Kentucky Fried Chicken Essay

Looking at the graph above we can see that Yum! Brands, the parent’s company of KFC are the third biggest firm in the fast food industry. By serving more than 12 million customers in 21000 stores in 109 countries every day, KFC has become the world most popular chicken fast food franchise. (1) However, over the past decade, KFC’s suppliers have been caught several time violating animal rights by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), the world’s largest animal rights organization. KFC claims that all their suppliers are very well monitored and often inspected by the government; however PETA undercover investigations have proved otherwise. In 2007, 2 videos secretly recorded workers extremely violated animal rights in these slaughterhouses, showing some disturbing scenes. Although you may argue that KFC does not responsibility for the cruelty in the slaughterhouses, it has violates its own code of conduct, which will be discussed later in this report. Besides, since KFC buys raw meat from these suppliers, they are partly support these slaughterhouses so it is also a part of their responsibility. The main purpose of this report is to show several violations which were caught by PETA investigation in 2007 and the possible solutions for this particular scandal. The investigation takes place in Tyson’s Georgia and Tennessee factories, one of KFC’s major suppliers. Within only 9 days of the investigation, many workers have been caught on videos abusing chickens. One of the most serious acts is workers urinating in the belts that transform birds to different areas in the slaughterhouse (2). And that is not the only thing they did. Chickens are thrown from a far distance to the conveyor belt. The workers at these slaughterhouses somehow found it an entertaining thing to do so the abuse was repeated again and again. They picked up chickens and throw them to the shackles. Chickens are also found dead after trapping their body parts under a door at the end of the belt meaning the facility quality is not good enough. One of the examples is the blade which is supposed to cut chicken’s throat, cut the chicken’s body parts instead, and many of them also miss the blade. Therefore, when being transferred to the next stage of the production, which is going to the boiling tank, they are fully conscious. Moreover, workers are told by supervisors that it is acceptable to rip off thoselive chicken’s heads which are not cut properly. The problem here is, supervisors at both these slaughterhouses were involved with the abuse and aware of it but did not do anything to stop it from happening. Moreover, most of KFC claims on their website are inaccurate and go against their code of conduct (3): â€Å"Our suppliers work with primary breeders who provide poultry specifically selected with health and well being in mind.† This statement is, however, false. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) discovered that KFC’s suppliers use drugs to help chickens to gain as much weight as possible in a short period of time. The effect of this is these chickens will suffer from diseases and injuries such as broken legs, heart attacks and other problems because they are overgrown.(4) â€Å"Prior to slaughter, birds are stunned so they are insensible to pain. †¦ Chickens are stunned and killed before they are introduced into the defeathering tanks.†This statement is again not totally true. Although all the chickens are put in an electrified bath before being throat-slitting, the bath only makes them immobility not fully unconscious. Furthermore, as stated above, there are evidences that chickens completely miss the blade therefore they are still alive when being put in the scalding tank. According to USDA, there are nearly 3 million scalded alive chickens every year.(4) â€Å"KFC sup pliers, KFC and the National Chicken Council have standards for stocking density to ensure birds have sufficient space and are healthy. †¦ The cleanliness of these facilities and the health of the birds are top priorities for the farmers.† Unfortunately, KFC suppliers actually do not have good facility to â€Å"ensure birds have sufficient space and healthy† like they stated. They are famous for raising chickens in a small area, as small as possible so they could cut down on cost. The wastes from chickens are not even cleaned up during their life time, again just to save cost. The effect of this is causing many health problems to chickens. One of the reasons why KFC and its suppliers are so careless is because according to the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, chickens are not protected. Farmed animals such as chickens, cows are also not covered by the Animal Welfare Act either.(4) Ever since the videos are published, many protests and campaigns have been taken place, causing dramatic impact on KFC’s stockholders. Activists, through the media, have made people aware of the problem and therefore most people decided to stop eating at KFC a sign of pro test. There was a time KFC’s stock went down by 10% because of the scandal and this has made these stockholders, managers become more serious with the problem and come up with some solutions. Once of the few solutions that KFC could apply to fix the problem is to ask the suppliers to punish those who are responsible for the incidents. This includes the workers who abuse the chickens, the supervisors at these 2 facilities who completely ignored the abuse. The punishment will definitely set an example for other employees and supervisors at other supplier’s facilities. Moreover, they could install more cameras in the slaughterhouses to control worker’s act. Once a month, private investigators could be hired to make sure animal abuse will not happen again. This seems to be one of the most effective solutions since workers are in tighter control, it is very unlikely that they will violate the rules. KFC, however, has to pay a little extra money each month to maintain the cameras and the cost of hiring private investigators. The reason why workers mistreat the chickens at these suppliers could be because they are not satisfied with their salary. This could be easily explained, firstly, since most of the suppliers will try to cut down cost as much as possible they are likely to reduce the wage rate to exploit workers. Since the demand for this type of job is high, it is workers who need the suppliers, not the other way round so employees will always feel like they are being exploited. Secondly, those farm suppliers are famous for their terrible working conditions, there is always a problem with hygiene and environment in the slaughterhouses. All the factors combined will cause workers to be easily frustrated and pass the angry to the chickens. Therefore, the solution is KFC to force suppliers to improve wage rate and the working conditions. Once these have taken place, the rate of mistreating animals will definitely be reduced. Although, this solution seems to work in theory, it is unlikely to work in practice since it has too many disadvantages. They must spend a lot more each month to increase the salary for all workers in these suppliers. This might also set a bad habit for workers, treating chickens badly as a sign of protest to demand higher wages. In response to all the claims by PETA, KFC states on their website that PETA is actually a â€Å"radical extremist group† and their main purpose is to â€Å"promote a vegetarian health style† (3). Because of this, PETA is unbiased and their claims are not totally correct and could be misleading. In addition to this, KFC has also ensured consumers that their chickens are bought from the same suppliers that provide raw meat to supermarkets and restaurants. Although in the real world they have no responsibility over the animal cruelty and abuse in those slaughterhouses, they did require suppliers to obey the law as well as animal welfare. In conclusion, we can see from the report that both KFC and PETA have different point of views, and they are both reasonable in their ways. However, the situation could have been much better if KFC took care of the scandal thoroughly as soon as possible so that the same mistake will not happen again in the future.

