Eric Schlosser's book Fast Food Nation is a behind the happy meal investigation into the inner workings of the fast food industry. Schlosser paints a gory picture of everything fast food. From nose to tail he chronicles the rise and influence of the fast food industry in our nation.

The idea of getting a quick bite to eat is so much a part of life in America that it is hard to imagine a time when there weren't chow choices on every corner--McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, Wendy's, Arby's are just a few.

As a society we have become so accustomed to the menus of these joints that we get upset behind a customer who slows down the process by reading (yes reading) the menu and asking questions about particular items. The unwritten law of ordering food from a fast food establishment is that you already know what you are going to have before you even pull in to the parking lot.

There was a time, though, when every restaurant involved sitting down to dine and meals were served on plates. But, through a warped Darwin-like evolution the restaurants and diners of the past gave birth to the modern fast food industry. An industry that has transformed our nation into the impatient, stand in front of a microwave tapping our fingers society we are today.

The fast food kitchen

With the rise in popularity of the automobile, thanks in part to General Motors efforts to eradicate the railway system and government initiatives to expand interstate roadways, a new type of restaurant was born--the drive-in. Roadside drive-in restaurants that offered meals delivered to your car window began springing up in southern California. As Jesse Kirby, founder of the Pig Stand, said, "People with cars are so lazy, they don't want to get out of them to eat!"

One of the earliest drive-in restaurants was McDonalds founded by brothers Richard and "Mac" McDonald. The brothers soon grew tired of the drive-in restaurant business. The constant need to replace car hops and short- order cooks--who were hired away for better pay--and dishes and silverware--that were often broken or stolen by their-- teenage customers forced the brothers to create a self- serve inexpensive alternative. No busboys, no carhops, no dishwashers and no headaches were all part of the plan and the first modern fast food restaurant was the result.

The McDonald brothers' segmented the kitchen workload for the first time and revolutionized the restaurant industry. They no longer needed to employ highly skilled short order cooks; all of their food was the same. A customer was not allowed to customize their meal. The "Have it your way" phrase popularized in the rivalry of the modern day fast food giants Burger King and McDonalds, was the farthest thing from the minds of the McDonald brothers.

The line cooks now completed a series of tasks that, when combined, produced burgers and other menu items. But, these tasks were highly divided. There was one job for the person who assembled the burgers, one for the grill man and yet another for the fellow making french fries. No longer were these jobs (each not terribly difficult or skillful) done together by one person (which is where the real skill lies); instead they were dispersed to the staff of teenagers working for a meager wage. The new system was exactly what Adam Smith had in mind in his theory of division of labor.

To Smith, this new system allowed the workers to become more efficient at their specific tasks than if they had been forced to perform the entire job. It also allowed the worker to save time because they would not have to move around the kitchen. Instead, a worker would stand in one station and perform their task moving only when absolutely necessary.

The division of labor further fostered technology advancements through worker input inasmuch as a worker who performs the same task many times may envision tools that increase efficiency. There are many examples of technologies that have changed the kitchens of fast food restaurants for the better. Some of them include:

• Weights with handles that are used to "step on" the burgers to ensure even cooking or help bacon maintain its flatness.
  
  
• Squeeze bottles that are used to dispense ketchup, mustard and secret sauce.
  
  
• The square hamburgers at White Castle allow more meat to fit on the already square grill.
  
  
• McDonalds now uses a grill that cooks the meat on both sides at the same time.
  
  
• The lids of the soda cups have push-down indicators that not only let customers know what flavor cola they are enjoying, but it also helps the restaurant staff ensure an order has the proper beverage.
  
  

But the costs of these labor divisions are far greater than the savings of a few cents at the nearest drive-thru.

Consider the effects of the low-skilled jobs these companies typically offer. A teenager employed in a highly divided labor environment doesn't learn a skill. Their work experience is basically nil upon termination. Further, what if this teenager is a single mother and a high school dropout? Will there be opportunities available for advancement that will be lucrative enough to provide for her child? Doubtful. Instead, her best hope for higher wages is another career.

Karl Marx would be correct to argue that the McDonald brothers removed the "work" from their restaurants and replaced it with "labor". They systematically removed creativity and fulfillment from each and every process in order to maximize throughput. The burgers must be cooked for exactly three minutes per side, contain exactly two pickles and just one slice of cheese.

