Are the Tyson and other meat packing workers unionized? Or are they the same economically vulnerable immigrant laborers we were introduced to by Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle in 9th grade History class?
"I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."- Upton Sinclair
Are the Tyson and other meat packing workers unionized? Or are they the same economically vulnerable immigrant laborers we were introduced to by Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle in 9th grade History class?
"I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."- Upton Sinclair
The meat packers unions all got busted up in the ‘80s and ‘90s after Reagan made an example of the air traffic controllers. Monopolies and the idea of the corporate raider also became popular again about the same time. For some strange reason, we refuse to learn our lessons when we see or experience bad behavior by republicans as well as some of our own. Just call us Dems Charlie Brown as we watch Republicans Lucy pull the football away from CB once again, all the while insisting that that’s not really what’s going on.
Thank you for this brief encapsulation.👍I have been gagging for decades over the so-called Sainthood of Ronnie! He started the 40 year decline in workers' power that has brought the middle and working classes so low. And don't even get me started on the poor! With his stupid, but very effective "welfare queens"!
So here we are, pretty much in the same place workers were in 100 years ago. Time to enforce antitrust laws and go after the robber barons again. We've let things slide much too far.
What is the state of Taft-Hartley anyway? I assumed it was dead, buried and long forgotten since we’ve gotten back to monopolies again. By the way, I just read where Musk is starting to waffle on his Twitter deal.
Headline from today's WaPo article on this: "Elon Musk says Twitter deal is on hold, putting bid on shaky ground. The Tesla chief executive later said he is ‘still committed’ and a person familiar with the talks said they are ongoing"
I remember when Rayguns hosted Death Valley Days years before he became president. I'll be the profits of the company that made Twenty Mule Team Borax were huge. (In case you don't know, that was a major product advertised on the show by that Grade B actor.)
I call him Ray Gun. I blame him for getting the ball rolling on so many problems we see today including housing, homelessness, and mental health. I do bring him up when people are whining about these problems. May he be burning in hell.
Watched it for over half my life. Almost expected for there to be a plane crash because of Reagan’s rash act. Almost wished for it, ashamed to say. But who couldn’t see where it would lead…
I can’t agree. There are millions who are up in arms. We’re running for office and working for others who are. We’re in the streets, particularly since the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade appeared. Don’t give up! Never give up!
Yup! Heading to the D.C. Women's March tomorrow with my granddaughter. Cobbling 2 back-to-back signs, mostly inspired by Heather's letters. One gem turned up on the Episcopal Church web site: 'The Episcopal Church honors an individual's right to make an informed decision about abortion. The church is a pro-choice denomination and belongs to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.' That is the centerpiece of the poster 'Faith is a personal choice protected by our Constitution.' Rain predicted; off to the laminating print shop.
Go for it! This morning, my wife went out for a walk and emailed me a photo of a sign in a window that read, "If I make my uterus a corporation, will you stop regulating it?"
Absolutely perfect and appropriately in-their-face! Thank you for posting it, Jon, and tell your wife thanks. I am unable to go to WaDC this week, even though a couple of activist orgs here are offering free bus transportation. Makes me sad not to be there. Would really love it if somebody going could make a little sign with the uterus logo and put my name at the bottom?
Good for you heading to DC. Living now in DE makes it more possible to attend DC marches, and I’d be going if I could deal better with the expected weather. Thanks for the Episcopal update, too. They’ve got it right. Good luck tomorrow!
A poster I saw last fall: "We need to talk about the elephant in the WOMB" [giant outline of uterus and fallopian tubes with GOP Elephant inside between "talk about" and "the elephant in the WOMB"]
The Republicans are holding the football because 60% of white voters (and almost nobody else) handed it to them. They were able to do that, despite being a 20 point minority of the electorate because of voter suppression, gerrymandering, and anti-democratic defects in the Constitution. Democrats cannot do anything about any of those problems. Not with messaging, not with policy proposals, not with legislation. Their only hope is to overcome voter suppression by monumental get-out-the-vote efforts, and even if by some miracle they succeed, the 60% of white voters who want minority rule will still be doing everything they can to gum up the works, and since they comprise 40% of the electorate, they have plenty of gum. The 60% of white voters who vote Republican are the problem, the whole problem, and nothing but the problem.
Yes, I know this. I live in NC. We were overtaken by the republicans in the 2010 red wave. They did a number on our redistributing maps as you may remember.
The meat-packing plants are horrible, unsafe places to work. I had an English student, an immigrant from Ethiopia and the mother of 4 children, who worked at JBS for awhile. It was brutal and dehumanizing.
