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Rachel W
English 101 Section 1400
February 26, 2007
Analysis Essay: Worker’s Issues
The Dependency and Treatment of America’s Teenage Workforce
“No other industry in the United States has a workforce so dominated by
adolescents. About two-thirds of the nation’s fast food workers are under the age of
twenty” (Schlosser 68). In America, fast food has become so commonplace among the
public that more fast food restaurants are opening everyday. Instead of spending their
afternoons finishing homework or studying for a difficult midterm, many working high
school teenagers work late into the night, making another excuse to drop out of high
school. Without an education, it is difficult to make a living in the world. Often times,
teenagers are being taken advantage of by fast food companies who need a reliable
workforce. Therefore, the dominance of the teenage workforce in the fast food industry
has both advantages and disadvantages for the leading fast food companies.
The advantages for teen workers in the fast food industry are the pay, the working
experience, and the sense of accomplishment. For example, an article called “The Truth
about Young Workers” states, “Many are from working class backgrounds, are
immigrants or people of color and are contributing to the family income, or supporting
their own young families” (“The Truth about Young Workers”). Working at a fast food
restaurant can give the working poor an income. Teenage employees in high school can
earn money to buy a new car or ipod, which gives them the motivation to earn even more
money. In the book Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser discusses how teenagers consider
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their job as a number one priority, even over their unfinished homework or their
imperative high school education (Schlosser 79). This mindset shows how some of
America’s youth are choosing to drop out of high school and are distracted by their
temporary jobs. Clearly, a teenager would think short-term, but it is important for
teenagers to think about their future instead of concentrating on how many hours they
need to work for higher pay. When they focus on nothing but flipping hamburgers for
hours at a time, they form a distraction from their future career aspirations. However, one
main reason why teenagers are encouraged to remain working in the fast food industry is
the benefits from managers. From an article titled “Thinks Big About the Little Guy”,
Michael Fitzgerald talks of Debra Powell using her owner’s offered benefits, “She used
Mr. Bigari’s program in 2003 to get a loan for a personal computer and in 2004 to buy
the first car she had ever purchased” (Fitzgerald 3). Workers feel they have an obligation
to keep their job after benefits or recognition from their manager because they do not
want to disappoint anyone. Often times, these obligations can be a quality of the ideal
workforce fast food industries aim for: young, unskilled workers who do not mind
working extra hours or earning lower wages than they should be earning. For this
purpose, fast food businesses can benefit from a large and low paid workforce.
Most fast food companies take advantage of the inexperience and vulnerability of
their teenage employees. For instance, Eric Schlosser states, “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”
(Schlosser 74). Known as “stroking”, managers praise their workers through positive
reinforcement instead of increasing the wages, it is less expensive in the end. However,
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when teens are not paid for working overtime, or are pressured into working difficult
schedules, they simply quit their job. High turnover rates are expected in this business
because of the intense working conditions. Furthermore, fast food corporation’s
dependence upon an unstable teenage workforce is a continuing challenge for troubled
managers.
In fact, one of the controversial issues of the fast food industry is the minimum
wage and how it affects the turnover rates of the teenage workforce. For instance, Mark
Messner, the owner of Pepi’s Pizza, comments, “I’ve had to go to some of my kids and
say, ‘Look, my payroll just increased 13 percent’ he said. ‘Sorry, I don’t have any hours
for you’” (Graham 1). The teenage workforce directly correlates to the minimum wage
because managers have increased payrolls, making it more expensive to retrain workers.
As a result, managers have to cut back their hours or even fire teens. This concept relates
to the film Eyes on the Fries because of how much control corporations truly hold over
their young workers. Wages are one subject corporations control, especially manipulating
the value of the minimum wage. The film tells of the lobbyists who keep the minimum
wage low by coercion, and how The National Restaurants Association spends up to $40
million dollars to keep it down. From the article “New wage boost puts squeeze on
teenage workers across Arizona”, Graham references Federal Reserve economists who
show “a 10 percent increase caused a 2 percent to 3 percent decrease in employment”
(Graham 1). With the climbing rates of restaurant expansion, will the downsized
workforce affect the prosperity of newly established restaurants? The goal of many
corporations is merely to open another Burger King down the street to make even more
money. However, a business’s profits should not outweigh the care of America’s youth.
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With the minimum-wage increase, teenagers are more motivated to work part-time jobs
and become less motivated to fulfill their college education. In other words, the minimum
wage affects the fast food industry and their workers significantly.
The fast food industry’s dependency on America’s teenage workforce has caused
several challenges for keeping workers motivated, making the jobs behind the counter
“fun”, and keeping the large workforce a constant. Overall, teenagers are taken advantage
of because they are not paid for overtime and are paid low hourly wages for their hard
work, without benefits. From this, one can conclude that the needs of fast food chains and
the needs of America’s adolescents are working in the opposite directions. Fast food
chains want to expand their business by opening new restaurants anywhere they can,
without the unfair treatment of their workers in mind. On the other hand, teenage workers
have long-term needs such as the need to earn decent money to pay for college, or work
experience for the future ahead of them. It is not the corporation’s fault for the millions of
teens who apply for jobs at fast food restaurants, but is this the treatment we want our
youth to tolerate? As Americans, we should provide a progressive environment for our
workers. It should firstly be in the power of the corporation heads who have control of
how the fast food industry is ran. They should treat teens with respect and without
overburden or underpayment. Unions are also a possibility because individuals can
express what conditions can be improved. Whether it is a union or the heads of the major
businesses, something should be done about these immoral tolerances in our society.