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= BOOKS

Fast Food Nation —
The Dark Side of the

All-American Meal
by Eric Schlosser
Houghton Mifflin 2001

REVIEWED BY NORMAN GARCIA

EVERY TIME WE impulsively drive
our sorry butts into a McDonald’s,
Burger King or Taco Bell, we
should be reminded — we're all an
integral part of a fast food nation.
And Canada, is a
mirror reflection
of the United
States, when it
comes to junk

food consump-
tion. Released in
2001 and now

out in paperback,
investigative
journalist Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food
Nation — The Dark Side of the All-
American Meal, is one of the best
books this reviewer has read in some
time. And it should be on the must-
read list of every trade unionist.

Schlosser meticulously traces the
pre and post WWII development of
America’s fast food industry: chron-
icaling the early efforts of such pio-
neers as Carl N. Karcher and Ray
Kroc and the McDonald Brothers
that Kroc bought out.

The impact of the fast food indus-
try, as Schlosser points out, is far and
and wide; from the affects on adver-
tising to children at an early age; the
advertising and distribution of fast
foods in cash-strapped educational
institutions; to their obvious nutri-
tional and health consequences; to
drastic affects on cultural homoge-

McDonaids

OVER 8G

BILUON SERVED

= The golden arches dot our North
American nations. pHoto NoRMAN GARCIA

nization; to direct and indirect envi-
ronmental consequences: and their
impacts on workers’ rights.

Chapters entitled “behind the
counter,” “cogs in the great machine,”
and “the most dangerous job” are the
most riveting. The author uses real-
life samples to illustrate how the
industry, while portraying itself as
socially-responsible, has geared
itself to exploit the most marginal-
ized workers — including
teenagers, recent immigrants, the
elderly and the handicapped. And
whenever or wherever workers,
(especially those at McDonald’s)
have tried to unionize, the corpora-
tion’s response has been swift and
uncompromising.

The book visits goulish slaughter-
houses that make up a large parts of
forgotten America and reveals how
once-unionized meatpacking jobs
relocated from Chicago to western
states. Immigrant workers work
furiously on production lines, often
not reporting injuries. In an indus-
try dominated by corporate giants
ConAgra, IBC and Excel, graveyard
contractors pay illegal immigrants
one-third the wages of meat pack-
ers, in conditions of hellish stench,
heat and air quality.

Once you start this book it’s hard
to set down. And you'll do a double-
take next time you grease up at a
McDonald’s.

wT

= MUSIC

Fair and Square
by John Prine
Oh Boy Records 2005

BUNKHOUSE MUSICIANS in
camps all over Canada should
rejoice when they hear John Prine’s
latest release, Fair and Square. The
former postal worker from Chicago
provides a beauty of a record, with
that unique three-finger, alternate
bass-picking style, backed up by a
collection of top-notch musicians.
The working-class author of anti-
Viet Nam war
classics,
including Sam
Stone and
You're Flag
Decal Won't
Get You into
Heaven Any More, remains one of
today’s most wry social commenta-
tors. In Some Humans Ain’t Human
he points a verse directly at U.S.
President George W. Bush: “Just
when you're feeling you're free-
dom/And the wind’s at your
back/Some cowboy from
Texas/Starts his own war in Iraq.”
This record has a superb amalga-
mation of folk, blues, bluegrass and
rockabilly tunes, including Carter
family patriarch AP Carter's Bear
Creek. On Crazy as a Loon, he
shrugs at life’s futile moments,
neath a blue Canadian moon, and
on Taking a Walk, Prine’s unrequit-
ed love feels about as “welcome as
a Wal-Mart superstore.” Fair and
Square is an instant classic — the
best John Prine recordings since
Bruised Orange.

- review by Norman Garcia

THE ALLIED WORKER DECEMBER 2005 | 35