Exactly. People tend to focus on how bad it is for the animals (which I am in total agreement with) but it's also traumatic for the workers. Meat, eggs and dairy. All bad in any but the small scale farming.
Here in upstate New York, many small-scale farmers, including livestock producers, saw a boost in sales during the pandemic. Hopefully that trend will continue.
Same here in Vermont, Ellen. We even have a coalition of folks (including legislators) looking forward at how VT can meet future possibility of being food-sufficient is that becomes necessary. It's exciting to be able to eat local foods most of the time.
And, our (ie, the US of A) efforts to address those things are underfunded, therefore relatively ignored, or just presented as.., 'the problem'. Especially today, by the blowhards and pinheads of the Big aRse party. You might want to recognize them in more intellectual terms...like: Flat Earth Boneheads for Jesus - Under god. Aaaahh-Men. Ooops there's that word "men" again..., that's where The Beef is.
Here in Iowa, Tyson's plants are non-union, with many immigrant workers. Working conditions were dreadful during the early spread of Covid 19, with numerous workers falling ill and some passing. Safety protocols were inadequate to stem the spread. But workers had to show up, or lose their jobs.
These meat packing corporations hold a monopoly. Jon Tester in Montana has been asking for an investigation into why there are so few, and huge, managing meat products from ranchers. Their profit hits the consumer.
Tester is liked but how do you feel about Steve Daines of Montana? You know, the sea turtle genius. I really think that his latest outburst is an attempt to launch himself into the national consciousness as another forget me not Republican.
We probably just need to follow the money as HCR talked about. I think a lot of us have felt we consumers have been taken advantage of time and again. It also seems there are constant recalls of meat products (particularly ground beef).
I also have a good friend in Iowa who said a lot of family members in the meat packing plants were also less skilled workers in nursing homes. But that is a whole other kettle of fish.
Farmed salmon are not worth eating either....total mush. Fresh salmon right now is really expensive....last time I looked about $36 a pound. We buy black cod when we can get it....less expensive, good nutritional profile, and very tasty.
I grew up in the midwest where we only had canned salmon. I came to Oregon in 1968 and I don't ever remember that price. Fortunately, my LMT likes to fish, so he sometimes shares his bounty including salmon.
Yikes! Eye-opening that early in the pandemic, meat-packing workers forced by economic necessity to work in contagion conditions were also doing less skilled work in nursing homes! No wonder Covid ripped through workers and patients!
My older brother’s assisted living place required employees to commit to working there exclusively. Not at multiple homes. Resulted in only a couple of cases.
The dog of monopoly caught the car. Like so many industries, every recession results in the consolidation, and over decades has forced the smaller business’s to close or sell out to larger. So when Republicans claim pro business, what they really mean is pro big business, pro monopoly, pro my business at small biz owners expense.
But when there is a bacteria outbreak at the major baby formula producer, we don’t hear from companies spokesman nor CEO. Instead they blame the regulator and current President for Public Health and regulatory rules that keep infants safe from getting sick and/or dying.
See how it works? When ur in power defund, or unwind, or don’t enforce regulation that is there to protect people. When your out of power criticize with claims that governent is ineffective, overreaching, at fault, but they are really the ones that refused to solve the problem by ignoring it in the first time lace. What’s this contradiction called? Do we have a name for it?
Excuse me... I need to go 'take a republican'. Thank you. Uh Oh.. I was just advised that I should say: "I need to LEAVE a republican" .., not "take" one.
The story of corruption in the USA is long, many sided and deep. I don't know the beginning of Abbott's/Texas first moves on the wallets and lives of the people. Here's a big story. Abbott figures largely, but he was not alone.
'A few years ago, a series of newspaper articles shone a harsh spotlight on the foster care system in Texas. Investigative journalists with the Austin American-Statesman and the Dallas Morning News documented stomach-churning stories of cruelty and neglect made possible by an overstretched and underfunded child-welfare system. Turnover among case workers at Child Protective Services was sky-high, in part because of staggering caseloads that virtually guaranteed at-risk kids would fall through the cracks. In 2015, a federal judge wrote that Texas’s system was one in which “rape, abuse, psychotropic medication, and instability are the norm.” In 2016 alone, 217 kids died of abuse and neglect in Texas.'
