UC Irvine

As most already know, the U.S. fast food industry is a multi-billion dollar affair, posting sales of over 195 billion in 2014 and employing nearly 4 million people nationwide. What some may not know, however, is that fast food enterprises subsist largely upon the labor of a small group of 10-15 core staff members. These individuals perform the majority of the most difficult and labor-intensive restaurant tasks, and in turn receive the bulk of restaurant labor hours. Many have children, some are married, a few are living and working in the U.S. without authorization, and literally all depend fundamentally on wages garnered through fast food to finance their lives.

Based on over 38 months of participant observation research in an Orange County fast food restaurant, my research attempts to explicate what it is like to work fast food, why it is that it is predominately Mexican immigrants and the children thereof that are found behind the counter of these restaurants in Orange County, and how it is that fast food workers may in fact deserve a raise to 15 dollars an hour. It does so principally through the voices, opinions, and lives of people I met while working fast food, but also with respect to the structural terms of the industry and the modern conception of work.