The next three chapters of Fast Food Nation are, I think, the most important in the book, and the book has been one of the most important and influential works of investigative journalism in the last decade.
For Friday, you'll be reading two of those three chapters ("On the Range" and "Cogs in the Great Machine"). Please read them carefully and cite them in your dailies.
Why do these corporations find nothing wrong with ruining simple, small, nice towns by building their plants?
ReplyDeleteHow can these corporations be so corrupt without anyone realizing?
To me many things stood out in particular. One of which was the fact of not only was there a high turnover rate in the meatpacking industry similar to McDonalds and other fast food restaurants but they lure these people in with false promises. Schlosser says that “health insurance [was] offered to workers after six months on the job; vacation pay, after a year” (160). Unfortunately, these were never actually seen by these workers because “the average worker quit or was fired every three months” (160). This was done not only to avoid having to pay for vacation time and health insurance but to “[help] maintain a work force that is harder to unionize and much easier to control” (161). That is the first thing that stood out because of the lies and false promises to their employers. The next was that they actually encourage employees to break the law! Harper used a bag of money analogy to explain it to his general managers, “Harper told each general manager that he’d been given a bag of money, and that at the end of the year he’d be expected to return it—plus a little extra” (159). This “intense pressure to return a bigger bag of money every year has prompted a number of ConAgra employees to break the law” (159). This absolutely floored me. The fact that, not only do they just turn their heads against the law being broken, but they encourage it to increase productivity in order to make a buck. The third thing that stuck out in my mind was the story about Hank. We were given a name and a face to go along with the statistics about the ranchers. Though he was a man “full of fire and ready to go,” because of the hardships brought on by the monopoly power going on in the meatpacking industry caused him to end his life. In addition to this, “the suicide rate among ranchers and farmers in the United States is now about three times higher than the national average” (146). To me that is a startling statistic that should be looked into. There should be more media attention drawn to that. Questions should be asked about why this is going on because obviously something is.
Word Count: 379
The only thing differing between employment at a fast food restaurant and a meatpacking company, as described by Schlosser, is that one will find a higher rate of injury at the meatpacking company. When the president of the United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 100A spoke to Schlosser about the years he had worked in meatpacking plants, he spoke of seeing "friends get badly injured on the job, [he had] lost the middle finger on his right hand while using a saw, [and he was] knocked unconscious when a side of beef fell off a hook and struck him in the head" (Schlosser 156). He did everything he could to make sure his children attended college, for what one might assume to be that he did not want his children to go through the same experiences he had. By the time he had risen to his current status, the major companies had left the area. This, of course, being due to the fact that they could move to an area that did not support unions and hire individuals who were not likely to unionize.
ReplyDeleteMuch like the fast food chains, the Greely beef plant has "an annual turnover rate of about 400 percent. The average worker quit or was fired every three months" (Schlosser 160). The same principles held over the reasons behind this, being that one did not have to provide the workers with health insurance and/or vacation pay depending on how long the worker had been employed. Along with this, the meatpacking industry has far less money being lost in court cases brought upon themselves. When IBP and its owner had been conspiring with La Cosa Nostra in New York, "Judge Burton Roberts fined IBP $7000, but did not punish Holman with any prison term or fine, noting that bribes were sometimes part of the cost of doing things in New York City" (155). Words cannot describe how such a conclusion could be made to such a case. Yet, the maximum penalty OSHA can place on a company is a misdemeanor fine of $7000.
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Will more stringent laws on corporations' treatment of employees come to pass within our lifetime?
Would once again breaking up the monopolies/oligarchies result in the same cycle, where they reform years later?
How has the government affected the pay for farmers?
ReplyDeleteWhat has lower prices on food done to the products that we get in the stores?
“Ranchers currently face a host of economic problems: rising land prices, stagnant beef prices, oversupplies of cattle, increased shipments of live cattle…” (Schlosser 136). Even though a rancher relies on others economically, there are many things that a rancher can change for himself or herself. For Hank he had to deal with a new raceway coming in and how that could affect his lifestyle. Even though it seems like just a tiny change the raceway affected his ground and what his family and even farm dealt with. “These hillsides could erupt in flames with the slightest spark,” the rancher had to worry about every little thing that happened on his land (133). Not only do they have to deal with land problems, but also they have to deal with monetary issues. “The price of cattle was set through open bidding at auctions,” there were chances that their cattle would go for a price that was worth less than the hard work that they put in to take care of their land. Because of money, the beef industry could be stuck in a place where they have to do what they do not want to just so they can sustain their farms. Some of the ranchers are scared that they are going to become like the poultry farms who “have become virtually powerless, trapped by debt and be onerous contracts written by the large processors” (139). They were being trapped by someone that was over them in the company that bought their product. The one thing that sticks out to me with this is in these factories there are probably many problems with the jobs. “Far from being a liability, a high turnover rate in the meatpacking industry- as in fast food industry- also helps maintain a workforce that is harder to unionize and much easier to control” (161). Like we watched in fourth hour these people are probably not always in the safest conditions, they may be in a position where they are not always safe.
