3.Cogs+in+the+Great+Machine

Group 3

Summary: This chapter talked about the impact of the meatpacking industry on the cities and towns they are located in. Anybody who has read The Jungle knows that the meatpacking industry was once located in New York and Chicago, but now it has moved to small towns. In these towns, like Greeley, CO, the smell spreads and can be smelled miles outside of town. The smell is caused by the huge amounts of manure are produced and dumped in large piles called lagoons. ConAgra, one of the largest companies, has been convicted of price-fixing and wrongfully grading crops. Wages are below union rates and jobs that had once provided reasonably decent lifestyles are now held by immigrant workers living in trailers and motel rooms.

The chapter also talks about the changes made in the Unions and companies such as ConAgra and Iowa Beef Packers, and how the IBP revolution helped destroy/reshape the industry in Greeley. The IBP revolution started when two men moved their meat packing industry to the rural towns, far away from the urban labor unions. They hired people for next to nothing and had them working in appalling, unsafe, unsanitary conditions. Eventually, the workers got tired of it and revolted, causing IBP to eventually be shut down.

Opposing Viewpoint- Negative effects of hiring illegal immigrant workers:

This chapter talked about how the meatpacking industry went from the big cities to small towns. It also talked about how in the days when the meatpacking industry was located in big cities they hired legal immigrants and citizens for the work. Now that the meat packing industry is less prevalent than before and has moved to small isolated towns more and more company owners are hiring illegal immigrants.

There are problems with the hiring of illegal immigrants, though. In 2005, illegal immigrants were documented as representing 5% of the work force (that's about 7.2 million people with 27% of them working in the butcher or food processing industry. A lot of the negative effects to hiring these workers aren't negative for the citizens, but actually for the workers themselves. Many of the jobs the immigrants posses are jobs that, to put it simply, American citizens don't want to do, because of the conditions of low pay. Most immigrant workers make minimum wage and some are actually paid under minimum wage since the government doesn't regulate the labor laws for illegal immigrants. Since there is no regulation for the illegal immigrants many company owners treat the workers very poorly and don't keep the places of work maintained, so the conditions are disgusting.

This chapter also discusses the effects of labor unions on the meat packing industry. There are positive and negative effects to labor unions.

Positives: All workers get fair raises and benefits. There is power in numbers, the more people that complain the more likely there is to be a change made. Union negotiates contracts so that individuals don't need to. Your job cannot be terminated without cause.

Negatives: Difficult to fire because there is an intensive process in order to prove cause for termination. Unions can be unreasonable and make demands that companies cannot meet.