Meatpacking Research Paper

Words: 1766
Pages: 8
Open Document
Meatpacking has long been one of the most important jobs in America. The systematic processing of animals for their meat has always proved its importance to the ever-hungry public. But since the 80’s, corruption has taken over these production facilities, endangering the safety of the workers. Although the industry faces a growing number of risks, change is still possible. Considered “The most dangerous job in America,”the meatpacking industry can be modernized through the introduction of automated machinery that could possibly replace the need for humans and reform the business permanently.
Meatpacking problems arose around the beginning of the 1900’s. This is considered “the beginning” of the Industrial Age of meatpacking, as now machines …show more content…
It is believed that each year, more than 40,000 workers are injured within the meatpacking industry (“The Chain Never Stops”). This number is incredibly high, and is mostly caused by cumulative trauma injuries, or movements that have been repeated continuously over and over again. Such injuries can severely cripple a person, rendering them unable to perform simple functions such as walking. As said by Eric Schlosser in his article, “The Chain Never Stops”, federal statistics say that “1 out of every 10 workers suffer a cumulative stress injury”. The largest injury rates are found among the workers at cattle processing plants. Cattle are large animals, and the most dangerous to work with. These animals can vary in size and shape, resulting in a challenge to be able to process the entire animal. Another factor that greatly contributes to injury is the speed of the processing line. At high speeds in crowded conditions, injury is most certain to occur amongst the workers. Common occurrences including stabbing oneself with a knife, stabbing another, falling carcasses, spillage of animal byproducts, and the list goes on and on. It begs the question that in a world where technology is advancing at an ever-increasing pace, and automation is taking over the workplace, is the need for human interaction within a slaughterhouse still necessary? Until that day, we will continue to see increasing injury rates and mistreated
Show More

Related Documents: Meatpacking Research Paper

Nutrition: Fast Food Nation Essay

by Eric Schlosser is a book about the American way of life. The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, he argues that today’s slaughterhouses and meatpacking industries are revoltingly unsafe, unsanitary, and employees are treated unfairly and with little or no respect. He gave me as a reader a lot of solid factual material. He did his own research so all of the information came from him. I strongly feel it should be necessary that the food as well as the working conditions be regularly monitored…

Words 1118 - Pages 5

Who Was Upton Sinclair's Best Work?

well as they had been at home; but how could they know that there was no sewer to their house, and that the drainage of fifteen years was in a cesspool under it?”(Sinclair 7). Many children were sent from their homes to these factories with fake papers stating that they were sixteen years of age, while many, like Stanislovas Lukoszaite, a Lithuanian immigrant, were only thirteen or fourteen years old. Stanislovas job was very simple, he would tend to the machinery and fill several cans of lard per…

Words 1410 - Pages 6

Chapter 19 Notes Essay

AP US History Chapter 19 Notes Packingtown, Chicago, Illinois (I aimed for their hearts and hit their stomachs.) Packingtown: adjoining the Union Stockyards, center of Chicago meatpacking, and full of the odor of the industry. The various ethnic groups here—Irish, Germans, Bohemians, Poles, Lithuanians, and Slovaks—rarely intermixed (despite being nearly all Roman Catholic), except in the saloon; saloons hosted weddings and dances, providing meeting places for trade unions and fraternities, and…

Words 5288 - Pages 22

Upton Sinclair Annotated Bibliography Essay

This text looks at the entire life of Upton Sinclair from his childhood to his death. It even expands upon his death, discussing his legacy even further; however, only one section of the book, the one on the writing of The Jungle will be useful for this paper. *Upton Beale Sinclair, Jr. (1998). In Encyclopedia of World Biography . Detroit: Gale. Retrieved from http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/bic1/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query= &prodId=BIC1&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&display­query=&mode=view&displayGroupNam…

Words 2865 - Pages 12

Essay on Sat Raw Material

一 、 莎士比亚 William Shakespeare (第一段介绍成就凑字数) English playwright and poet William Shakespeare, who lived in the late 1500s and early 1600s, is regarded as the greatest dramatist in the history of English literature. His plays include historical works such as Richard II, comedies, including As You Like It, and tragedies, such as Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear. He had a profound understanding of human nature and human behavior, and he was able to communicate this knowledge through the wide variety of…

Words 3212 - Pages 13