'Governor Greg Abbott pledged to take urgent action to overhaul the “broken system.” Lawmakers berated child-welfare leaders during committee hearings at the Capitol, providing clips to be used in local TV news broadcasts. “Nothing is more important than protecting the children of Texas,” said Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. In a letter to the head of CPS, Patrick wrote that the state leaders would “not tolerate” the agency’s “totally unacceptable” failures any longer.'
'It was a good show. Such a good show, in fact, that it was almost possible to quiet some nagging questions: Didn’t the politicians pass the rules and budgets that starved CPS and kept it from retaining a competent workforce? Didn’t the policymakers have much better access to the inner workings of the foster care system than any reporter? Weren’t those in power ultimately responsible?'
'The systemic problems that were hurting and killing so many kids were outlined in a 1996 report commissioned by Governor George W. Bush, a 2004 report by the comptroller’s office, and a 2010 report commissioned by Governor Rick Perry. Little changed then, nor in 2017. That year the Legislature put a bit more money into CPS, and Patrick urged churches to adopt more foster kids in a video he posted on his website. Lawmakers also partially privatized the system despite warnings from some advocates that doing so would create dangerous conflicts of interest. By 2020 the agency was in another crisis, with children removed from their parents sleeping in agency offices in record numbers for lack of any other place to send them.'
'That’s the way our state government works, more often than not. Elected leaders do their best to ignore real problems that only they can solve, …' When someone forces them to acknowledge what isn’t working—as was done in the case of CPS by a crusading federal judge, journalists, and advocates—many state officials profess to be shocked by the shoddiness of the systems they oversee. And then, more often than not, they make token changes and move on.'
'But what if something were to happen that exposed Texans from all over the state and all walks of life to that ineptitude? On the night of Sunday, February 14, as Texas plunged into darkness and cold, as the lights and water went out, state government’s incompetence stopped being somebody else’s problem.'
'More than 4.5 million customers in Texas were without power during the peak of outages in the state this week, as freezing temperatures hit parts of the country.'
'The winter storm caused by the collapse of the polar vortex, likely influenced by climate change, will almost certainly go down in the record books as the most expensive natural disaster in the state’s history, outpacing the $125 billion toll of Hurricane Harvey. It could also prove to be even deadlier than Harvey, which took about a hundred lives. It will take some time to calculate how many died during Texas’s Lost Week, but it seems possible it will be significantly higher once indirect deaths are included.'
'An 11-year-old boy in Conroe died of hypothermia under a pile of blankets in his family’s mobile home, soon after having played in snow for the first time. A 75-year-old Vietnam War veteran went to his truck to fetch his last oxygen tank and froze there. An 8-year-old girl who died was one of 580 cases of carbon monoxide poisoning in Harris County alone, as Texans turned to generators and car engines in an attempt to stay warm. One doubts that these Texans, and those needing dialysis and chemotherapy, would be glad to go even longer without electricity if that’s what it takes “to keep the federal government out of their business,” as former governor Perry, one of the key architects of the state’s failed electricity grid, defiantly told Fox News.'
'The number of deaths will be roughly calculable, eventually, as will the economic losses, but the psychological damage is harder to quantify, though no less important. For those who lost power, water, and cell service, the experience was briefly that of being part of a collapsing civilization. It came after a year of a pandemic and an economic crash that have already put Texans under almost unbearable pressure.
'(Ted Cruz had flown to Cancún amid the worst of the crisis.)'
'Most importantly, the pain fell across geographic and socioeconomic divides. The suffering, of course, wasn’t evenly distributed—it never is—but it nonetheless included many middle-class and affluent folks who have previously had little reason to doubt the state’s ability to protect them. Poor Texans may be more used to having the power cut, but the experience of leaving a once-comfortable suburban home to find firewood for heat was probably a bit more eye-opening.'
'The winter storm that brought all this about, though severe by Texas standards, would have qualified as a brisk weekend in some parts of the country that wouldn’t experience so much as a flicker of their lights. Someone had blood on their hands. But who?'
'Texans looking to their governor for answers heard little, at first. A day and a half into the crisis, on Tuesday night, Abbott finally surfaced to be interviewed in the friendly environs of Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News. Abbott pinned the blame on wind turbines. The blackouts, he told Hannity, showed “how the Green New Deal,” and the rise of renewable energy, “would be a deadly deal for the United States of America.” (This was a few hours after the eleven-year-old boy froze to death in Conroe.) “Our wind and our solar, they got shut down and they were collectively more than ten percent of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis,” he said.'
'This was a lie. It was a convenient lie, because it slotted the disaster into a familiar front of the culture war—green energy versus fossil fuels, New York socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez versus Texas. This mess was environmentalists’ fault, somehow.
