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Fast Food Corporations: Pushing Unsustainability The food industry's global advertising budget is $40 billion, a figure greater than the gross domestic product of 70 per cent of the world's nations. Fast food corporations have enormous dollar-power, and with it they do more than just make people fat. McDonald's has been the target of much negative publicity in recent years. Hundreds of McDonald's outlets have been closed worldwide as the corporation reported its first-ever loss in 2003. Back in 1990, London Greenpeace activists produced a leaflet, "What's Wrong with McDonald's", that was the beginning of the end for Macca's; it criticised its record on animal welfare, work relations, health and the environment. A protracted legal campaign against the producers of that leaflet backfired seriously for McDonald's. In 1997, a UK judge ruled that McDonald's "exploits children" with advertising, produces "misleading" advertising, is "culpably responsible" for cruelty to animals, is "antipathetic" to unionisation and pays its workers low wages. In March 1999, the British Court of Appeal made further rulings against McDonald's in relation to heart disease and employment. Towards the ethical treatment of animals In recent years the US-based NGO, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), has worked with McDonald's and other fast food corporations to change animal production standards to benefit both animals and the humans eating them. In September 2000, Macca's agreed to conduct slaughterhouse audits of all its pig, chicken and cow suppliers, stop purchasing from suppliers that fail audits, increase the space for laying hens, stop starving chickens in order to force them to produce more eggs, and implement humane catching standards for chickens. In June 2001, Burger King announced it would do all this and more. In September 2001, after two months of activist pressure, Wendy's ice-cream chain agreed to make these changes. And now McDonald's is funding research into the effects of antibiotics given to farmed animals and has radically changed its menu in response to negative feedback from the documentary film, Supersize Me. Antibiotic use is widespread in factory farming. The World Health Organization frowns upon the use of antibiotics in food because these drugs are linked to the development of antibiotic-resistant diseases. The January 2004 outbreak of fatal flu strains in Vietnam was directly linked to intensively raised chickens, and there have been 24 human deaths from bird flu since then. In 1997, an outbreak of avian influenza in Hong Kong infected 18 people and six died. About 35 new infectious diseases, including AIDS, SARS and Creutzfeld–Jakob disease ("mad cow disease" in cattle), have been identified since the 1970s, and the primary source for new human infections has been animal-borne viruses. Factory farms provide incubator conditions for disease mutation – close quarters, poor ventilation, masses of faecal matter, stressed immune systems, sick animals and dead animal bodies – and the use of antibiotics in large doses increases the risk. Kentucky Fried Chicken (Yum! corporation) uses up to 700 million intensively reared broiler hens annually. High turnover and a need to minimise costs to maximise profits means that the factory farms in which meat chickens are raised meet only the minimum standards for animal welfare. From the hatchery until slaughter, these chickens are subjected to a succession of cruelties: mutilation, crowding, injuries, diseases, de-beaking, forced moulting, antibiotics, ammonia burns and heat stress. Workers' rights and customer boycotts Workers don't fare too well in the fast food industry, either. They are paid low wages and tend to work for extremely long hours with small breaks. Fast food chains employ young people between the ages of 16 and 25 in what is commonly called "McJobs" – lowly paid work with no prospects. The pressure to work as quickly as possible often results in accidents (particularly burns). Unionism is discouraged by the fast food corporations. In 1998, KFC workers in Indonesia went on strike, demanding an increase in wages from 30 cents to 60 cents a day. KFC rejected the demands and threatened to dismiss without compensation those who joined the strike. In the USA, KFC workers are not encouraged to unionise. In 2002, the International Workers Union tried to help unionise the US workplace. In one place it was successful, but management responded by sacking all the staff. That outlet subsequently went broke as customers boycotted it. In Australia in 2001, KFC went to the Federal Court in opposition to unfair dismissal laws, claiming they were "stifling" employment. In 2002, in an overtly political move, KFC decided to ban Catholics from employment in an Irish franchise due to Loyalist conflicts. Also that year in the UK, a KFC outlet was found guilty of workplace health and safety breaches when it failed to protect late-night shift workers of Sri Lankan heritage who were attacked by racist gangs. The fast food corporations make almost no demands of their suppliers. Cruelty in the slaughterhouse is largely the result of management pressure on workers to increase the speed of production and keep costs down. Improperly stunned and struggling animals, combined with excessive line speeds, results in increased injuries to workers. Speedy production is also linked to increased incidence of food poisoning because time does not permit proper inspection of carcasses. Yum! has also been accused of using tomato farms in Mexico that operate under "slave labour" conditions. Our compromised health and environment Fast food giants generally have little interest in protecting the health of their customers. In June 2003, these corporations united in demanding protection from the US Congress from claims that their products, targeted at young people, could be subject to prosecution under new obesity laws. The 1 February 2003 edition of New Scientist reported that fast foods can cause brain chemical changes similar to those associated with addiction. Environmentally, factory farms are the biggest users and polluters of water. They also produce land and air pollution through effluent discharge. Factory farms in the USA produce 20 times the effluent of the human population! This effluent is laced with hormones and antibiotics. The US Environmental Protection Agency says that factory farm waste has polluted over 56,000 kilometres of rivers in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states. Increased nitrate content in water supplies, caused by factory farm effluent ponds, has been linked to human birth defects and spontaneous abortions. The antibiotic contamination of water sources in Europe has also been linked to decreasing sperm counts over the last few decades. Corporate responsibility and public criticism The McDonald's case stands out as an example of what people can do to change recalcitrant multinationals that shamelessly exploit others for profit. McDonald's has responded by changing some of its corporate behaviours to reflect criticisms from the public. However, the work of activists often only results in minimal institutional change, usually driven by the effect of campaigns on profits. Epidemics like bird flu bring to light the reality of what activists are saying about the practices of industrialised farming and the responsibility that fast food corporations have in effecting change in this sector. However, real change can only come from downsizing, not supersizing, of industrialised farms and the fast food industry they serve. Website references:
[From "Maple Street Co-op News", August/September 2004; published
by The Maple Street Co-operative Society Ltd, 37 Maple Street, Maleny,
Qld 4552, Australia, tel (07) 5494 2088, email maplest.coop@serv.net.au,
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Address: 37 Maple Street, Maleny Qld 4552, Australia Telephone: (07) 5494 2088 (int'l +61 7 5494 2088) Fax: (07) 5499 9246 (int'l +61 7 5499 9246) Email: info@maplestreetco-op.com.au, or maplest.coop@serv.net.au Website: www.maplestreetco-op.com.au |