Part 2 (1/2)
The fast food industry pays the minimum wage to a higher proportion of its workers than any other American industry. Consequently, a low minimum wage has long been a crucial part of the fast food industry's business plan. Between 1968 and 1990, the years when the fast food chains expanded at their fastest rate, the real value of the U.S. minimum wage fell by almost 40 percent. In the late 1990s, the real value of the U.S. minimum wage still remained about 27 percent lower than it was in the late 1960s. Nevertheless, the National Restaurant a.s.sociation (NRA) has vehemently opposed any rise in the minimum wage at the federal, state, or local level. About sixty large food-service companies - including Jack in the Box, Wendy's, Chevy's, and Red Lobster - have backed congressional legislation that would essentially eliminate the federal minimum wage by allowing states to disregard it. Pete Meersman, the president of the Colorado Restaurant a.s.sociation, advocates creating a federal guest worker program to import low-wage foodservice workers from overseas.
While the real value of the wages paid to restaurant workers has declined for the past three decades, the earnings of restaurant company executives have risen considerably. According to a 1997 survey in Nation's Restaurant News Nation's Restaurant News, the average corporate executive bonus was $131,000, an increase of 20 percent over the previous year. Increasing the federal minimum wage by a dollar would add about two cents to the cost of a fast food hamburger.
In 1938, at the height of the Great Depression, Congress pa.s.sed legislation to prevent employers from exploiting the nation's most vulnerable workers. The Fair Labor Standards Act established the first federal minimum wage. It also imposed limitations on child labor. And it mandated that employees who work more than forty hours a week be paid overtime wages for each additional hour. The overtime wage was set at a minimum of one and a half times the regular wage.
Today few employees in the fast food industry qualify for overtime - and even fewer are paid it. Roughly 90 percent of the nation's fast food workers are paid an hourly wage, provided no benefits, and scheduled to work only as needed. Crew members are employed ”at will.” If the restaurant's busy, they're kept longer than usual. If business is slow, they're sent home early. Managers try to make sure that each worker is employed less than forty hours a week, thereby avoiding any overtime payments. A typical McDonald's or Burger King restaurant has about fifty crew members. They work an average of thirty hours a week. By hiring a large number of crew members for each restaurant, sending them home as soon as possible, and employing them for fewer than forty hours a week whenever possible, the chains keep their labor costs to a bare minimum.
A handful of fast food workers are paid regular salaries. A fast food restaurant that employs fifty crew members has four or five managers and a.s.sistant managers. They earn about $23,000 a year and usually receive medical benefits, as well as some form of bonus or profit sharing. They have an opportunity to rise up the corporate ladder. But they also work long hours without overtime - fifty, sixty, seventy hours a week. The turnover rate among a.s.sistant managers is extremely high. The job offers little opportunity for independent decision-making. Computer programs, training manuals, and the machines in the kitchen determine how just about everything must be done.
Fast food managers do have the power to hire, fire, and schedule workers. Much of their time is spent motivating their crew members. In the absence of good wages and secure employment, the chains try to inculcate ”team spirit” in their young crews. Workers who fail to work hard, who arrive late, or who are reluctant to stay extra hours are made to feel that they're making life harder for everyone else, letting their friends and coworkers down. For years the McDonald's Corporation has provided its managers with training in ”transactional a.n.a.lysis,” a set of psychological techniques popularized in the book I'm OK - You're OK I'm OK - You're OK (1969). One of these techniques is called ”stroking” - a form of positive reinforcement, deliberate praise, and recognition that many teenagers don't get at home. Stroking can make a worker feel that his or her contribution is sincerely valued. And it's much less expensive than raising wages or paying overtime. (1969). One of these techniques is called ”stroking” - a form of positive reinforcement, deliberate praise, and recognition that many teenagers don't get at home. Stroking can make a worker feel that his or her contribution is sincerely valued. And it's much less expensive than raising wages or paying overtime.
