Workers: On Farms and in Slaughterhouses

Read Fast Food Nation Chapter 8, "The Most Dangerous Job," especially pages 176 - 186.  Also read the story of "Kenny," pages 186- 190.

When you think about workers and fast food companies, perhaps you first think of the people behind the counter, the people you see cooking and cleaning the restaurant. Think back further: Where did the paper that wraps the food, the wheat that makes the bun, the potatoes that make the fries, the meat in the Whopper come from? Every piece of food has had the effort of many workers, possibly hundreds, from farmers to harvesters to the companies that transport the animals to ... those who kill the animals.

Meat eating is reaching an all-time high around the world, quadrupling (increasing by 4 times) in the last 50 years. There are 20 billion head of livestock -- animals raised to kill, including cows, sheep, and pigs -- taking up space on the Earth. That's more than triple the number of people.

U.S. beef and pork consumption has tripled since 1970.  In that same time, it has more than doubled in Asia. One reason for the increase in meat consumption is the rise of fast-food restaurants. These restaurants are everywhere: they are cheap: they are heavily advertised. They are seen as a symbol of progress and popular culture in many countries. People have come to rely on fast food. To keep their customers coming back, even though people realize the food is unhealthy, the restaurants must keep their prices low. Therefore, the workers who kill and process the animals must be paid as little as possible.

This is a problem for the fast-food comapnies, however. Killing animals in a modern slaughterhouse is extremely disgusting work. And it is extremely dangerous work. Companies have found that American workers are happy to take these jobs, but they want to be well-paid. Fast-food corporations have decided that they will not pay well.

The answer for the big corporations: Hire people who do not have worker's rights. Hire illegal immigrants.

Here are some resources.

Who works in meatpacking?

Often, these jobs are held by illegal immigrants. Here's an article about undocumented workers, how they fit into the US economy, and how Americans feel about them.
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/texan-of-the-year/headlines/20101105-2007-DMN-Texan-of-the-Year-9008.ece

But, like restaurants, meatpacking plants will also hire the handicapped, who are also powerless.
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20100508-EEOC-report-finds-company-abused-5858.ece

Most meatpacking workers are Latino, but any immigrants are targeted by these employers. Here's an article about Somali immigrants.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/28/nation/la-na-immigrant-nebraska28-2010jan28

A forum discussion about this question.
http://www.city-data.com/forum/nebraska/666861-meatpacking-plants-mexican-immigrants.html

How dangerous are meatpacking (killing and cutting up animals) jobs?

You can find this entire article at
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2002/01/schlosser.htm

 
 How to Make the Country's Most Dangerous Job Safer
Jan. 2002 by Eric Schlosser The Atlantic Monthly, USA  
 
 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than one out of four meat-packers suffered a job-related injury or illness in 1999—a proportion higher than that in any other U.S. industry. The rate of serious injuries in meat-packing (as measured in lost workdays) is also the highest: more than five times the national average in private industry. The rate of cumulative trauma injuries, such as back problems and tendinitis, is about thirty-three times the national average. And these extraordinarily high rates of injury are based on the meat-packing industry's own reporting. In an industry where the unions are weak, the workers are often illegal immigrants, and some of the leading companies have been caught falsifying injury records, the actual number of injuries is likely even higher.

...(A) beef slaughterhouse offers countless opportunities for serious harm. Despite the introduction of various power tools and saws, most of the work is still done by hand. Hundreds of workers wielding sharp knives stand along a single production line, and the most common slaughterhouse injury is a laceration. In the old Chicago packinghouses teams of workers disassembled about fifty cattle an hour and performed a variety of tasks throughout the day. In modern American slaughterhouses the line speeds can approach 400 cattle an hour, and the new division of labor requires workers to perform the same task again and again. Some workers make the same knife cut up to 10,000 times a day. When workers feel rushed, accidents are likelier to occur. Excessive line speeds have been linked to injuries, inhumane slaughter practices, and food-safety problems. The economics of the industry only encourage faster line speeds: the money a slaughterhouse earns is directly related to the speed of production. A faster pace means higher profits.

http://www.spcnetwork.com/mii/2001/011232.htm

Author finds new meat 'Jungle' in High Plains
By Timothy Gardner
NEW YORK, Feb 13, 2001 (Reuters) -
Many meatworkers are lured to the United States from Mexico by Spanish radio advertisements paid for by U.S. meat companies, which bus the workers to factories in the rural United States.

What about farm workers?
A new study, 'Like Machines in the Fields: Workers Without Rights in American Agriculture,' shows that big buyers, like fast-food companies, have used their marketing power to buy increasing volumes of produce at increasingly cheaper prices.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0316-10.htm

In fact, these workers are sometimes - literally - slaves.  The title of these special reports, "Modern Day Slavery," says it clearly.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/hp/content/moderndayslavery/reports/browning1207.html

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/hp/content/moderndayslavery/reports/peonageblurbs1207.html