Chapter 7 Cogs in the Great Machine

Chapter 7
IBP made several changes to the meat packing industry. IBP, or the Iowa Beef Packers, opened its first slaughter house in 1960. With this new slaughter house came a great deal of new ideas for the meat packing industry. Rather than being a three story building, the new plant was one story with a disassembly line. A worker would just do a simple task over and over throughout the whole day. (Sounds pretty borning, huh?) The success of IBP'S new system depended upon the cheap workforce. When stating "We've tried to take skill out of every step" (Pg 154), you can conclude that IBP has a fast fod mentality. The new slaughterhouses were in rural areas, and they depended on highways instead of rail roads to ship meat. The IBP shipped smaller cuts of beef, rather than whole sides. Wages were low for the new production techniques.

Newer meat packing plants were located in rural areas because it was closer to the feedlots. Also, with the new highway system, the meat packing plants wouldn't have to worry about shipping. Rural areas were "far away from the urban strongholds of the nation's labor unions" (page 154)

The links between IBP and organized crime were through Currier J. Holman who was convicted with IBP for bribing union leaders along with meat wholesalers in 1974. The links extended far beyond the payments that honest business men made. Holman fired four top IBP executives because they didn't want to deal with organized crime figures. So, he made Moe Steinman, and his son-in-law vice president. Steinman had earlier been arrested because he bribed meat inspectors. This man sould tainted meat to the U.S. Army. After reading this, I wondered what could have happened to the meat I eat every day! I can't believe that someone would disrespect the Army like that!

The relationship between labor unions and modern meat packing plants is that labor unions were in the Western United States, forcing the meatpacking plants to either "go west or go out of business" (page 155) . Paying wages could also be sometimes 50 percent or lower that what union workers earned in Chicago.

Wages in meat packing plants today are barely above poverty rates. At less than 10 dollars an hour, the meat packing job is paid minimum wage. Before, people were waiting in line to become a meat packer. Wages are more than 50 percent lower than before.

Meat packing plants have discovered a new kind of person to employ...illegal immigrants. Because they are willing to work for cheap, thousands of migrants worked at the plants. IBP recruits not only recruit migrants, but also refugees, asylum-seekers, and homeless people. IBP even has commercials running in Mexico offering jobs in the USA. GFI America Inc. needed workers, so it sent recruiters to the border with a rented bus. There, the recruiters hired 39 people who they offered housing and pay. The new industrial migrant is a migrant who works a meat packing plant, and constantly moves to knew towns looking for something better.

The meat packing firm in small communities has a HUGE impact. When I first started reading about the meat packing firm relocating to a small community, I thought it would just be a little smelly. However, there are several other issues with the plant in a small community such as Lexington, Nebraska. Besides the horrible stench of "burning hair and blood, that greasy smell, and the odor of rotten eggs" (page 165), Lexington has turned from a cute, family-friendly community, into one of those scary cities that you don't feel safe in, no matter where you are. To start, only one year after the slaughterhouse opened, Lexington had the highest crime rate in all of Nebraska...in only a year! Prior to the slaughterhouse, Lexington looked like something Norman Rockwell would paint! (According to the author, page 165) But now, over a decade later, the crime rates have doubled, there is some major drug dealing going on in this city, and gangs are everywhere! There are drive-by shootings in Lexington. The majority of the white inhabitants moved away, while Latino inhabitants increased over 50% percent. Welcome to "Mexington"!