'Who, then, is to blame? Just as with the child-welfare system, the buck stops with state government—with lawmakers and governors past and present. For one, ERCOT is overseen by the Texas Public Utility Commission, whose three commissioners are appointed by the governor. He is the elected official most directly accountable for their performance and, through them, the performance of ERCOT.'
'The utility commissioners are the sorts of figures a governor appoints when he wants people to toe the party line, individuals with close ties to him and to the industry they’re empowered to regulate. The current chairman, DeAnn Walker, was a senior adviser to Abbott prior to joining the board. Before that, she was the director of regulatory affairs at CenterPoint Energy, the Houston electricity and gas giant. Another commissioner, Arthur D’Andrea, has been working for Abbott in various capacities since Abbott was attorney general, most recently as a lawyer in the governor’s office.'
'The commissioners are paid more than $200,000 annually, but face little scrutiny. Last summer, the commission disbanded its oversight and enforcement division, which among other things investigates deceptive practices by electricity retailers, apparently because it was acting as a check on the commission’s power. And in November, the commission unilaterally junked its relationship with the Texas Reliability Entity, an independent monitoring organization that makes sure electric companies follow state guidelines. Predictably, Abbott and his allies have directed fire at ERCOT, not his apparatchiks on the commission.'
'Deregulation also made the grid less robust and less resilient. By design, ERCOT has no “capacity market,” whereby electricity producers are paid to ensure generating capacity on future dates. Instead, the energy-only system relies on high wholesale power prices to encourage more generators to come online when demand rises. (That’s why some Texans with contracts pegged to the wholesale market have been getting post-freeze electricity bills in the tens of thousands of dollars.) The reliability of the Texas grid has always been an open question: we’ve seen relatively brief blackouts in winter storms and summer heat waves, but there have always been warnings of something worse.' (TexasMonthly) If you have read The Texas Monthly more that twice in a year you are out of luck reading the entire article because of paywall. Unfortunately, I am not a subscriber, so unable to gift.
Oh Fern, this should be loudly broadcasted throughout the land!! The usual suspects are guilty Guilty GUILTY! I so pray that members and former members of the Pro-Rape Party give Abbott the axe.
Marlene, You shouted it exactly; there was a time, a long time ago, when PBS and and local educational stations covered corruption and the culprits to some degree, not enough, but some. We need investigative journalism, regularly on local and national network tv, on social media, cable, newspapers... all over the ___damn place! Bring back LOCAL NEWS - rural and urban!
I posted this link elsewhere; here it is again. I can't remember if it answers the question why so few (greed, is my assumption) but it does explain how it happened.
I was going to say shameful, but it is corrupt. Our ignorant, and greedy, politicians bear much of the blame. Bought off, and controlled by PACs and mega producers, these crooks belong in jail with swinging door regulators and CEOs.
Just one more reason to finally cut the last of processed beef from my diet. Sickening in so many ways.
I only buy beef and pork locally. Mostly chicken as well, although I do buy pre-coked Costco chickens occasionally. I buy a half-beef annually that is raised by an organic farm under organic conditions, except that the butchering process is done on site (again under organic conditions, but not up to "federal code") in that the animals are not transported and terrified but butchered on their farm.
I do not buy "ground beef" ....UNLESS... I'm the BB'Q guy, then I figure all the beer we're gonna consume will save us. Yuhh., not a pleasant thought. Chicken is almost as bad. I'm for "local" too!
I just watched that video and I wondered who the farmers blame in Congress? I had seen another Vox special on this very subject go on full force attack against these beef packing companies but also on chicken companies too. They hit Perdue (Purdue?) up pretty hard. This was good, Lynell. I try and eat only organic chicken or wild fish. Stopped red meat almost 40 years ago.
That's a good question, Marlene. I suspect they are Republicans who aren't properly vetting their representatives. Just my guess.
I, too, saw something about the chicken industry and the hogs, too.
We eat organic chicken, too, mostly, and buy eggs locally. And we still eat red meat occasionally. We are lucky where I live to have a couple of sources for local beef.
I doubt she’s ever read it or anything that has meaning or makes you actually think. But as soon as someone points it out to her and gives her a book report...it will be headed to the bonfire
Ha.. Ted, The only thing on Christy Noem's agenda is that she is obviously constipated in the worst way. She needs to go to the Womens Room and relieve some republicanism. Flush hard.
