Why does the process of the factory affect the efficiency of the workers? The slaughtering, processing, and packaging of meat done by the immigrant workers at meat industries has caused high incidence of accidents, injuries and illnesses. In the article, by Barbara, Young, “Zoned for Efficiency” it connects to the points in Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser about how the workers need to stay working at a fast pace in order for the meat packing industry to make more money. If the workers are on track then the process of the meatpacking industry is doing excellent.
The way meatpacking plants operate it leads to mistreatment of the predominantly immigrant workers who already are not paid enough for their labor. To begin with,the cycle of mistreatment never stops because all of the workers in the meatpacking industry are illegal workers and they are forced to work how the managers tell them to. In the web article “Zoned For Efficiency” Young writes, “Meat and poultry plant workers make, process, or pack a variety of products by machine or by hand.
Their duties includes operating a machine, preparing raw materials, removing finished products from machines, packing finished product, quality checks, minor machine repairs, and cleaning tools and work areas”(Young). The workers rarely get a break during the long hours they have to work because they have so many tasks to complete in a certain amount of hours and if they mess up there will be severe consequences for them like getting fired. Since there are many illegal workers who want a job desperately they can be easily replaced when fired.
The most difficult part is that they have to use big knives to cut the meats which are very heavy and it puts them in more danger of getting in an incident. In the book, Fast Food Nation there are workers like Kenny who talk about how the system knows ‘We are human beings, more than one person told me, but they treat us like animals”(Schlosser 186). The workers always try speaking out and talking about their stories of their own or others who are mistreated inside the factory but since they are “nobodies” no one wants to pay attention to them.
Moreover, all of these meatpacking industries mistreat the workers by having them work at a fast pace so the process won’t be backed up. All that is important is the speed and not the safety of the managers employee’s. The meatpacking industry does not want to lose any money because that would mess up their whole business, all because one worker who was not being quick enough. Young mentions, Armour’s slaughter capacity reached more than 1,200 hogs an hour in the 1930s. Its full-time workforce totaled 5,000, which doubled during the peak winter season… (Young).
The faster the process, the more animals are being killed, the more successful the company owners will be. The workers are really working full speed for 1,200 hogs to die in only an hour! Not only does Young believe this but Schlosser also says, “That one of the leading determinants of the injury rate at a slaughterhouse today is the speed of the disassembly line… the old meatpacking plants in Chicago slaughtered about 50 cattle an hour… Today some plants slaughter up to 400 cattle an hour… “(Schlosser 173). Over the years animal slaughter has gone up because more Americans start demanding it and are eating large amounts of it.
Supervisors did not care one bit what the workers went through or how they felt because the managers would not even report their injuries or deaths just like Schlosser mentioned that they “earn about 30,000 a year” but “they must meet production goals, keep the number of recorded injuries low… “(Schlosser 175). If the supervisors/managers got caught they would have to pay a fine for every man that died in their factory. Pay was also an issue, workers are basically working for free for such long hours and they were not able to complain since they could be replaced easily by other desperate illegal workers.
Young explains, “The average wage rate was 32. 5 cents an hour”(Young). Imagine working all day at a fast pace and knowing that you’re going to leave that complicated day with only 32. 5 cents? What these illegal workers made for the day was literally nothing and they had to risk their lives working for the meat industry. The line speed had to be as quick as possible that some workers had to do drugs in order to stay awake and feel like they can keep up longer in order for them to not mess up the process.
Workers really had to put their own life at risk by doing drugs in order to keep the job that barely bought them food with the wage they made. Schlosser agrees too that,”… meatpacking giants have cut costs by cutting wages. They have turned one of the nation’s best-paying manufacturing jobs into one of the lowest-paying, created a migrant industrial workforce of poor immigrants, tolerated high injury rates, and spawned rural ghettos in the American heartland” (Schlosser 149).
Even though it is out in public that what once was a good paying job turned into a disaster and now poor immigrants have to pay the price and work for long hours and make less than half of what is justice. In addition, an organization called OSHA which stands for Occupational Safety and Health Administration was created to “protect” workers, but it had a major downside. The OSHA has been unable to enforce effective safety regulations needed to protect workers. “OSHA’s voluntary compliance policy did indeed reduce the number of recorded injuries in meatpacking plants.
It did not, however, reduce the number of people getting hurt”(Schlosser 179). So, even though this organization was made to “protect” the immigrants working in the factories it did not reduce the injuries that were occurring. OSHA only made a visit once every eight years so the managers at the meatpacking factory’s did not care about recording the amount of workers that got injured or died. Whenever OSHA would let the managers know they were going to check up on them, the managers made sure the cleaning crew would leave the factory spotless the night before.
Other than that every other day the factory would be a mess and unsafe for the workers. Managers did not want to report the injuries because the more injuries they would report the less they would get paid because they are not doing a good job at making sure the workers are not getting hurt. “OSHA was already underfunded and understaffed: its 1,300 inspectors were responsible for the safety of more than 5 million workplaces across the country”(Schlosser, 179). There was not enough amount of inspectors for the amount of workplaces so it caused to fail the safety of the immigrant workers.
OSHA knew and understood their lack of protecting the workers and keeping them safe. These illegal workers come to America for a better life but they are taken advantage of by managers. If they fail to report injuries of the workers it is immoral because in any other factory stopping a worker from receiving due compensation for injuries is unfair. These people all have the potential to do anything they want when they are young, although it is harder for others to rise to the occasion because of the way they were raised or the environment they grew up in.
Every single one of these workers came to the U. S for a better life and better opportunities but it ended up being worse than where they came from. On the contrary, Fast food is ruining America. Immigrant workers make up the majority of the labor force in the U. S. meat and poultry industry. Along with immigrant counterparts in the agricultural sector, they literally feed the people of the United States. If there were no hard working illegal workers being forced to work at such fast pace, the world would be chaos and there would barely be any fast food restaurants.
We all know fast food may be faster and easier than a home cooked meal, but the consequences of eating too much could potentially damage a person’s life. The thing is that Americans do not care about what they are eating as long as they have a full stomach. Americans are always busy and don’t have time to be making home cooked meals in the mornings or everyday for their lunch break. Meatpacking industries and fast food restaurants hire these immigrants because they know they are desperate for jobs and they are good at them too, so they will do their best to never fall behind.
Over the years has there been any changes made in order to protect and keep the illegal workers safe? Many agricultural communities believe that meat production has degraded and will continue to degrade the environment. The way these facilities are established and the way the workers are treated rises up big concern. giving tax breaks that enable high turnover rates for employees, and making Americans pay taxes for franchise fees, buildings, real estate, equipment, and supplies for fast food corporations turns a capitalist economy into a corporatist one.
In reality, the success of a fast food restaurant is contingent upon obtaining taxpayer money, avoiding government restraints, and indoctrinating its target audience from as young as possible. The resulting affordable, goodtasting, nostalgic, and addictive foods make it difficult to be reasonable about food choices, specifically in a fast food industry chiefly built by greedy executives. There should be set regulations towards the way managers treat the workers even if they are illegal immigrants and how much money they should be making for all the hours they work.