Does Tv Have Negative Effect On Society

TV corrupts our children. Jerome Singer once said, â€Å"If you came and saw a strange man teaching your kids to punch each other, or trying to sell them all kind of products, you’d kick him right out of the house, but here you are; you come in and the TV is on, and you don’t think twice about it. † He is correct; entertainment television is an especially bad influence on children for many reasons, including not enough control on violence.These things are quite literally ruining America by corrupting our next generation’s leaders, our children. This year, more American children will die from a fired gun than from children who will die of asthma, pneumonia, influenza, cancer, and AIDS combined. What does this have to do with TV? Multiple studies have come to the conclusion that youth who are avid TV watchers become aggressive adults.A study from the University of Michigan showed that children who watched violent TV were more inclined to show violent tendenc ies as adults. According to that study, â€Å"†¦men who were high TV-violence viewers as children were significantly more likely to have pushed, grabbed or shoved their spouses, to have responded to an insult by shoving a person, to have been convicted of a crime and to have committed a moving traffic violation. Such men, for example, had been convicted of crimes at over three times the rate of other men.†It also stated that, â€Å"Women who were high TV-violence viewers as children were more likely to have thrown something at their spouses, to have responded to someone who made them mad by shoving, punching, beating or choking the person, to have committed some type of criminal act, and to have committed a moving traffic violation. Such women, for example, reported having punched, beaten or choked another adult at over four times the rate of other women. † The study also reported that the said violence was glorified by being black and white.The â€Å"good guysâ €  were okay to shoot the â€Å"bad guys,† resulting in a happy ending. This leads to children trying to be the good guys, by resulting in violence instead of working or talking the problem out. Another problem is that the â€Å"bad guys† have little to no back-story, with usually nothing more than a nickname to identify them with. Most of these problems base off the fact that children under 8 cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality.Which covers another topic not censored enough. In conclusion, television is a sinister vehicle for bad habits of all sorts. How can you prevent this from happening to you and your families? The answer is simple: limit TV time to two hours a day. One might be reluctant to do so, but look what the old telly can and will do to America. As Nicholas Johnson said, â€Å"All television is educational television. The question is: what is it teaching? † .