The goals of the McDonald brothers were solely motivated by capital and it would be another example of owners of the means of production using their power to exploit the worker. But, is it wrong to impose a division of labor strategy? It can be argued on both sides of the issue.

One may say it is wrong for the McDonald brothers to remove the skill and fulfillment from the jobs in order to increase throughput merely from a socio-economic standpoint. Reduced wages and low skill result in a poverty-stricken workforce with little chance of doing better for themselves. This often perpetuates to their children who are forced to grow up in difficult financial situations and therefore may have to give up their education in order to help ease their family's financial burden. In the end, the children of these workers may end up in the same type of low paying low skill job.

The owner may argue that he is providing affordable food and that a byproduct of that affordability is reduced labor costs which attract less skilled workers. And, while it isn't exactly the case that if a person is starving and they only have one dollar, that they will be thankful that a McDonalds hamburger is still only $0.79. They will probably be more inclined to go to a supermarket and maximize the bulk of food they can purchase with their dollar. But, for a father of four on his lunch break at a manufacturing plant, a three dollar lunch is an affordable and efficient meal solution.

Who's looking out for the worker?

The capitalism of our economy often leads to worker oppression. For example, many industry trade groups fight vehemently against increases to the national minimum wage. From their perspective they are already paying too much. But, many workers will find it hard to live at a reasonable level on the current $5.15 per hour minimum wage.

In fact, adjusted for inflation, the national minimum wage is lower today than it was more than 20 years ago. In addition, the minimum wage as a percentage of the average hourly wage has fallen from roughly 55% in 1950 to 33% today. Meaning, a worker on minimum wage is earning one third as much as the average worker.

If a fast food employee works full time-40 hours per week- that will be 2,000 hours per year (assuming they take two weeks vacation). That means their maximum earning potential is $858 per month or $10,300 per year. State and federal income taxes must be deducted from their checks as well as social security contributions, reducing their take-home pay even further. Considering the monthly expenses of rent, utilities and food, their take home pay will be stretched to its limits.

The low pay is only the tip of the iceberg though. The fast food industry has designed its jobs to require so little skill that they can hire just about anyone to do the task. And, they do. A typical operation employs more workers than needed to fill their shift requirements. This increased staff means there is little chance for overtime. It also means that few workers will have enough hours to qualify as full-time employees thereby missing the opportunity to receive benefits.

It would seem fast food is a perfect industry for unionization. Unions have fought for worker's rights in many industries with good results, why not the fast-food industry? The answer is simple; the fast food companies vigilantly fight unionization and even foster an atmosphere that is nonconductive to union infiltration.

The average fast food worker quits or is fired within three months. This high turnover rate makes it difficult for unions that do gain access to employees to organize those employees. Too often the by the time the union is ready to make a push they are dealing with a significantly changed labor pool that needs convincing all over again.

Not only is the unionization of fast food restaurants difficult because of the high turnover rate, it is also difficult because of company intervention. McDonalds employs a special strike team to fly out to local restaurants whenever there is an inkling of union activity. This team talks informally to workers in order to gain information about union sympathizers. Once the information is obtained, the sympathizers are fired.

The means used by the fast food companies to oppress workers are derived from the workers themselves. The owners of the means of production (in this case the fast food companies) use the workers to gain capital. They then use that capital to ensure the workers' rights are oppressed.

The money invested in lobbying efforts, campaign contributions, trade association dues and anti-union activities are just a few examples of this oppression. Many companies also use their capital to affect public policy for their own benefit as well.

Another industry

The nation's fast food industry has influenced many other industries as well--none more so than the meat packing industry. The constant need for a large supply of a uniform product has forced consolidation in the meat packing industry. In 1970 21 percent of cattle were slaughtered by the four largest meat packing firms. Today four companies are responsible for 84 percent of all of the cattle slaughtered in this country.

These companies (ConAgra, IBP, Excel and National Beef) have also fought hard against trade unions and worker rights. They have all located their operations out of major cities and into the Great Plaines states a typically less union-friendly environment.

IBP (Iowa Beef Packing) was the first to market prebutchered cuts of meat to its customers. The new cuts allowed local supermarkets and delis to fire their highly paid, highly skilled butchers. With supermarkets, an industry where price competition is the norm, looking to save money wherever possible, the IBP alternative proved a logical fit. Advantage IBP. While other meat packing companies were still offering sides of beef, IBP's boxed beef gained market share quickly.

