Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser [178]
the trait most valued: Reiter, Making Fast Food, p. 129.
76 A “flying squad” of experienced managers: See Love, Behind the Arches, pp. 394–95; Boas and Chain, Big Mac, pp. 94–112.
amid a bitter organizing drive in San Francisco: For the events in San Francisco, see Boas and Chain, Big Mac, pp. 104–12
77 employed fifteen attorneys: Cited in Bill Tieleman, “Did Somebody Say McUnion? Not If They Want to Keep Their McJob,” National Post, March 29, 1999.
“one of the most anti-union companies on the planet”: Quoted in Mike King, “Mc- Donald’s Workers Win the Union War But Lose Jobs,” Ottawa Citizen, March 3, 1998.
a money-loser: See Mike King, “McDonald’s to Go,” Montreal Gazette, February 15, 1998.
77 about 300 to 1: Roughly three McDonald’s closed per year in Canada during the early 1990s, while about eighty new ones annually opened. Cited in King, “Mc-Donald’s to Go.”
“Did somebody say McUnion?”: Tieleman, “McUnion?”
80 Numerous studies have found:” See Protecting Youth at Work, pp. 225–26. Teenage boys who work longer hours: Ibid., p. 132.
“ IT’S TIME FOR BRINGING IN THE GREEN!”: The ad appeared in the Colorado Springs Gazette on March 20, 1999. My account of the working conditions at FutureCall is based on conversations with former employees. For more on FutureCall, see Jeremy Simon, “Telemarketing,” Colorado Springs Gazette, February 15, 1999.
82 George, a former Taco Bell employee: Whenever a person is identified only by a first name in this book, the name is a pseudonym. All of the people described really exist; none is a composite.
83 The injury rate of teenage workers: Cited in Protecting Youth at Work, p. 4. about 200,000 are injured on the job: Ibid., p. 68.
Roughly four or five fast food workers are now murdered… more restaurant workers were murdered on the job: In 1998, the most recent year for which figures are available, fifty-two police officers and detectives were murdered on the job — and sixty-nine restaurant workers were murdered on the job, mainly during robberies. The vast majority of restaurant robberies occur at fast food restaurants, because they are open late, staffed by teenagers, full of cash, and convenient. The homicide figures are cited in Eric F. Sygnatur and Guy A. Toscano, “Work-Related Homicides: The Facts,” Compensation and Working Conditions, Spring 2000.
more attractive to armed robbers than convenience stores: See Laurie Grossman, “Easy Marks: Fast-Food Industry is Slow to Take Action Against Growing Crime,” Wall Street Journal, September 22, 1994; Kerry Lydon, “Prime Crime Targets; Highly Publicized Restaurant Crimes Have Drawn Both Criminal and Customer Attention to Security Lapses,” Restaurants and Institutions, June 15, 1995; Milford Prewitt, Naomi R. Kooker, Alan J. Liddle, and Robin Lee Allen, “Taking Aim at Crime: Barbaric to Bizarre, Crime Robs Operators’ Peace of Mind, Profits,” Nation’s Restaurant News, May 22, 2000.
at 7–Eleven stores the average robbery: Cited in Scot Lins and Rosemary J. Erickson, “Stores Learn to Inconvenience Robbers: 7–Eleven Shares Many of Its Robbery Deterrence Strategies,” Security Management, November 1998.
84 about two-thirds of the robberies at fast food restaurants: Cited in Grossman, “Easy Marks”; and Lydon, “Prime Crime Targets.”
about half of all restaurant workers: Cited in Ed Rubinstein, “High-Tech Systems Look to Head Off Restaurant Shrinkage,” Nation’s Restaurant News, January 11, 1999.
The typical employee stole about $218: Cited in “NCS Reports Employee Theft Doubled in Restaurant/Fast Food Industry,” press release, NCS and National Food Service Security Council, July 9, 1999.
“It may be common sense”: Interview with Jerald Greenberg.
OSHA was prompted: See Ralph Vartabedian, “Big Business, Big Bucks: The Rising Tide of Corporate Political Donations,” Los Angeles Times, September 23, 1997; Joan Oleck, “Who’s Afraid of OSHA?” Restaurant Business, February 10, 1995.
84 OSHA recommended: See “Recommendations for Workplace Violence