system based on human need, and not on profit, can
clean up
our food supply and guarantee the well-being of workers. And that
system is
socialism!
I strongly recommend that everyone who is for social justice read this
book.
Itıs an eye-opener even for someone like me whoıs worked in restaurants
for
23 years.
The article above was written by John Pottinger, and first appeared in the October issue of Socialist Action newspaper.
