One tiny correction which does not overturn your point but reinforces it.
The McDonald's franchise in Squamish, BC was unionized.
The next day a McDonald's spokesperson pronounced: "We are proud that each
and every day tens of thousands of employees choose to work at MacDonald's
because it best meets their needs."
YEAH, RIGHT!
Victor
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christoph Reuss" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, April 09, 2001 6:56 PM
Subject: Fwd: Fast Work
> The part about work from a book review on "Fast Food Nation":
> http://www.inthesetimes.com/web2511/mason2511.html
>
> > Everyone knows that fast food jobs suck. They're greasy, low-paid,
> > short-term, unskilled and without benefits, and among teen-agers, who
fill
> > nearly all of them, they're not even cool. The cumulative impact of the
> > fast food economy is stark: The restaurant industry is the largest
private
> > employer in the United States, and the great majority of these
jobs--3.5
> > million of them--are in fast food. These workers comprise "by far the
> > largest group of minimum wage earners." McDonald's hires 1 million
people
> > a year, "more than any other American organization, public or private";
> > one in eight American workers have worked at McDonald's. In addition to
> > its restaurants, McDonald's exerts near-total control over the
production
> > of commodities of which it is among the largest buyers: beef,
potatoes,
> > pork and poultry. And McDonald's competitors, fast food chains like
Burger
> > King and KFC, ape one another's tactics with great precision.
> >
> > Fast food workers rarely have benefits of any sort, and typically turn
> > over at several hundred percent each year. And they are never, ever
> > unionized. In addition to being low-paid and transient, fast food work
is
> > dangerous: the rate of injury in fast food jobs is among the highest of
> > any job category. But if that weren't bad enough, fast food workers are
> > now more likely to be murdered on the job (four to five per month) than
> > are police, and though precise statistics are unavailable, Schlosser
says
> > they're probably more likely to be the victims of violent crime on the
job
> > than any other class of workers.
> >
> > Led by the fast food chains, the restaurant industry has spent vast sums
> > to oppose the minimum wage (yes, the minimum wage itself--not just
hikes
> > in it), federal protections for union organizing, federal food safety
> > regulations and enforcement, and OSHA workplace safety standards. It was
> > among the first industries to apply the principles of Taylorism --
> > standardizing and simplifying each stage of production to eliminate
> > the need for skilled workers--to every aspect of its business,
> > aspiring to a "zero-training" work force of interchangeable and
> > disposable part-timers.
> >
> > Workers in fast food restaurants may be more likely to be murdered at
> > work, but the nation's most dangerous job also owes its current scope,
> > structure and working conditions to fast food: The meatpacking industry
> > has been thoroughly transformed by the vast buying power and
cost-cutting
> > demands of the burger regime. In the past 30 years it has recrudesced
> > from the well-paid, unionized profession of the '60s--the product of
> > decades of worker activism and progressive government regulation,
building
> > on Upton Sinclair's revelatory The Jungle--into yet another
fin-de-siècle
> > recreation of the 1890s: an extremely low-paid, dangerous and filthy
job
> > filled by desperate, powerless immigrants without unions, health care
or
> > job security.
>
>