Word Count 336
What health and economic problems have the changes within the meatpacking industry created?
ReplyDeleteWhat becomes of independent ranchers who are cast by the wayside in favor of company owned farmers fast food companies seem to prefer?
The meatpacking industry is a very important factor when it comes to fast food production. It supplies the ingredients for most of the food these restaurants produce and sell. Due to changes within the food production industry, and how fast food companies try to cut costs and increase productivity, it is also the source of many economic and health problems within the United States. Ranching, which was once a very profitable occupation for many, involves all sorts of economic problems, including “rising land prices, stagnant beef prices, an oversupply of cattle, development pressures, health scares, taxes, and an increase shipment of cattle” (Schlosser 136). The influx of fast food restaurants across the nation has severely affected the ranching and meatpacking business, with many companies hiring their own private companies, thus eliminating the need for independent ranchers (138). For example, “McDonald’s made Tyson Foods their chief chicken supplier and processor”, which caused many independent chicken farmers to lose money and eventually quit their job (140). Companies like Tyson Foods will “employ independent contractors to raise the chickens, but the chickens they take care of are still owned by the company” (141). “Chicken growers must supply the land, the labor, the poultry houses, and the fuel” Schlosser writes (141). This kind of work is hard to maintain, and many of these growers end up losing almost everything, which hurts the economy even further. In addition to these economic problems, there are all sorts of health risks associated with the mass production of beef and poultry. In the town of Greeley, Colorado, “the meatpacking company ConAgra operates a pair of enormous feedlots, which contain thousands and thousands of cattle” (150). These cattle are pumped full of growth hormones, and “eat three thousand pounds of grain during their stay at a feedlot, just to gain four hundred pounds in weight” (150). Also, the excrement of these steer is “dumped into a pit, called a lagoon, which releases harmful chemicals in to the air” (150). The meatpacking industry, despite being very important to the mass production of processed food, has many health related and economic problems associated with, that will almost certainly get worse as long as fast food restaurants continue to spring up all over the world. (Word Count 380).
Yes, I get to talk Econ! I believe what Schlosser is doing here is showing how what is supposed to be an open or free market is literally turning into a big business complex where monopolies outrun smaller businesses and are eventually consumed with the rest of the market. The exact definition of a free market is that it “requires many buyers as well as many sellers, all with equal access to accurate information, all entitled to trade on the same terms, and none with a big enough share in the market to influence price” (Schlosser 138). Ever since the Reagan administration established “Reaganomics” allowing for big business to come back, and “stimulate” the economy, smaller businesses have been at a disadvantage because big mergers have gone unchecked where they have gone through horizontal controls and growths in the market just like how the meatpacking companies own the large feedlot owners so that they control in a since the supplies and demands of their own fixed costs as well as the supplies and demands in the market by being able to “flood the market with their own captive supplies” if demand increases, stabilizing it to their needs, but not by the “invisible hand” of the market (Schlosser 138-9). The “Invisible Hand” principle or theory is the idea that there is an unseen force in a free market that evenly balances the supply and demand of a market for each producer and consumer. When big companies form monopolies, the invisible hand turns into the hand of the monopoly where no matter what a smaller company does by producing more or less to stabilize price, the monopoly controls every aspect of the market to have a “stranglehold on the market, using unfair tactics to drive down the price of cattle” (Schlosser 136). When large corporations gain huge holds in the market, they also gain more lobbying power due to how much money they have which allows them to influence congress to let slide these big business policies or policies that allow immigrant workers. These huge monopolies don’t have to pay for housing their cattle because they own the large feedlot companies, and they pay nearly nothing to wages because of the base salaries of “$9.25 an hour” for immigrant workers (Schlosser 160). The meatpacking companies today are an excellent example of maximizing profits by literally controlling all inputs and outputs of the market and eliminating nearly all fixed costs. word count: 409
ReplyDelete1. Why have there not been recent reforms in big business lately seeing as how, oh I don't know, we are in a recession?
