The laborers and workers of the slaughter houses in the United States are obviously extremely important in the production of meat, and in order to do their job right and efficiently, they need to be protected. However, workers at the slaughterhouses encounter several dangers every day. Many upon many laborers get seriously injured on the job and many have died as well. All the workers wear eight pounds of chain mail, helmets and steel armor on their hands, wrists, stomachs and backs, but they still continue to get injured constantly.
The way in which they treat the cattle is harsh and disturbing enough, but the injuries and deaths that come from the assembly line of processing this meat is also disturbing, and even more unjustly when the owners of the house try to cover up such brutality. Many injuries are brought upon by the increasing speed of the assembly lines, which are just getting faster rather than slower. The three largest meat packing companies are ConAgra, IBP and Excel, and all three of them try to speed up production in order to increase their earnings. Ine the business world it is also about exceeding and being better than their competitiors, and the faster the line moves the faster money will come in. Some supervisors provide their workers with methamphetamine in order for them to feel more energized and work faster, which is absolutely absurd and makes it more dangerous for them as they may be more careless with their new found “energy.”
According to Schlosser, most workers are afraid to report injuries at the risk of being fired. Supervisors usually try to hide injuries by prodding their workers not to tell and moving them to an easier job for awhile. Obviously, an injured worker brings down profits and in any industry making money is the main goal and they are sometimes encouraged to quit if they can not perform well enough. This is unfair to the workers because if they slowed down production or created new methods of doing what needed to be done, it would be safer and fewer injuries would result. The workers can not be blamed for their injuries. Schlosser gives a clear description of the process in which meat is made and the injuries that result, as he enters into a slaughterhouse and sees first hand what goes on.
this was helpful thank you.
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