The fast food chains often reward managers who keep their labor costs low, a practice that often leads to abuses. In 1997 a jury in Was.h.i.+ngton State found that Taco Bell had systematically coerced its crew members into working off the clock in order to avoid paying them overtime. The bonuses of Taco Bell restaurant managers were tied to their success at cutting labor costs. The managers had devised a number of creative ways to do so. Workers were forced to wait until things got busy at a restaurant before officially starting their s.h.i.+fts. They were forced to work without pay after their s.h.i.+fts ended. They were forced to clean restaurants on their own time. And they were sometimes compensated with food, not wages. Many of the workers involved were minors and recent immigrants. Before the penalty phase of the Was.h.i.+ngton lawsuit, the two sides reached a settlement; Taco Bell agreed to pay millions of dollars in back wages, but admitted no wrongdoing. As many as 16,000 current and former employees were owed money by the company. One employee, a high school dropout named Regina Jones, regularly worked seventy to eighty hours a week but was paid for only forty. Lawsuits involving similar charges against Taco Bell are now pending in Oregon and California.
detecting lies.
AFTER WORKING AT Burger King restaurants for about a year, the sociologist Ester Reiter concluded that the trait most valued in fast food workers is ”obedience.” In other ma.s.s production industries ruled by the a.s.sembly line, labor unions have gained workers higher wages, formal grievance procedures, and a voice in how the work is performed. The high turnover rates at fast food restaurants, the part-time nature of the jobs, and the marginal social status of the crew members have made it difficult to organize their workers. And the fast food chains have fought against unions with the same zeal they've displayed fighting hikes in the minimum wage. Burger King restaurants for about a year, the sociologist Ester Reiter concluded that the trait most valued in fast food workers is ”obedience.” In other ma.s.s production industries ruled by the a.s.sembly line, labor unions have gained workers higher wages, formal grievance procedures, and a voice in how the work is performed. The high turnover rates at fast food restaurants, the part-time nature of the jobs, and the marginal social status of the crew members have made it difficult to organize their workers. And the fast food chains have fought against unions with the same zeal they've displayed fighting hikes in the minimum wage.
The McDonald's Corporation insists that its franchise operators follow directives on food preparation, purchasing, store design, and countless other minute details. Company specifications cover everything from the size of the pickle slices to the circ.u.mference of the paper cups. When it comes to wage rates, however, the company is remarkably silent and laissez-faire. This policy allows operators to set their wages according to local labor markets - and it absolves the McDonald's Corporation of any formal responsibility for roughly three-quarters of the company's workforce. McDonald's decentralized hiring practices have helped thwart efforts to organize the company's workers. But whenever a union gains support at a particular restaurant, the McDonald's Corporation suddenly shows tremendous interest in the emotional and financial well-being of the workers there.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, McDonald's workers across the country attempted to join unions. In response the company developed sophisticated methods for keeping unions out of its restaurants. A ”flying squad” of experienced managers and corporate executives was sent to a restaurant the moment union activity was suspected. Seemingly informal ”rap sessions” were held with disgruntled employees. The workers were encouraged to share their feelings. They were flattered and stroked. And more importantly, they were encouraged to share information about the union's plans and the names of union sympathizers. If the rap sessions failed to provide adequate information, the stroking was abandoned for a more direct approach.
In 1973, amid a bitter organizing drive in San Francisco, a group of young McDonald's employees claimed that managers had forced them to take lie detector tests, interrogated them about union activities, and threatened them with dismissal if they refused to answer. Spokesmen for McDonald's admitted that polygraph tests had been administered, but denied that any coercion was involved. Bryan Seale, San Francisco's labor commissioner, closely studied some of McDonald's old job applications and found a revealing paragraph in small print near the bottom. It said that employees who wouldn't submit to lie detector tests could face dismissal. The labor commissioner ordered McDonald's to halt the practice, which was a violation of state law. He also ordered the company to stop accepting tips at its restaurants, since customers were being misled: the tips being left for crew members were actually being kept by the company.
The San Francisco union drive failed, as did every other McDonald's union drive - with one exception. Workers at a McDonald's in Mason City, Iowa, voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers union in 1971. The union lasted just four years. The McDonald's Corporation no longer asks crew members to take lie detector tests and advises its franchisees to obey local labor laws. Nevertheless, top McDonald's executives still travel from Oak Brook, Illinois, to the site of a suspected union drive, even when the restaurant is overseas. Rap sessions and high-priced attorneys have proved to be effective tools for ending labor disputes. The company's guidance has helped McDonald's franchisees defeat literally hundreds of efforts to unionize.