2. Just like how Upton Sinclair responded to the meatpacking industry with The Jungle, where does America move forward, or well, backward to address similar issues in this day and age?
In Eric Schlosser’s novel Fast Food Nation, the concept of the privately owned farm is one that hits close to home. Since my relatives emigrated here in the 19th century from Germany, my family has been farmers. In rural Texas the occupation of farming is far from uncommon. When driving to the family farm, my mother can still pick out the vast majority of the families who have owned the pastures when she was growing up. The town of Cuero that I remember as a kid was one that had a liquor store with cowboys painted on it, a family owned Mexican or barbecue restaurant around each corner, and people saying “Is that you, oh I haven’t seen you since you were in high school Bernice! Hope your parents are doing well.” Looking around this same town even ten years later, the rose colored glasses have been removed. There are high instances of crime, gang activity, and poverty. The old ways of the town are dying with the generation that helped keep it so active, as well as with their involvement in the agricultural and meat industries. A once independently owned cattle farm that held great pride for my family, now consists of the old “Papa’s place” land that was owned by my great-grandfather and a meager two dozen cows at most at any given time. The land that my grandparents’ home is on and once was their cattle ranch now is filled with other peoples’ cows. As my grandparents could no longer keep up the farm due to their age, they were luckily able to keep the land and just lease it to others. A point to be made with this lease is that since their family had moved here from Europe, they had always been farmers or ranchers. With seven kids, no one of them wanted to make this their trade and source of income. Why would a family member be willing to be a full-time farmer or rancher when “[t]hey [would] have to compete wit gentlemen ranchers whose operations don’t have to earn a profit and with part-time ranchers whose operations are kept afloat by second jobs” (Schlosser 145). People like my grandfather was when in his prime as an independent dairy and beef cattle producer simply do not exist anymore or are quickly being forced out of existence. These people who “are independent and self-sufficient, cherish their freedom, [and] believe in hard work” simple come up short (145). This way of life that many idolized and that formed some of the best people that I have ever had the pleasure of coming into contact with, is simply being forced out of existence. A way of life and a drive “that was meant to be handed down to children” is being swallowed up by massive corporations all for the sake of profit (147).
ReplyDeleteWord Count: 476
Is government simply another employer of the large corporations?
ReplyDeleteWith such a wave of fast food mentality, where does the individual stand?
Within these chapters of the book are exposed not only bad working conditions but control of the individual’s once independent livelihood for the gain of corporate profits. The fast food mentality has found its way into the meatpacking industry, and “the growth of fast food chains has encouraged consolidation in the meatpacking industry” (Schlosser 136). With fewer individual meatpackers, corporations have a much stronger say in production, how many producers are in the marketplace, and things of this nature. Such power gives large corporations, such as ConAgra and IBP, power to control the prices of beef. This has forced ranch owners to rely on second incomes, but the “doctors, lawyers, and stockbrokers [are] now running cattle on some of Colorado’s most beautiful land” (145). Only individuals who DO NOT rely on meatpacking as a main source of income can afford to maintain cattle farms. A system in which hobbyists are the only ones financially able to maintain an industry is flawed, and government subsidies should be given to offset the effect of such large corporations. Schlosser says, “the ranchers most likely to be in financial trouble are the ones who live the life and embody the values supposedly at the heart of the American West” (145). Individual meatpackers and cattle farmers no longer have financial stability; the large corporations have reduced cattle farmers to producers for corporate industry.
Another problem more scary that corporate take over is the issue of union leaders accepting bribes in return for “hushing” the union workers. Moe Steinman “offered to help end the butchers’ boycott” in New York in exchange for “a five-cent commission on every ten pounds of beef that IBP sold in New York” (155). Corporations have learned to maintain their power not only through individual manipulation but also through governmental bribery. It is sickening to know that money makes laws, not ethics or morals. Leaders of ConAgra “sought to lower the state taxes paid by large corporations, but also by wealthy executives” (163). Out of fear of losing a large corporation, Nebraska changed its laws, further proving that money (within the fast food mentality) outweighs justice. A green piece of paper now carries more value than the life of an individual.
Word Count: 369
Are we going to allow ourselves be bullied by and live in fear of the mighty and powerful corporations? Or will we “make the transition to slavery quietly” (Schlosser 143)?