The boxed beef "IBP Revolution" had a staggering effect on the meat packing industry. Instead of hiring many skilled butchers to handle a steer, IBP employed a division of labor philosophy hiring many unskilled workers and reducing their jobs to mere task work. In a modern meat packing plant the "disassembly line" is stocked with thousands of workers working shoulder to shoulder making the same cuts over and over for an entire shift. This "IBP Revolution" is a true example of Marx's ideas of alienation.

Consider a local butcher who carves sides of cattle into cuts for his patrons. He gleans satisfaction from many different aspects of his work.

1. The satisfaction of providing food to the families in his community.
   
   
2. The satisfaction of completing the task of reducing the side of beef to all of its usable cuts.
   
   
3. The satisfaction of creativity. He may choose to make one cut larger than other butchers because he may feel that is a better piece of meat.
   
   

But, the division of labor in today's meat packing facilities removes all of the satisfaction from the job.

1. The employees do not interact with the families that will be consuming the food.
   
   
2. Their job is limited to a simple knife cut.
   
   
3. The cut must be made in exactly the same way each time in order to ensure a uniform product.
   
   

In Laborem Exorem Pope John Paul II explains that work must be a creative process. That we as human beings are made in God's image and because God created man we should also create. What's missing in many divided labor environments is this creation element. Standing at a conveyor belt making the same slice in to a section of beef is hardly a creative process.

Perhaps the most alarming fact about the meat packing industry is it currently holds the distinction of being the most dangerous job in the United States. Workers are injured more often on the disassembly lines of meat packing companies than any other job. The high throughput goals of today's modern slaughter houses force workers to work at unsafe speeds. Additionally, workers that wear protective goggles, gloves, and gear usually are forced to take them off in order to keep up when the line speed increases.

The close proximity of other workers is also a factor. Every worker on the line has a knife of varying sizes depending on their task. Sharp knives, close proximity and high productivity are all of the ingredients in the recipe for the most dangerous job.

20 years ago a typical slaughterhouse would butcher about 175 cattle per hour. Today, some meat packing plants process up to 400 per hour (one every ten seconds). This increase in the line speed has a direct relationship to the injury rate of the plant's workers.

One company nurse stated that she could predict the line speed by the number of employees with lacerations that showed up in her office each day--the higher the number, the higher the line speed.

OSHA, The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (the government agency responsible for ensuring the safety of America's workers), has not been able to properly police the meat packing industry. Through a series of budget cuts and regulatory restrictions, OSHA had been forced to allow meat packing companies to keep their own injury records. These injury logs would then be viewed by an OSHA official prior to an inspection. If the injury logs showed an injury rate lower than the average of meat packing plants, the inspector would have to leave without inspecting the plant.

These company injury logs were often "cooked" to reflect injury rates lower than the actual rates. In one case at an IBP plant in Nebraska, the company kept two sets of injury logs. One report for OSHA inspectors to view and another that reflected the actual injury numbers. The OSHA version indicated that there were 160 injuries within a three-month period while the actual injury report showed there were actually 1,800. Company officials abused a system designed to keep workers safe to maximize profit.

OSHA employs roughly 1,300 inspectors who are responsible for inspecting more than five million different workplaces in this country. That means a typical American business can expect an OSHA inspection about once every 80 years. What's even more alarming is the fact that many OSHA inspectors are not experts in the safety and health aspects of the industries they are inspecting. How can they? A typical inspector may be responsible for the inspection of more than one hundred different types of companies.

Why hasn't OSHA just increased the number of inspectors and provided training about the different industries it polices? Because of funding cuts and regulatory restrictions imposed through lobbying efforts and political contributions. Again, the capital being used to oppress workers is gleaned by the owners of the means of productions.

Conclusion

Fast Food Nation describes many issues regarding the changes brought about by the fast food industry. Many issues regarding everything from the divided labor environments of the modern fast food kitchen to the safety and health of the workers providing the beef for the burgers are explored in the book. The issues raised in the book scream for attention. There are many instances of the owners of the means of production using their power to further oppress the workers. As these companies grow, they leave a wake of social, economic and health issues that are changing our society for the worse.