Advanced Studies in Occupational Safety & Health Essay

Advanced Studies in Occupational Safety & Health - Essay Example s defined as ‘increased amount of oxygen in tissues and organs’.3 It is ‘conditions of the body exemplified by greater oxygen content of the tissues and organs than normally exists at sea level’.4 It can result from breathing oxygen at pressures greater than normal atmospheric pressure. Altitude sickness is a general term encompassing a spectrum of disorders that occur at higher altitudes.5 It results when one cannot get sufficient oxygen at the air in the high altitude. It is the body’s reaction to a lack of available oxygen in the atmosphere. Oxygen concentration reduces with increasing altitude. Naturally, altitude sickness occurs from around 8000 Feet’s although, in some instances, it does occur at a lower altitude. When ones go up too fast, the body is deprived off the oxygen it needs. The situation is characterised by several symptoms that include nausea, headache, shortness of breath and extreme fatigue. The best solution is to descending a few thousand feet until the person begins to feel better.6 To add, the odds of getting altitude sickness are significantly reduced by drinking water, eating well and gaining altitude gradually. Offices are predisposed to fire from a horde of sources. The impacts can be disastrous, for example, since a variety of things are kept in the office ranging from personal property to tremendously valuable work related material. Therefore, it is essential to develop ways to prevent office fire. It can be prevented through some strategies. First, electrical equipment should be well maintained. Most office fires result from faulty electrical appliances. Therefore, a well maintained electrical system provides the surest way to prevent fire from arising from electrical faults. This can be done by avoiding overloading electrical, outlets though, certifying that there are a satisfactory number of outlets to reduce the need for extension cords, therefore, reducing fire hazards. However, if it is necessary to use a fire

Maria Full of Grace by Joshua Marston Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Maria Full of Grace by Joshua Marston - Essay Example Convinced that the job is easy and with great rewards, Maria flies to the USA with approximately sixty-tow pellets of cocaine that she swallowed, in her stomach. Nonetheless, not all the plans seemed to work as scheduled. Maria lands herself in a dangerous and deadly world where those who smuggle drugs face serious penalties including imprisonment or death sentence. Maria falls into the trap of Franklin who introduced her to the smuggling of cocaine. However, Franklin does not tell her directly regarding the smuggling of cocaine but, rather, gives her a business proposition involving traveling from one place to another. The traveling offered by Franklin is meant to give Maria some extra money to help catering for her family that has been depending on the meager salary obtained from the flower garden. Nevertheless, the traveling involved smuggling of drugs from one place to another in order to obtain the rewards promised by Franklin (Snyder 58). The fact that Maria gets pregnant from a man (Juan) she does not love compounds her problems. Even though she uses her pregnancy to avoid being X-rayed in a bid to finding out whether she is a drug mule following her suspicious movement, other mules find themselves in trouble, and this makes Maria escapes with Blanca. In the process, the traffickers kill Lucy as they open her up to retrieve the drug pellets (Snyder 89). When Maria and Blanca go to Lucy’s sister house to live there, they do inform her of Lucy’s death. Narrative Structure In a bid to pass his message, Joshua Marston creates a tension-filled drama of a woman who goes into smuggling of drugs due to poverty. The young energetic woman does all she can to pull herself out of the doldrums of poverty whilst also ensuring that every member of the family receives all the basic needs. Joshua Marston’s film does not spare the viewers of the frightening scenes and dimensions of being a drug mule. Such frightening scenes include swallowing of the 6 2 cocaine pellets, explosion of cocaine pellet in one of the co-workers leading to her death, as well as pressures from both drug dealers in the US and customs officers. In addition, the film director attempts to narrate the same ideas through bringing in death, dangers, betrayal, and violence that are common in societies (Snyder). Through Maria, Joshua Marston brings out the idea of courage and determination that every individual should possess. There is no doubt that Joshua displays a humanistic picture of a young woman’s solitary life that is ready to accomplish her mission, irrespective of the method applicable. According to her, the result justifies the means, contrary to the usual moral way of the society where the means should justify the result. The author narrates about such a life within the looming shadows of economic and cultural crises, with special reference to the United States of America. It is undeniable that a strong political statement is applicable in narr ating the whole story in which there is the creation of a universal plight of the main characters through bringing together the personal, social, and political aspects of the whole scenario. At the end, the film director dramatizes connections, as well as contradictions existing between political realities in the