Despite more than three decades of failure, every now and then another group of teenagers tries to unionize a McDonald's. In February of 1997 workers at a McDonald's restaurant in St. Hubert, a suburb of Montreal, applied to join the Teamsters union. More than three-quarters of the crew members signed union cards, hoping to create the only unionized McDonald's in North America. Tom and Mike Cappelli, the operators of the restaurant, employed fifteen attorneys - roughly one lawyer for every four crew members - and filed a series of legal motions to stall the union certification process. Union leaders argued that any delay would serve McDonald's interests, because turnover in the restaurant's workforce would allow the Cappellis to hire anti-union employees. After a year of litigation, a majority of the McDonald's workers still supported the Teamsters. The Quebec labor commissioner scheduled a final certification hearing for the union on March 10, 1998.
Tom and Mike Cappelli closed the St. Hubert McDonald's on February 12, just weeks before the union was certified. Workers were given notice on a Thursday; the McDonald's shut down for good the following day, Friday the thirteenth. Local union officials were outraged. Clement G.o.dbout, head of the Quebec Federation of Labour, accused the McDonald's Corporation of shutting down the restaurant in order to send an unmistakable warning to its other workers in Canada. G.o.dbout called McDonald's ”one of the most anti-union companies on the planet.” The McDonald's Corporation denied that it had anything to do with the decision. Tom and Mike Cappelli claimed that the St. Hubert restaurant was a money-loser, though it had operated continuously at the same location for seventeen years.
McDonald's has roughly a thousand restaurants in Canada. The odds against a McDonald's restaurant in Canada going out of business - based on the chain's failure rate since the early 1990s - is about 300 to 1. ”Did somebody say McUnion?” a Canadian editorial later asked. ”Not if they want to keep their McJob.”
This was not the first time that a McDonald's restaurant suddenly closed in the middle of a union drive. During the early 1970s, workers were successfully organizing a McDonald's in Lansing, Michigan. All the crew members were fired, the restaurant was shut down, a new McDonald's was built down the block - and the workers who'd signed union cards were not rehired. Such tactics have proven remarkably successful. As of this writing, none of the workers at the roughly fifteen thousand McDonald's in North America is represented by a union.
protecting youth.
ALMOST EVERY FAST FOOD restaurant in Colorado Springs has a banner or sign that says ”Now Hiring.” The fast food chains have become victims of their own success, as one business after another tries to poach their teenage workers. Teenagers now sit behind the front desk at hotels, make calls for telemarketers, sell running shoes at the mall. The low unemployment rate in Colorado Springs has made the task of finding inexpensive workers even more difficult. Meanwhile, the compet.i.tion among fast food restaurants has increased. Chains that have competed in the city for years keep opening new outlets, while others are entering the market for the first time. Carl's Jr. has come to Colorado Springs, opening stand-alone restaurants and ”co-branded” outlets inside Texaco gas stations. When a fast food restaurant goes out of business, a new one often opens at the same location, like an army that's seized the outpost of a conquered foe. Instead of a new flag being raised, a big new plastic sign goes up. restaurant in Colorado Springs has a banner or sign that says ”Now Hiring.” The fast food chains have become victims of their own success, as one business after another tries to poach their teenage workers. Teenagers now sit behind the front desk at hotels, make calls for telemarketers, sell running shoes at the mall. The low unemployment rate in Colorado Springs has made the task of finding inexpensive workers even more difficult. Meanwhile, the compet.i.tion among fast food restaurants has increased. Chains that have competed in the city for years keep opening new outlets, while others are entering the market for the first time. Carl's Jr. has come to Colorado Springs, opening stand-alone restaurants and ”co-branded” outlets inside Texaco gas stations. When a fast food restaurant goes out of business, a new one often opens at the same location, like an army that's seized the outpost of a conquered foe. Instead of a new flag being raised, a big new plastic sign goes up.
