TEEN WORKERS

AND WHAT DO THEIR JOBS LOOK LIKE?

Teenagers are about 1/3 of the employees in the fast food restaurants in the USA. It's easy for an employer to hire and fire them, and they don't demand high wages.

PERCENTAGE OF ALL FAST FOOD WORKERS, BY AGE

If a teen starts working at McDonald's, he or she is most likely to get around $8.61 an hour.

AVERAGE SALARIES AT MCDONALD'S

Many teens start working at fast food restaurants because they need more money to pay for a new phone or a car. But some teenagers have to help support their family. A little less than a third of the young workers at fast food restaurants already have a child and have to support it.

TEEN WORKERS (16-19 YEARS OLD) AT FAST FOOD RESTAURANTS

Teens usually work between 20 and 30 hours a week, or between 4 and 6 hours a day, but sometimes they get asked to stay after their shift is over.

On one Saturday, Sadi Lambert finished her 6 hour shift and started getting ready to leave when the manager asked her to stay a few more hours because some of the other crew members didn't show up. Then a new manager arrived after 3 hours and asked her to cover for more crew members that didn't show up. After she helped the manager close the restaurant, Sadi finally left at half past three in the morning. The next day, after nineteen and a half hours of work, one of the managers gave her a thank-you gift. It was a bag of candy.

The fast food industry is important to teenagers because it creates jobs for more people at a faster rate than the rest of the economy. Also, the fast food restaurants are important to the teens because the restaurants are willing to employ minors. The job there isn't very complicated and doesn't require any education.

CHARACTERISTICS OF FAST-FOOD WORKERS 2010-2012; EDUCATION (16-19 year-olds)

This job, like many others, is stressful. Everyday, there are a lot of rude customers that the cashiers have to deal with. Also, sometimes there are a lot of customers, and the crew has to work a lot faster and deal with a lot of people for a little time.

Sometimes, the workers aren't treated well. Pascal was fifteen when he sent job applications to ten different McDonald's. He was very excited to work at his favorite restaurant. He started working at one of the restaurants, with the manager telling him that they pay well if the workers work hard. Pascal worked very hard and got compliments from the managers. Five months after he was hired, he became the employee of the month. A little while after that, he received a work evaluation, something like a report card, with his grade which was "good work". Pascal was disappointed because that grade was the second to lowest and he was working hard all that time.

Many workers have been filling complaints against McDonald's about injuries they suffered on the job. Most of them state that they have been burned on bubbling cooking oil or hot grills and they demand for a higher pay.

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For example, a worker in Chicago slipped on the wet floor and caught her arm on a hot grill. Her forearm suffered a burn and nerve, but her managers told her to put mustard on it. Later, she got rushed to the hospital. After that, she missed three weeks of work without getting paid.

Another worker is complaining that it's way too hot in the kitchen of a McDonald's; the temperature outside was 30C (86F), but in the kitchen it was 37C (98.6F). Some workers left because they were getting sick while two of the workers vomited.

But Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is protecting the teenage workers' rights. It's making sure that the teens are working in a safe environment and that the teens are getting a fair amount of money.

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McJobs can also be good for teens, too. When a teenager works at a fast food restaurant, he or she learns that it's not easy to earn money. Teen workers learn many life lessons while working at a fast food restaurants. Also they are more likely to be patient and behave well because they have to treat their customers this way. Sometimes, being nice and patient becomes a habit for those teens.

In conclusion, working as a teen is tough, but has its perks. I learned that working at a fast food restaurant while in high school isn't the best choice because most of the time you get paid a little money for a lot of hard work, and you don't have a lot of time to do your homework, and barely any free time. I also learned that working at a fast food restaurant may sound like fun, but isn't anywhere near that.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Cohn, Emily. “Next Time Someone Says Fast Food Isn't A Real Job, Remember This.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 27 Oct. 2014, www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/27/fast-food-jobs-real_n_6028404.html
• Editor, Tara Evans Digital Consumer. “McDonald's Worker Slams Firm for 'Unbearable' Kitchen Conditions Due to 37C Heat.” The Sun, The Sun, 20 June 2017, www.thesun.co.uk/money/3836182/mcdonalds-worker-slams-unbearable-working-co...
• Lobosko, Katie. “McDonald's Workers Allege Unsafe Working Conditions.” CNNMoney, Cable News Network, 16 Mar. 2015, money.cnn.com/2015/03/16/news/companies/mcdonalds-working-conditions/index....
• “McDonald's Hourly Pay.” Glassdoor, Glassdoor, www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/McDonald-s-Hourly-Pay-E432.htm.
• Schlosser, Eric, and Charles Wilson. Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know about Fast Food. Houghton Mifflin, 2017.