What are ethical issues in the fast food industry? What causes these issues?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are numerous ethical issues in the fast food industry. These problems include taxes, public funding, and other workers’ rights issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read more about ethical issues in the fast food industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
There are many, many ethical issues in the fast food industry. In addition to environmental destruction and animal cruelty, the fast food industry also contends with issues of unethical worker conditions and government subsidies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not only are fast food companies exploiting some of the most vulnerable members of society\u2014they\u2019re doing it with your tax dollars<\/strong>. These firms have received hundreds of millions of dollars in the form of grants and subsidies from federal programs that were originally created to encourage companies to teach employees valuable job skills. Well-intended programs like the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit and the Work Opportunity Tax Credit now increasingly subsidize low-wage, low-skill jobs at McDonald\u2019s. In effect, the government is rewarding <\/em>these companies for exploiting their workforce through lucrative tax breaks (in the 1990s, this figure was $2,400 for every new low-income worker hired by the fast food chains).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Adding insult to injury, this federal largesse isn\u2019t even creating net-new employment opportunities\u2014studies have shown that most of these workers would have been hired anyway, <\/strong>with or without the subsidies. <\/strong>On top of that, all the chains need to do is employ a worker for 400 hours (about 20 weeks for a part-time employee) to claim the money from the government. If that worker quits (as frequently happens in a high-turnover industry like fast food), they can start the process all over again when they hire their replacement. The US taxpayer is bankrolling the industry\u2019s hire-and-quit labor practices which is one of the major ethical issues in the fast food industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unsurprisingly, the fast food chains, through their lobbying groups like the National Restaurant Association, are vehemently opposed to any raising of federal, state, or local minimum wages. This is despite the fact that a one-dollar minimum raise increase would only translate into a two-cent rise in the cost of a fast food burger<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Both corporate management and individual franchisees are also very strict about making sure that employees don\u2019t work more than 40 hours per week, which would qualify them for overtime under federal law. They are scheduled only as needed, and sent home early if they start approaching the 40-hour threshold. Sometimes, fast food employers simply have their employees work off-the-clock, without pay, in order to avoid legal overtime pay requirements (as a 1997 court case against Taco Bell showed). <\/p>\n\n\n\n The decentralized franchise model of the fast food industry creates ample opportunities for exploitation<\/strong>. Kitchen and behind-the-counter workers at your local fast food restaurant aren\u2019t hired by McDonald\u2019s or Burger King directly. They\u2019re hired by the local franchise operator, who is given wide latitude by the chain to set wages and working conditions. This absolves the corporation of any legal responsibility for approximately 75 percent of its workforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMinimum Wages, Minimum Hours<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Obedience<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n