![]() ![]() ![]() Turnover is huge, and the companies profit from it: Short-term workers accrue few benefits and are less likely to organize. Teenagers and recent immigrants make up much of the fast food workforce, often under intimidating and poor conditions. ![]() To promote mass production and profits, the industry must keep labor and material costs low. By bringing the all-American concept of assembly-line production into the food industry, they started an industry that would be worth billions. Shrewd entrepreneurs like Carl Karchner and Ray Kroc expanded their drive-in restaurants to accommodate Americans’ increasing mobility and desire for familiarity. The McDonald’s, Burger Kings, and Wendy’s of the world have their roots in the car-centric culture of California of the late 1940s and 1950s, a culture that spread as the interstate highway system was laid and suburbs sprawled nationwide. It is a serious piece of investigative journalism into an industry that has helped concentrate corporate ownership of American agribusiness, while engaging in labor practices that are often shameful. Yet Fast Food Nation is far more than a lament for home cooking and mom-and-pop diners. Fast Food Nation traces the history of the fast food industry from modest hotdog stands to the umpteen billion burgers sold as America spread its gospel of quick-and-easy (and greasy) cuisine around the globe. ![]()
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