Local fast food franchisees have little ability to reduce their fixed costs: their lease payments, franchise fees, and purchases from company-approved suppliers. Franchisees do, however, have some control over wage rates and try to keep them as low as possible. The labor structure of the fast food industry demands a steady supply of young and unskilled workers. But the immediate needs of the chains and the long-term needs of teenagers are fundamentally at odds.
At Cheyenne Mountain High School, set in the foothills, with a grand view of the city, few of the students work at fast food restaurants. Most of them are white and upper-middle cla.s.s. During the summers, the boys often work as golf caddies or swimming pool lifeguards. The girls often work as babysitters at the Broadmoor. When Cheyenne Mountain kids work during the school year, they tend to find jobs at the mall, the girls employed at clothing stores like the Gap or the Limited, the boys at sporting goods stores like the Athlete's Foot. These jobs provide discounts on merchandise and a chance to visit with school friends who are out shopping. The pay of a job is often less important than its social status. Working as a hostess at an upscale chain restaurant like Carriba's, T.G.I. Friday's, or the Outback Steakhouse is considered a desirable job, even if it pays minimum wage. Working at a fast food restaurant is considered bottom of the heap.
Jane Trogdon is head of the guidance department at Harrison High School in Colorado Springs. Harrison has the reputation of being a ”rough” school, a ”gang” school. The rap is not entirely deserved; it may have stuck because Harrison is where many of the city's poorest teenagers go to school. Harrison is where you will find an abundance of fast food workers. About 60 percent of the students come from low-income families. In a town with a relatively low minority population, only 40 percent of the students at Harrison are white. The school occupies a clean, modern building on the south side of town, right next to 125. From some of the cla.s.sroom windows, you can see the cars zooming past. On the other side of the interstate, a new multiplex theater with twenty-four screens beckons students to cut cla.s.s.
Teachers often don't want to teach at Harrison, and some don't last there for long. Jane Trogdon has worked at the school since the day it opened in 1967. Over the past three decades, Trogdon has observed tremendous changes in the student body. Harrison was always the school on the wrong side of the tracks, but the kids today seem poorer than ever. It used to be, even in many low-income families, that the father worked and the mother stayed home to raise the children. Now it seems that no one's home and that both parents work just to make ends meet, often holding down two or three jobs. Many of the kids at Harrison are on their own from an early age. Parents increasingly turn to the school for help, asking teachers to supply discipline and direction. The teachers do their best, despite a lot of disrespect from students and the occasional threat of violence. Trogdon worries about the number of kids at Harrison who leave school in the afternoon and go straight to work, mainly at fast food restaurants. She also worries about the number of hours they're working.
Although some students at Harrison work at fast food restaurants to help their families, most of the kids take jobs after school in order to have a car. In the suburban sprawl of Colorado Springs, having your own car seems like a necessity. Car payments and insurance easily come to $300 a month. As more and more kids work to get their own wheels, fewer partic.i.p.ate in after-school sports and activities. They stay at their jobs late into the night, neglect their homework, and come to school exhausted. In Colorado, kids can drop out of school at the age of sixteen. Dropping out often seems tempting to soph.o.m.ores who are working in the ”real world,” earning money, being eagerly recruited by local fast food chains, retail chains, and telemarketers. Thirty years ago, businesses didn't pursue teenage workers so aggressively. Harrison usually has about four hundred students in its freshman cla.s.s. About half of them eventually graduate; perhaps fifty go to college.
When Trogdon first came to work at Harrison, the Vietnam war was at its peak, and angry battles raged between long-haired students and kids whose fathers were in the military. Today she senses a profound apathy at the school. The turmoil of an earlier era has been replaced by a sad and rootless anomie. ”I have lots and lots of kids who are terribly depressed,” Trogdon says. ”I've never seen so many, so young, feel this way.”
