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Essay on Abuses in the Food Industry

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Oppression has always been a concept that humanity has turned its head too. Whether that means a country is being governed by a dictatorship, an individual race being discriminated against, or immigrants in a country not being able to find adequate working environment. Even today, big businesses and individual supervisors are oppressing many people, specifically immigrants in the lowest jobs available. Books like Fast Food Nation and documentaries like Food Inc. have brought light to the situation of the grotesque, dangerous, and immoral environment in which many people are forced to work within the American food system. Situations like the ones discussed in Fast Food Nation also brings to attention the ethical principles of the labor …show more content…

If this worker were to slip his/her hand while slicing the carotid artery, there could be very severe consequences or injuries for the individual worker, or anybody working close by (Schlosser 236). Workers are required to preform these mind numbing tasks for 8 hours per day. Because there is little room for mechanical improvement in processing cattle due to their inconsistency in size and weight, companies are still reliant on physical labor to process the meat (Schlosser 239). This shows that the methods that are used today have not changed drastically from the methods that people had to use nearly half a century ago. Within the factories, most of the workforce consists of illegal immigrants, whom are unable to find jobs anywhere else. The documentary Food Inc. discusses this problem in a scene looking at working conditions in slaughterhouses. The documentary articulates that, “being a meat packer in the 1950′s was like being an auto-mechanic. It was considered to be a decent job with a decent wage, benefits, and a pension plan. Now, it is the most dangerous job and employs many immigrants.” The documentary shows a scene where these illegal immigrant workers were recruited by the meat companies, and shuttled in to work by company owned vans. Because these individuals

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