Chapter 7 Cogs In The Great Machine

1
Chapter 7Cogs In The Great Machine

• Presented By
• Sarah Albricht
• Ashley Balts
• Mindy Kaehler

www.marlacampbell.com/ images/butcher.jpg
www.shifting-gears.com/ slaughterhouse.jpg
2
What You Need To Know

• Greeley City in Colorado with a slaughter house.
• Lexington City in Nebraska with a slaughter
  house.
• IBP Iowa Beef Packers.
• ConAgra Beef company runs the nations biggest
  meat packing complex just a few minutes of
  downtown Greeley.

3
What You Need To Know

• Greeley City in Colorado with a slaughter house.

3
4
What You Need To Know

• Lexington A city in Nebraska with a slaughter
  house.

3
5
The Wonderful IBP

• Holman Anderson.
• Denison, Iowa.
• Production system that cut time and eliminated
  skilled workers.
• Cheap powerless workforce.
• Added grinders and also fabricated to produce
  smaller cuts of meat.
• Became a meatpacking company with a fast food
  mentality.

6
Timeline of IBP
Acquired by Tyson Foods Inc.
Name changed to Iowa Beef Processors
Name will be change to
Present
1960s
1970
1982
2001
5/1/2005
Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc
Founded by Holman Anderson
Name changed to IBP
7
The Rural Areas Are So Much Better

• Hiding themselves seemed like a good idea.
• Separates themselves from unions.
• Closer to feedlots.
• With new highways, they had the ability to rely
  on trucks.

8
Crime and the IBP

• Lexington had high crime after slaughterhouse
  moved in.
• Gang members began to appear in town.
• Lexington became known as Mexington.
• .innocuous-looking building could be
  responsible for so much sudden change, hardship,
  and despair.
• 1969 workers went on strike in Dakota city, Neb.
  They then shot and killed a suspected company spy.

9
Labor Unions Meatpacking As One

• Every time a union started, factory was shut
  down.
• If one was shut down, they re-opened it and
  didnt hire back any of the union workers.
• Newer plants would pay 50 less
• Holman (IBP) admitted that he didnt like unions.

10
Wages Are Everything

• Used to be the best paying manufacturing job.
• Migrant industrial workforce of poor immigrants,
  tolerated high injury rates, and spawned rural
  ghettos in the American heartland.
• Many things have changed in cities you wouldnt
  expect, having gangs, abuse, and poverty happen.

11
We Need To Turnover The Turnover Rate

• 100 turnover rate.
• Profitability and production have not decreased.
• No vacation pay.
• Dont have to pay insurance for 6 12 months.
• Insurance is too costly.
• IBP Head of Relations isnt worried.

12
Recruiting Is Fun

• Target poor communities throughout the country.
• Homeless people.
• A lot of immigrants from Mexico.

13
Things Need To Change

• Become respectable, to the environment and the
  employees. This includes insurance and paid
  vacations.
• Wages need to increase.
• Profits shouldnt determine their behavior but
  ethics should.
• People running this stuff wouldnt treat
  employees like this if they had ethnicity.
• Profits and ethics are not mutual.

14
Small Community, Big Meatpacking Firm

• Poor workers without health insurance.
• Drug dealing .
• High crime rate.
• Bad reputation.
• Many middle-class people leave.

15
What Do You Think?

• If these people are willing to work with these
  conditions, should the government interfere with
  regulations?
• OR
• Do these people feel like they have no where else
  to go, so they are willing to work in
  slaughterhouses?

16
Sources

• Expedia. Expedia.com. 2005. 2 April 2005.
  3
• Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. Perennial,
  
• HarperCollins New York, 2002.
• www.shifting-gears.com/ slaughterhouse.jpg
• www.marlacampbell.com/ images/butcher.jpg

17
Sources

• Reuters. Tyson sends IBP name out to pasture. May
  12, 2003. 4/1/2005. cattleraisers.org/newsDesk/news_update_May_03_tscr
  a_Texas_cattle.aspTyson20sends20IBP20name20ou
  t20to20pasture.