Fast Food Nation Entry 8

The mistreatment of workers happens all too often in fast food chains, therefore they should form unions. Unions are necessary to make sure workers are being treated fairly and also to ensure that their pay stays current with the economy. Unions may not benefit the employer but it will most certainly make for a better working environment for the employee and possibly transcend into a more positive experience for the customers. In the book Fast Food Nation Eric Schlosser helps expose the horrors of being part of the working poor to the public.

            I used to work a job that I considered to be a dead end job, raises were almost impossible to get and the pay was not great to begin with. This effected my mindset greatly, I tended not to give my full effort and just did bare minimum to avoid being fired. When it comes to fast food chains this lack of motivation is going to reflect directly on the product that is being served. If a union were to be implemented it would allow for raises to be given out along with benefits. A worker that sees more money in their future may come to work with a different attitude, I know I would have. I feel this will translate to an enhanced customer experience with more helpful workers that produce a better product. 
Employees go to work sick all the time because they do not have sick days and can’t afford to call out. Sick workers lead to the contamination of food and can lead to other employees getting sick. If employees are getting benefits and sick days, the burden of expensive medical bills will be taken away along with possible contamination that could happen with a sick employee being present.

            In today’s economy unions are necessary because our country is currently in a recession. When these fast food industries first started most of the employees were teenagers who didn’t rely on wages to get by. At the end of their shift most likely workers were going home to their parents’ house where they lived rent free and using the money that they earned to buy things that weren’t necessities. Now with jobs becoming harder to find, some employees rely on their recently raised minimum wage of eight dollars an hour(current minimum in New York) to pay their bills and support a family. That is clearly not enough to support a family. If the fast food workers cannot do so who will help? The government now has to step in and provide assistance. So now we the tax payers are spending our money because unions are not there to regulate a fair wage. The general public pays once again for fast food company’s obsession with getting the most profit out of every dollar.

            Current working conditions are unfair; most of the teenagers that work in these establishments are untrained. “Every year, about 200,000 are injured on the job.” (P.99) Another big issue is that fast food establishments are a target for robberies. Making them in convenient locations makes for an easy get away. The worst part is that most of these robberies are committed by current and former employees. If workers were making a decent amount of money they may not resort to violent crimes that hurt their own demographic which is described as “the young and the poor.” (P.99)

                In conclusion Unions would benefit not only the workers inside but the people who go to these fast food chains. Pay rates would be increased, benefits would be provided and that would trickle down to a better consumer product served by someone who is smiling because they are happy to work there not because they are told they have to by the employer.