ReplyDeleteHow can we fix these extreme problems of injustice--instead of ignoring them--that we seem to have created for ourselves?
This is one of the most outrageous passages yet. Within just the short time span of over a year, the reader sees how the amounting pressures and injustice finally takes its toll on what was once a “cowboy, tall and rugged,” with “strong opinions,” active in his community that fooled Schlosser into think he will “be governor of Colorado someday” into a “stressed…sleepless,” broken cowboy sunken so deeply into depression he “took his own life” (133, 135, 146). Oftentimes, environmentalists antagonize farmers for their chemicals or wastes that hurt the environment; in reality, the “contrast between [a farmer’s or rancher’s] impact on the land and the city’s impact was hard to miss” (134). Some farmers or ranchers actually lose land from the city’s rainwater runoff (135). The city’s wastes are much more toxic than any farmer’s, and it appears that many farmers, especially “chicken growers”, don’t even have a choice in which products they use, because they are either mandated by the large processors or cannot afford to choose more bio-conscious products or clean up chemicals (139). These large processors that dominate what is supposed to be a free market (but far from it) also seem to take no responsibility for their actions. If there are “capital expenditures and financial risks” involved, they place it on the “thousands of ‘independent contractors,’” and there is “little [the growers] can do about it” (140, 141). They discreetly meet with their competitors to fix market prices, which is certain to force independent sellers or farmers out of business by “overcharg[ing] farmers by as much as $180 million” (143). They terrorize unions with scabs and fire all employees involved or associated with unions and relocate to areas where the organization of a union is unlikely—they remove all skill from the labor and hire the poorest, most unskilled to decrease the likelihood of a union forming (153-155, 159-160). They specifically “target some of the most impoverished and most vulnerable groups” because it “helps maintain a workforce that is harder to unionize and much easier to control” (162, 161). They are only widening the gap between the wealthy and the poor and lessening the “wealthy bracket,” only this time with the sale, production, and processing of the food industry in addition to the “savage inequalities” of the education, on which Kozol reports. They do nothing but cheat the customers and cheat the employees—promising them insurance after six months of employment and vacation after a year, when they plan on firing them after only three. However, when they get caught in their dirty acts, they receive nothing more menacing than a slap in the wrist (if that), with the courts even sometimes upholding their monopoly ways. When will the injustices stop? When will we unveil the tyranny of these near-monopolies from manipulating and controlling every aspect of our markets so that we can then begin to promote fair trade? When will we remember that we are all connected through humanity, and toss aside the “hard, unsentimental view of the world” (Schlosser 154)? Or will that time just become “the ruins of a lost American civilization” (157)?
Also, since when does a plant give off a sweet smell (166)?!
Word Count: 521
How has the dominance of the American economy by larger beef and poultry corporations affected the ranchers and chicken growers in the United States?
ReplyDeleteIn these chapters of the novel, Schlosser examines many of the larger beef and poultry corporations in the United States, and conveys a sense of concern he has for these corporation’s dominance of the American economy. Ranchers are one of the many groups of people in the country who suffer from the dominance of the beef and meat packing industries by larger corporations. Ranchers today get less money for their cattle than any other time in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s. Schlosser writes, “Today’s unprecedented degree of meatpacking concentration has helped depress the prices that independent ranchers get for their cattle” (Schlosser 138). The dominance of the beef and meatpacking industries by larger corporations has effectively made ranchers in United States insignificant in the American economy. Chicken growers in the United States also suffered as a result of larger corporations such as Tyson dominating the poultry industry in America. Chicken growers today have little power in what they can do or even say, and many chicken growers are forced into new areas of work because they cannot sustain themselves financially. Schlosser writes, “A chicken grower who is unhappy with his or her processor has little power to do anything about it” (Schlosser 141). Growers in America often make as little as $12,000 annually, and because of the power that the processors hold the growers can do little about it. During the Reagan Administration, many of the nation’s larger beef and poultry corporations were allowed to dominate the economy because of Reagan’s lack of belief in antitrust laws against these larger corporations. This actually made things worse on ranchers and chicken growers in America, and it allowed larger corporations to gain a strangle hold on the economy. Schlosser writes, “The Reagan administration did not oppose the disappearance of hundreds of small meatpacking firms. On the contrary, it opposed using antitrust laws to stop the giant meatpackers” (Schlosser 158). Until this time, the dominance of the economy by larger corporations had actually been on a significant decline.
Word Count: 349