Book Portfolio- Fast Food Nation

Fast food relies on unsafe and unhealthy working conditions to make a profit. J.R Simplot is the main supplier of french fries to McDonalds. He sells them for thirty cents a pound and in turn McDonalds sells them for six dollars a pound. This is a big improvement compared to making their own fries, it is less time consuming to buy frozen fries than it is to make homemade french fries.


McDonalds also gets their meat from meat packing plants. Workers in the meat factories are mostly latino women. They are in a cramped space and they trim the fat off the meat and slice it in a matter of seconds. One of the most dangerous jobs in the meatpacking industry is cleaning up. The clean up crew is made up of mostly illegal immigrants and they are paid one third less than regular employees. They use a high powered hose that shoots out a water and chlorine mixture that is heated up to about one hundred eighty degrees. The plant fills with a fog and it gets hard to see even five feet in front of you. They clean out grease, fat, manure and leftover meat scraps. The plant can get as hot as one hundred degrees when being cleaned. This shows how dangerous the job was. It is like the industrial revolution. Women had dangerous jobs and were not paid nearly enough.

The working conditions are very poor. There is very many accounts of people being injured. One person lost two fingers in one of the machines and his supervisor told him that, "If one hand is no good, use the other." At the Dakota City Plant the injury rate was one third higher than the average. The plant did not report serious injuries like fractures, concussions, major cuts, hernias and some that required surgery, hospitalization and even amputation.

One worker reached into a machine to remove a piece of meat. The machine turned on and his arm got stuck. He was rushed to the hospital and his shoulder was sewn up. After he got stitches and a prescription , he returned to the slaughterhouse and was put back on the production line. Another worker named Kenney tried to catch a ninety pund box and was knocked off balance. He fell against the conveyor belt and the metal rim pierced his lower back. The company doctor bandaged him up and said it was just a pulled muscle. He stayed home for a couple of days and then returned to work. He later saw another doctor and was told that he had a pair of severely herniated disks. He had to have back surgery and spent a month in the hospital. He was having financial diffuculties and returned to the slaughterhouse.

One time Kenney was asked to disinfect the plant because of Salmonella contamination. He had to spray a liquid chlorine mix, which to spray he needed safety goggles, protective gloves, a self contained respirator and full coveralls. All he was given was a paper dust mask. He went home and became ill. He was rushed to the hospital and put in an oxygen tent. His lungs had been burned and his body was covered in blisters from the chemicals. He eventually recovered and went back to work. He later broke his leg stepping into a hole at the slaughterhouse and was then given a job carrying bags of knives up steep flights of stairs for recycling. Kenney had a heart attack while trying to loft heavy boxes one day and while recuperating was fired.
" They used me to the point where I had no body parts left to give," said Kenney."Then they just tossed me in the trashcan." This quote shows how unfair it was in the meatpacking industry, but do you think McDonald's cared about those people? Probably not. It was cheap labor and McDonald's made a profit so they couldn't complain about what went on outside of their restaurants. They were making a profit from those peoples unhealthy and unsafe working conditions.