During the mid-1960’s I worked a summer job to earn money for college at a meat processing plant in my home city. It was a union job and paid a decent wage. Many years later a good friend of mine related a story about his older brother and his Asian-American wife. The brother was retired from the military but the wife, being much younger, still worked. They lived in Nebraska. She worked a union job at a meat processing plant and earned a livable wage, but this was to change. The plant shut down and the company built a new plant out in “the middle of nowhere” It was a non-union operation. The family could sell their house and relocate to keep her job at substantially less pay. They did not move. So who took the jobs? Mostly undocumented workers and immigrants from Mexico and Central America. The family said that this was a trend in the industry. Today at the large operation’s demographics has 45% are low income laborers, 51% are immigrants or undocumented (who would like to stay under the radar and not call attention to themselves), 42% are female, and 80% are people of color. In the 1970’s people earned approximately $25 per hour but today the average wage is $13.23. People are expected to work at “break-neck” speed and not unexpectedly injuries occur. OHSA says that 17 severe injuries occur in the huge plants per month. According to Jim Hightower’s newsletter–“The Lowdown”, Tyson Foods require employees to sign a waiver giving up all rights to sue for job related injuries and if the employee refuses to sign, their employment is terminated.
And then COVID-19 arrived at the plants. By June 30th there were more than 30,000 cases of COVID with 113 deaths. Plants shut down. Trump, who has been reluctant to use The Defense Production Act, invoked it which prevented health officials from closing the plants and required workers to return to work. If they refused to return, they could be fired with no unemployment benefits.
The employees were treated as “less than real people”. Apparently their lives were worth less than corporate profits.
To read more about this google Jim Hightower “Something is Rotten in Big Meat, Inc. His monthly newsletter is informative and inexpensive.
Books to read; I know I have mentioned some before. The Coming Plague; Dan Rather’s What Unites Us ;A very Stable Genius by Phillip Rucker and Carol Leonnig; Slaying Goliath by Diane Ravitch. This book is about how the very rich attempt to take over local school boards and to add their own charter schools and the use of school vouchers for their own personal gain and to further their own personal agendas. I taught school for 35 years in the inner city and thought I knew what was going on with education. This book, however, is eye opening and strongly suggest this to any reader who is concerned about public education. Hint: Charter schools almost always do not work. What changes student outcomes is to raise families out of poverty. When I write about education we will return to this topic.
When we look at politicians and so often others in the public view, they often come up lacking.
How’s this for a bit of Japanese Wisdom?
If it’s not yours, don’t take it.
If it’s not right, don’t do it.
If it’s not true, don’t say it.
If you don’t know, shut up.