A good friend of mine asked a serious question this morning

[malaise]

how come in a state that is 90% white, the meat packers are 70% non-white and many are foreigners without greencards?

[Freddie]

1. Cheap labor

And the ability to exploit them without complaint.

There’s a poultry processing place not far from here. Used to be a good place to work. Several changes of ownership later I hear they refuse to hire “regular Americans” for fear we will report them to OSHA, try to start a union or report them to the state labor board. They go through job applications and only call people with Hispanic names.

[malaise]

2. Old habits die hard

This is sick

[BComplex]

4. Man that pisses me off!

Then they'll complain about border security, no doubt, and be anti-immigration.

[crickets]

5. Those two words were the first to come to mind.

And for exactly the reasons you cite: lower wages, no pushback on working conditions. It's so wrong.

[abqtommy]

3. This thread is a perfect balance of a good question and a good answer! (Judging by the

the original op and the first reply. So discounting my observation, so far so good...

[Wellstone ruled]

6. Worked on a Beef Kill

part time while in College. At that time the line speed was what we called a White Guy's pace. Not bad conditions and the pay was Union Scale with shift differential even for the Part Timers.

Once the Packers broke the Unions,the wages went into the tank as well as the benefits. Plus the Line speed was cranked way up and if you do not trim or bone so many pieces per minute,you are out the door.

Cargill Meat Division recruited workers in Latin America back in the eighties with promise of big paydays and hiring bonus . By the way,at the same time ADM and Cargill Grain operations were flooding Latin America with cheap corn causing many small farmers to go out of business do to loss of their markets.

[malaise]

7. Thanks for this

man to man is so unjust -Marley

[Hermit-The-Prog]

8. cheap, desperate, controllable through extortion

These places sort through the labor pool for people who can be threatened, will work cheap, and, last, who can cut fast enough to keep up.

There are no consequences for the employers because the Feds are the threat hanging over the heads of the employees. It's Mussolini's grand idea of fascism come true.

[Totally Tunsie]

9. As a New England Patriots fan, I have a solution to this:

Send in the Green Bay Packers!

(Levity, folks!)

[malaise]

10. Clearly you don't know that the only football team I love is

the Green Bay Packers

[Totally Tunsie]

11. Oops. But do you know how much of a beating I take

as a Patriots' fan? <sigh>

Besides, being a Packer is honorable, indeed. Ain't nothing wrong with being a Packers' fan. Their name recognizes the benefactor of their fledgling team (which I'm sure you already know!)!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers#Founding

The Green Bay Packers were founded on August 11, 1919[1] by former high-school football rivals Earl "Curly" Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun.[14] Lambeau solicited funds for uniforms from his employer, the Indian Packing Company, a meat packing company.[15] He was given $500 ($7,400 today) for uniforms and equipment, on the condition that the team be named for its sponsor.[16] The Green Bay Packers have played in their original city longer than any other team in the NFL.

Now, if we can just get to see them all play next season...

[malaise]

12. It's all good

[Midnight Writer]

13. Back in the 70's, a bunch of farm boys from around here went to Iowa to get meat packing jobs.

They'd grown up on farms, new how to butcher, and since work was scarce around here, they figured they could make some good money in Iowa.

They came running home pretty damn quick.

Not the work they expected.

One of these guys told me he'd never imagined such sickening treatment of animals, and the workers didn't fare well either.