The Jungle Fast Food Nation

1. Describe some of the abuses of the meat packing / chicken processing industries as described by Sinclair and Schlosser. Cite three specific examples from each book.

In 1961, two former Swift & Co. executives, Currier Holman and A. D. Anderson, started Iowa Beef Packers better known as IBP. Over the course of twenty years, these two lead the meatpacking industry back to the days of Upton Sinclair¹s “The Jungle”. IBP created ³a mass production system that employed a de-skilled workforce, . . . put its new slaughterhouses in rural areas .

. . far away from the urban strongholds of the nation¹s labor unions² (p 154). In 1970, the IBP broke its labor unions with the help of La Cosa Nostra, and the stage was set for sweatshop heaven.

At a ConAgra slaughterhouse in Greeley, Colorado, the workers mainly come from Mexico, Central America, and Southeast Asia. Base pay is $9.25 per hour; when adjusted for inflation, that's one-third, lower than the same plant paid forty years ago (p.160). The annual turnover rate is 400%.

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On average, a worker quits or is fired every three months. But ³far from being a liability, a high turnover rate in the meatpacking industry--as in the fast food industry-- also helps maintain a workforce that is harder to unionize and much easier to control² (p161).

³Meatpacking is now the most dangerous job in the United States. The injury rate in a slaughterhouse is about three times higher than the rate in a typical American factory. Every year, more than one quarter of the meatpacking workers in this country--roughly forty thousand men and women--suffer an injury or a work related illness that requires medical attention beyond first aid² (p172).

However, there are big incentives not to report injuries. ³The annual bonuses of plant foremen and supervisors are often based in part on the injury rate of their workers² (p175). The main cause of the high injury rate is the speed of the disassembly line. The list of the injuries is long and bloody.

The speed of the disassembly line is one of the major causes of food-borne illness such as E.coli 0157:H7. Crowded feedlots and industrial-size hamburger grinders are some of the major causes. The stomachs and intestines of cattle, where the E.coli 0157:H7 live, are still removed by hand. This job takes about six months¹ of practice to do well. But with high turnover and the high speed of the line, it¹s could never be done well. Twenty percent of cattle can have their guts spilled onto the carcasses being processed on the line, which can then contaminate many others (p.203).

The Jungle

Sinclair writes that the government inspector, who was to inspect the cattle for disease and injury, was easily distracted and any number of sick, diseased cattle could be slaughtered and processed for consumption by humans. Sinclair indicates that beef bosses distracted the inspector on purpose. Antanas, who works in the pickling rooms at Durham's, tells stories of waste products and refuse being thrown into vats of beef and processed for human consumption. Jurgis watches as pregnant cows, classified by the government as not fit for food, are sneaked past the government inspector and slaughtered for meat. Even more horrible, Jurgis sees the fetus sliced out of the dead cow and processed as meat as well. Charges like this spurred the US government to enact pure food laws.

This deliberate disregard for the health of the buyers is all done in the name of profits. Capitalism lives by the profit, for the profit, and of the profit.

2. Cite four examples from each work describing dangerous aspects of the work place.

In Sinclair’s The Jungle, the workrooms at the meatpacking plants are unheated and dangerous in the winter. Men often suffer frostbite, and in desperation, stick their frozen feet into the steaming carcasses of cattle when the bosses aren't looking. The steam is so thick in the butchering rooms that it creates an extremely dangerous environment where men may be stabbed in a cloud of hot steam, or suffer other injuries. Some men slip on the frozen blood on the floors.

These slaughterhouses are mentioned in the chapters, 'Cogs in the great machine' and 'The most dangerous job' of Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation.

Eric Schlosser visits a slaughterhouse in Lexington, Nebraska. According to one resident, there are three odors that pervade the town, "burning hair and blood, that greasy smell, and the odor of rotten eggs". As Schlosser points out, hydrogen sulfide is the gas responsible for the rotten egg smell. It rises from the slaughterhouse wastewater lagoons, causes respiratory problems and headaches, and at high levels can cause permanent damage to the nervous system (in Jan. 2002 the Justice Department sued IBP, Inc. for violation of the clean air act at its Dakota City plant).

On another occasion he visits a slaughterhouse 'somewhere in the High Plains' which is one of the nation's largest - he is shown around it by someone with access to the plant who is upset by its working conditions. About 5,000 cattle are slaughtered there every day. Schlosser examines the different processes involved in turning a steer into packaged meat, of which one of the most graphic are the 'sticker' and the 'knocker'. The sticker does nothing but sever the carotid artery of a steer every ten seconds or so. The knocker welcomes the cattle into the building by shooting them in the head with a captive bolt stunner for eight and a half hours:

As an investigative journalist, Schlosser also interviews some of the migrant workers who make up the workforce of these slaughterhouses. One IBP Lexington worker tells him of her journey from Guatemala in search of work as she sits sharpening her big knives in her lap. Others talk about the relentless pressure resulting from the speed of the disassembly line. The faster this moves, the greater the profitability of the slaughterhouse (the three meatpacking giants - IBP, ConAgra and Excel - try to maximize their profits by maximizing the volume of production at each plant), but also the greater the likelihood of injuries to the workers.