Evidence-based Practice in Healthcare Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Evidence-based Practice in Healthcare - Essay Example It is now a nursing competence criterion to rely on and implement best evidence available from relevant research to devise the care plan. This is expected to base on critical review of research and synthesis of evidence which can be used to justify practice (Simko, 2005). Mantzoukas (2008) indicated that evidence based practice leads to effective decision making leading to enhanced clinical performance. A literature review with a critical approach is considered to be the best method of synthesizing evidence. This means a critique of scientific research based literature can reveal evidence which can be used in practice (Mantzoukas, 2008). To this end, a critique of literatures on the topic of nursing methods of postoperative pain management will be conducted, so an evidence base may be created that can inform practice. A critique of relevant literature can provide information on a clinical problem through the use of research knowledge. This can be done through location of relevant studies, review of the studies in the problem area, summarizing what is known, identifying what is unknown, and recognising the gaps in the knowledge. Thus the critique can support or refute practice or identify a new way of intervention (Scott & McSherry, 2009). Miaskowski (2005) indicated that effective postoperative management of pain is a significant clinical problem. Although there are established clinical practice guidelines, it is a fact that postoperative pain is often treated inadequately. Some studies have indicated that despite receiving analgesic management, about 75% of the patients have moderate to severe postoperative pain. In most of the cases, it has been demonstrated that the healthcare professionals often underestimate pain. In some cases, inadequate knowledge of the healthcare professionals about opioid use and side effects has been attributed to such gaps in postoperative pain management (Miaskowski, 2005). Moreover, there are certain very prominent ill effects of inadequate postoperative pain management, which can be detrimental to the wellbeing of the patient. Some of these substantiate the need for evidence based practice in this area. These are prolonged recovery, increased stay and cost, and decreased patient satisf action (Michel & Sanders, 2002). Physiologically, inadequate resolution of postoperative pain is also not desirable due to adverse physiological responses of the patient, which specially in postoperative phase may make the recovery problematic. Therefore, there is a need for evidence based practice, and critique of relevant research articles and synthesis of information could be the best way (Tracy, Dufault, Kogut, Martin, Rossi, & Willey-Temkin, 2006). Literature Search Strategy From the University database and library, a literature search was conducted based on the key words "postoperative pain", "postoperative pain management", "nursing", and "best methods" or "best practice." A combination of words were used to search the literature, and out of about 100 different studies located, only three of them were selected for this critical review in order to synthesize the evidence. Literature Review Shapiro et al. (2003) in their study compared the analgesic efficacy of three different methods in postoperative

Business Impact Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Business Impact Analysis - Essay Example ing the postal system is the Office of Inspector General (OIG) whose chief officer reports directly to the Postal Office’s Governors and not subject to any supervisory jurisdiction to any other Postal Service in the country (USPS OIG: David Williams, 2010). Due to the delicate nature of the tasks, responsibilities, and accountabilities accorded all personnel working for USPS OIG, a business impact analysis is most useful in assisting management in determining which functions are critical to the continued operation of the organization. According the its official website, the mission of the office is to assist in the maintenance of confidence through safeguarding the organization’s bottom line concurrent with undertaking both audits and investigations. It was specifically stated that â€Å"audits of postal programs and operations help to determine whether the programs and operations are efficient and cost-effective. Investigations help prevent and detect fraud, waste, and misconduct and have a deterrent effect on postal crimes† (USPS OIG: Mission, 2010, par.1). In this regard, the OIG is tasked with focusing on the following strategic goals which are considered relevant as giving direction to the organization: generation of revenue, improving and increasing the organization’s efficiency in performance, focusing on improvement of service, emphasis on a culture which focuses on the customers, increasing awareness on sustainability efforts, and regular monitoring and apprising on regulatory studies and obligations to report (OIG: Semi-Annual Report to Congress, 2008, 7). Business impact assessment is one of the steps incorporated in business continuity planning. Since OIG undertakes audits and investigations, the initial step to identify critical areas that would ensure the accomplishment of identified objectives entails reviewing the STEEP (social, technological, economic, ecological, and political) factors that impact its operations (Van der Heijden, et.al.,

The Reality of Work cultures in the Modern Economy Essay

The Reality of Work cultures in the Modern Economy - Essay Example Sennett’s argument is based on the assertion that the flexibilities and the uncertainties of the correct working life are eroding the integrity of the sense of the sustained purpose in the employee’s life in the manner that have existed before in the society (Bradley, 2009). Indeed, the new era of the economy and work inclusive of the globalisation of the work, breaking apart of the bureaucracy and flexibility changes the work values in the most profound manner. As the networks are constantly redefining their characters and structures, the same thing is bound to happen to the employees that work in the episodic work relations and the short-term contracts (Giddens et al., 2000). In Schumpeterian terms, the entrepreneur is served as an ideal Everyman alongside the â€Å"portfolio worker† (Winter, 1984). Sennett asserts that the corroding of the character is the inevitable consequences of the uncertainties that are present in the everyday practices of the vigorous c apitalism of the 1990s. The character of the workers is mainly threatened by the new type of the labour in the modern economy-flexible work (Jessop et al., 1987). Thus, this conforms to Sennett’s assertion that flexibility in the workplace is the main characteristic of the modern working environment. Conversely, it’s true that flexibility brings advantages to the corporations and the enterprises.