Trogdon's insights about teenagers and after-school jobs are supported by Protecting Youth at Work Protecting Youth at Work, a report on child labor published by the National Academy of Sciences in 1998. It concluded that the long hours many American teenagers now spend on the job pose a great risk to their future educational and financial success. Numerous studies have found that kids who work up to twenty hours a week during the school year generally benefit from the experience, gaining an increased sense of personal responsibility and self-esteem. But kids who work more than that are far more likely to cut cla.s.ses and drop out of high school. Teenage boys who work longer hours are much more likely to develop substance abuse problems and commit petty crimes. The negative effects of working too many hours are easy to explain: when kids go to work, they are neither at home nor at school. If the job is boring, overly regimented, or meaningless, it can create a lifelong aversion to work. All of these trends are most p.r.o.nounced among poor and disadvantaged teenagers. While stressing the great benefits of work in moderation, the National Academy of Sciences report warned that short-term considerations are now limiting what millions of American kids can ever hope to achieve.
Elisa Zamot is a junior at Harrison High. In addition to working at McDonald's on the weekends, she also works there two days a week after school. All together, she spends about thirty to thirty-five hours a week at the restaurant. She earns the minimum wage. Her parents, Carlos and Cynthia, are loving but strict. They're Puerto Rican and moved to Colorado Springs from Lakewood, New Jersey. They make sure Elisa does all her homework and impose a midnight curfew. Elisa's usually too tired to stay out late, anyway. Her school bus arrives at six in the morning, and cla.s.ses start at seven.
Elisa had wanted to work at McDonald's ever since she was a toddler -a feeling shared by many of the McDonald's workers I met in Colorado Springs. But now she hates the job and is desperate to quit. Working at the counter, she constantly has to deal with rude remarks and complaints. Many of the customers look down on fast food workers and feel ent.i.tled to treat them with disrespect. Sweet-faced Elisa is often yelled at by strangers angry that their food's taking too long or that something is wrong with their order. One elderly woman threw a hamburger at her because there was mustard on it. Elisa hopes to find her next job at a Wal-Mart, at a clothing store, anywhere but a fast food restaurant. A good friend of hers works at FutureCall, the largest telemarketer in Colorado Springs and a big recruiter of teenaged labor. Her friend works there about forty hours a week, on top of attending Harrison High. The pay is terrific, but the job sounds miserable. The sort of workplace regimentation that the fast food chains pioneered has been taken to new extremes by America's telemarketers.
”IT'S TIME FOR BRINGING IN THE GREEN!” a FutureCall recruiting ad says: ”Lots O' Green!” The advertis.e.m.e.nt promises wages of $10 to $15 an hour for employees who work more than forty hours a week. Elisa's friend is sixteen. After school, she stays at the FutureCall building on North Academy Boulevard until ten o'clock at night, staring at a computer screen. The computer automatically dials people throughout the United States. When somebody picks up the phone, his or her name flashes on the screen, along with the sales pitch that FutureCall's ”teleservice representative” (TSR) is supposed to make on behalf of well-known credit card companies, phone companies, and retailers. TSRs are instructed never to let someone refuse a sales pitch without being challenged. The computer screen offers a variety of potential ”reb.u.t.tals.” TSRs make about fifteen ”presentations” an hour, going for a sale, throwing out one reb.u.t.tal after another to avoid being shot down. About nine out of ten people decline the offer, but the one person who says yes makes the whole enterprise quite profitable. Supervisors walk up and down the rows, past hundreds of identical cubicles, giving pep talks, eavesdropping on phone calls, suggesting reb.u.t.tals, and making sure none of the teenage workers is doing homework on the job. The workplace at FutureCall is even more rigorously controlled than the one at McDonald's.
After graduating from Harrison, Elisa hopes to go to Princeton. She's saving most of her earnings to buy a car. The rest is spent on clothes, shoes, and school lunches. A lot of kids at Harrison don't save any of the money earned at their fast food jobs. They buy beepers, cellular phones, stereos, and designer clothes. Kids are wearing Tommy Hilfiger and FUBU at Harrison right now; Calvin Klein is out. Hip-hop culture reigns, the West Coast brand, filtered through Compton and L.A.
