Meatpacking Industry

The first major expose of the meatpacking industry was in the novel titled The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair. It was released in 1906, a few months before Congress voted on the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act. Many observers at the time believed that its publication helped ensure passage of the Act. The Act created the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has been charged with the task of ensuring that the nation’s food supply (including meatpacking) is safe. Rules and regulations were established for meatpacking; inspectors examined meatpacking plants to ensure compliance. During the following 70 years, the meatpacking industry gradually improved and by the 1960s meatpackers were among the highest-paid industrial workers in the United States.
Beginning in the 1960s, however, the industry began to feel the brunt of the fast food revolution. Fast food operators mainly developed menus based on beef and chicken. Large chains pressured meatpackers for uniform products that tasted the same regardless of where they were produced. This fundamentally affected how cattle and chickens were raised, slaughtered, and processed. It also encouraged consolidation in the meatpacking industry, such that there are now only 13 major meatpackers in America.
The fast food chains were so large that they used their purchasing power to negotiate among meatpackers for the lowest possible price. To compete, meatpackers lowered wages, decreased training, and reduced safety requirements. They also had to increase the volume of meat processed. Therefore, lines that once processed 200 head of cattle per hour were sped up to handle 300 or 400 hundred per hour. Increased volume, even with decreased price, meant increased profits for meatpacking companies. It also meant installing new equipment that scraped bones for the maximum amount of meat. In scraping bones, small fragments of bone came off, as well as pieces of spinal columns, with their potential for spreading mad cow disease. Hygiene declined and injuries to workers increased. As a consequence, the meatpacking occupation became one of the most dangerous jobs in the United States. In addition, vast shifts in the amount of meat processed has meant that the industry has become more prone to the introduction of pathogens, such as Salmonella and E. coli 0157:H7, than in the past.
In 1982, the entire industry was deregulated by President Reagan. The unions that represented workers at meatpackers were busted and strikebreakers (mainly migrant workers from Mexico) were brought in to operate the slaughterhouses and meat processing facilities. Pressure from fast food chains for lower prices resulted in sharply lower costs for raising animals and a vast increase in the speed of the slaughtering and butchering. Today, the meatpacking industry has some of the lowest-paid jobs in America.
The meat industry has continually lobbied against regulations for food safety. The FDA cannot order meatpacking companies to remove contaminated meat from fast food kitchens or supermarket shelves. In addition, the meatpacking industry has supported so-called veggie laws, which forbid defaming agricultural products. For comments about beef that Oprah Winfrey made on her television show, she was sued by cattle ranchers in a Texas court. She won the case but the meatpacking industry proved that it has the ability to threaten critics with expensive lawsuits. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is authorized to levy fines on noncompliant meatpackers, but the maximum fine for a human death is $70,000, which is not a great burden for meat-packers who are making millions of dollars a year. However, McDonald’s is largest purchaser of beef and the company has the ability to influence meatpackers’ practices. For example, when McDonald’s demanded that its ground beef be certified to be free of lethal pathogens, meatpacker suppliers had to purchase microbial testing equipment.