Schlosser's Exploitation Of The Fast Food Industry

Introduction: Throughout the course and expansion of this country, Americans have been able to distinguish themselves among several other countries due to their distinctive attributes. As time has went on, the movements and actions that people have taken to define themselves as Americans have been proven to be recurring characteristics. Whether it’s the repercussions of the fast food industry or simply the way that America has progressed, Americans have been characterized as enjoying convenience, being rather greedy, and not caring about their quality of food. As Americans are commonly known as being rather impatient, they sincerely enjoy the fast pace and convenience that fast food restaurants are able to provide them. As Americans live a …show more content…
An increase in demand for fast food brings in a much bigger labor force and through this, Schlosser argues that large corporations are able to break certain laws and manipulate workers in order to reap the benefits of their exploitation. This exploitation and inhumane working conditions has led Schlosser to argue that the placement of dangerous equipment throughout slaughterhouses and lack of corporation empathy results in a less productive and more accident prone workforce. By using an assembly-line production system, workers have to constantly maintain the speed of the line in order to ensure that the level of output never decreases and that worker productivity is always at a high. Schlosser argues that the speed of the line is one of the key factors to worker injuries as employees are typically placed extremely close to each other, thus increasing the chance of a worker actually becoming injured. Since corporations devalue worker’s who drag on their profits and aren’t as productive, workers tend to not report injuries so that they don’t have to face the repercussions of limited work. In addition to this, corporations typically only hire unskilled or undocumented workers to work in their slaughterhouses as they lack the skills and qualifications needed to actually work any other job. By hiring people who won’t serve as a threat to the company, Schlosser argues that the fast food industry exploits such workers by making them work long hours, placing them in high risk environments, and silencing their voices through their fear of deportation. As corporations seek cheap labor, they recognize that such people are only looking to make more than they were in their original hometowns and due to their lack of documentation, they are not able to unionize and thus make immense profit off of their grueling work