During my interviews with local high school kids, I heard numerous stories of fifteen-year-olds working twelve-hour s.h.i.+fts at fast food restaurants and soph.o.m.ores working long past midnight. The Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits the employment of kids under the age of sixteen for more than three hours on a school day, or later than seven o'clock at night. Colorado state law prohibits the employment of kids under the age of eighteen for more than eight hours a day and also prohibits their employment at jobs involving hazardous machinery. According to the workers I met, violations of these state and federal labor laws are now fairly commonplace in the fast food restaurants of Colorado Springs. George, a former Taco Bell employee, told me that he sometimes helped close the restaurant, staying there until two or three in the morning. He was sixteen at the time. Robbie, a sixteen-year-old Burger King employee, said he routinely worked ten-hour s.h.i.+fts. And Tommy, a seventeen-year-old who works at McDonald's, bragged about his skill with the electric tomato dicer, a machine that should have been off-limits. ”I'm like an expert at using the d.a.m.n thing,” he said, ”'cause I'm the only one that knows how to work it.” He also uses the deep fryer, another labor code violation. None of these teenagers had been forced to break the law; on the contrary, they seemed eager to do it.
Most of the high school students I met liked working at fast food restaurants. They complained that the work was boring and monotonous, but enjoyed earning money, getting away from school and parents, hanging out with friends at work, and goofing off as much as possible. Few of the kids liked working the counter or dealing with customers. They much preferred working in the kitchen, where they could talk to friends and fool around. Food fights were popular. At one Taco Bell, new employees, departing employees, and employees who were merely disliked became targets for the sour cream and guacamole guns. ”This kid, Leo, he smelled like guacamole for a month,” one of the attackers later bragged.
The personality of a fast food restaurant's manager largely determined whether working there would be an enjoyable experience or an unpleasant one. Good managers created a sense of pride in the work and an upbeat atmosphere. They allowed scheduling changes and encouraged kids to do their schoolwork. Others behaved arbitrarily, picked on workers, yelled at workers, and made unreasonable demands. They were personally responsible for high rates of turnover. An a.s.sistant manager at a McDonald's in Colorado Springs always brought her five-year-old daughter to the restaurant and expected crew members to baby-sit for her. The a.s.sistant manager was a single mother. One crew member whom I met loved to look after the little girl; another resented it; and both found it hard to watch the child playing for hours amid the busy kitchen, the counter staff, the customers at their tables, and the life-size statue of Ronald McDonald.
None of the fast food workers I met in Colorado Springs spoke of organizing a union. The thought has probably never occurred to them. When these kids don't like the working conditions or the manager, they quit. Then they find a job at another restaurant, and the cycle goes on and on.
inside jobs.
THE INJURY RATE OF teenage workers in the United States is about twice as high as that of adult workers. Teenagers are far more likely to be untrained, and every year, about 200,000 are injured on the job. The most common workplace injuries at fast food restaurants are slips, falls, strains, and burns. The fast food industry's expansion, however, coincided with a rising incidence of workplace violence in the United States. Roughly four or five fast food workers are now murdered on the job every month, usually during the course of a robbery. Although most fast food robberies end without bloodshed, the level of violent crime in the industry is surprisingly high. In 1998, more restaurant workers were murdered on the job in the United States than police officers. teenage workers in the United States is about twice as high as that of adult workers. Teenagers are far more likely to be untrained, and every year, about 200,000 are injured on the job. The most common workplace injuries at fast food restaurants are slips, falls, strains, and burns. The fast food industry's expansion, however, coincided with a rising incidence of workplace violence in the United States. Roughly four or five fast food workers are now murdered on the job every month, usually during the course of a robbery. Although most fast food robberies end without bloodshed, the level of violent crime in the industry is surprisingly high. In 1998, more restaurant workers were murdered on the job in the United States than police officers.
America's fast food restaurants are now more attractive to armed robbers than convenience stores, gas stations, or banks. Other retail businesses increasingly rely upon credit card transactions, but fast food restaurants still do almost all of their business in cash. While convenience store chains have worked hard to reduce the amount of money in the till (at 7-Eleven stores the average robbery results in a loss of about thirty-seven dollars), fast food restaurants often have thousands of dollars on the premises. Gas stations and banks now routinely s.h.i.+eld employees behind bullet-resistant barriers, a security measure that would be impractical at most fast food restaurants. And the same features that make these restaurants so convenient - their location near intersections and highway off-ramps, even their drive-through windows - facilitate a speedy getaway.