Whereas the old Chicago meatpacking plants slaughtered about 50 cattle an hour, the modern plants slaughter up to 400 an hour. As injured workers are drag on profits, many of these injuries go unreported - injured workers who cooperate are shifted to an easier job to have time to recover, or they are sent back to Mexico to recuperate and later return to his/her job. Also, as a drag on profits, many are often given the most unpleasant job and their hourly wages are cut so that they are encouraged to quit. As one former IBP worker explains, "They're trying to deter you, period, from going to the doctor."

3. Describe the tactics used by the owners to resist and crush organized labor. Have the tactics worked?

The plants refuse to re-negotiate a contract with the unions and hire scabs (workers crossing the picket line) to take their place. When they finally agree to go to arbitration, and the strike is settled, they refuse to hire union members. Most, if not all, fast food industries hire teenagers and migrant workers for cheap labor, though most of those laborers have zero knowledge about proper food handling. These tactics use by companies have served immense profits; that is the main reason why our working class is still striving to emancipate themselves from severe poverty.

4. In each book workers are exploited or taken advantage of. Who are exploited workers in `The Jungle` and how are they different from the workers that Schlosser describes? What do they have in common? Why are they different?

Teenagers and migrant workers are those mentioned in Fast Food Nation, while families who are suffering from poverty, regardless of gender are Sinclair’s main focus in his novel. Both of the described workers suffer from unfair labor practices, such as; unjust wage amount, graft, physical abuse, poor workplace conditions, etc. On the other hand, The Jungle, discusses labor in a socialistic point of view, and critics Capitalism. It has more depth, when it comes to the rights of the workers, while Fast Food Nation deals more on the mishandling of food and laws which these fast food tycoons violate.

5. Describe the role of government and its relationship with `Big Business` in each work.

According to the two novels, government plays a big part in the enduring exploitation of those in power against working class. One example is the Capitalism mindset of most of the leaders, which leads to profit-centered society. Capitalists do things for the sake of gaining profit, despite its destructive effects to others. Another is corruption, which is an outcome of a capitalist mind. Our government officials forsake their sworn duty to the people, for them to gain and retain power.

6. Why did Sinclair write `The Jungle` and why did Schlosser write `Fast Food Nation?` What influence did Sinclairs work have on consumer protection. Has `Fast Food Nation` resulted in any consumer protection regulations? If this has not happened, how has the fast food industry been able to side-step or skirt consumer / worker regulations? Do these two books have relevance today?

Sinclair was exposed to Socialism and counted it a life-changing discovery as well as an impetus to action. The Socialist weekly, Appeal to Reason, sent Sinclair to the Chicago stockyards on assignment for a journalistic expose. Sinclair worked in the meatpacking plants in the yards, witnessing illegal practices and unsafe food handling which he was to later detail in The Jungle.

During his time in the yards, Sinclair wrote a number of articles for various magazines, including "Is Chicago Meat Clean?" for Colliers Weekly, in April of 1905. At this time, a number of investigative journalists, called "muckrakers" by President Roosevelt, were writing exposes of various industries, including Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens and Thomas Lawson. Their writings greatly influenced Sinclair's own writing.

Sinclair wrote The Jungle using details he gathered during his investigation-including the startling exploitation of laborers in the packing plants, the squalor of the yards neighborhoods and the corruption of the Beef Trust. Sinclair's novel was rejected by six publishers and when he announced his intention to publish the book himself in an announcement in Appeal to Reason, he received nearly a thousand orders. Doubleday decided to publish The Jungle, but not before Sinclair published a number of copies himself.

Fast Food Nation covers American history and culture, post-World War II. This time was especially prosperous for many Americans, particularly white middle-class men who had fought in the war and were able to reap the benefits of the G.I. Bill and the booming economy. For many minorities, this time was far less promising, as the benefits of the 60's civil rights movement and integration were yet to occur and even then, slow to impact society as a whole. The specific period directly after WWII seemed especially prosperous because the world war had effectively ended the decade long Great Depression for the Americans.

This post-war economic boom arguably lasted until 1973. Schlosser sees the Reagan administration as responsible for the reversal of many of the social gains made during earlier periods in the twentieth century, including the progress made in the meatpacking industry. For more on the shift from a Fordist economy to one of more flexible accumulation and the role of the Reagan administration in the American economic scene, see David Harvey’s The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Conditions of Cultural Change (Blackwell, 1989).

Cultural historians consider the paradigm shift from modernity to postmodernity one of the greatest changes of this period (that is from the early twentieth century to the late twentieth century). While modernism embraced the meta-narrative, linear progress, ideas which could totalize and unify people, as well as absolute truths-- postmodernism, conversely, localized the meta-narrative and fragmented experience, which drove people to search for stability in an unstable world.

These two books symbolize what kind of society we have today. From the filthy workplace to the apparent abuse of workers, represent our dirty politics, the continuing fight of the people against poverty, and the blatant abuse of power for those who have it. These books would not only teach you how to think, in a dignified way, but it will also stir up our conscience and make us act on the occurring injustices in our society. It have been made not to make us think but to make us act.