Karen Perhaps an itty-bitty better than “The Jungle?” I haven’t read lately of fingers and wedding bands in sausage. What’s much worse is the monopolization of the food industry, especially in meat and poultry. The absence of unions and the sweetheart inspections by the government make the food industry is disgusting area of human exploitation and, not infrequently, excremental food. Workers of the food industry unite!
“In a new contract secured last summer, the union gained substantial raises from JBS, the Brazilian conglomerate that owns the plant. Colorado passed legislation mandating paid sick leave, after the state shut the plant for more than a week last year. Inside the slaughterhouse, dividers and partitions have been installed to help maintain social distancing.
wages jumped from about $18 an hour to more than $26 under the new contract.
The Greeley plant, which paid $2,100 bonuses to workers who got the coronavirus shots, has achieved an 80 percent rate of vaccination, Ms. Richardson added. The facility has increased wages more than 50 percent over the past five years.“
There was a more recent discussion of the processing of meat workers experience in either The Omnivore's Dilemma or Fast Food Nation. It might be the later where I recall the disgusting reality of the meat workers being discussed. I read them a long time ago. However, not as long ago as The Jungle. All of these books show the meat industry industry to be an awful one to work in.
Are the Tyson and other meat packing workers unionized? Or are they the same economically vulnerable immigrant laborers we were introduced to by Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle in 9th grade History class?
"I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."- Upton Sinclair
The meat packers unions all got busted up in the ‘80s and ‘90s after Reagan made an example of the air traffic controllers. Monopolies and the idea of the corporate raider also became popular again about the same time. For some strange reason, we refuse to learn our lessons when we see or experience bad behavior by republicans as well as some of our own. Just call us Dems Charlie Brown as we watch Republicans Lucy pull the football away from CB once again, all the while insisting that that’s not really what’s going on.
Thank you for this brief encapsulation.👍I have been gagging for decades over the so-called Sainthood of Ronnie! He started the 40 year decline in workers' power that has brought the middle and working classes so low. And don't even get me started on the poor! With his stupid, but very effective "welfare queens"!
So here we are, pretty much in the same place workers were in 100 years ago. Time to enforce antitrust laws and go after the robber barons again. We've let things slide much too far.
What is the state of Taft-Hartley anyway? I assumed it was dead, buried and long forgotten since we’ve gotten back to monopolies again. By the way, I just read where Musk is starting to waffle on his Twitter deal.
Of course. He’s a waffler and a twitterer.
Headline from today's WaPo article on this: "Elon Musk says Twitter deal is on hold, putting bid on shaky ground. The Tesla chief executive later said he is ‘still committed’ and a person familiar with the talks said they are ongoing"
Reagan was, in my father's words, "an amiable dolt."
I remember when Rayguns hosted Death Valley Days years before he became president. I'll be the profits of the company that made Twenty Mule Team Borax were huge. (In case you don't know, that was a major product advertised on the show by that Grade B actor.)
Your father was a wise man.
That he was.
I call him Ray Gun. I blame him for getting the ball rolling on so many problems we see today including housing, homelessness, and mental health. I do bring him up when people are whining about these problems. May he be burning in hell.
And mental health! I was working at a psychiatric hospital when he “set them free.” A lot needed to be fixed, but he just decimated the system.
My ex brother in law was doing the same. He lost his job and never really got to do what his job was really about after that.
That happened where I was when it became a corporation with a CEO who knew zero about medicine or mental health.
I like it(Ray Gun). I hate 20/20 hindsight but here we see he was another useful tool in the republican game plan.
Watched it for over half my life. Almost expected for there to be a plane crash because of Reagan’s rash act. Almost wished for it, ashamed to say. But who couldn’t see where it would lead…
All the lemmings couldn't see it, and they can't see it now, even as they rush toward the edge of the cliff...
I can’t agree. There are millions who are up in arms. We’re running for office and working for others who are. We’re in the streets, particularly since the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade appeared. Don’t give up! Never give up!
Yup! Heading to the D.C. Women's March tomorrow with my granddaughter. Cobbling 2 back-to-back signs, mostly inspired by Heather's letters. One gem turned up on the Episcopal Church web site: 'The Episcopal Church honors an individual's right to make an informed decision about abortion. The church is a pro-choice denomination and belongs to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.' That is the centerpiece of the poster 'Faith is a personal choice protected by our Constitution.' Rain predicted; off to the laminating print shop.
Go for it! This morning, my wife went out for a walk and emailed me a photo of a sign in a window that read, "If I make my uterus a corporation, will you stop regulating it?"
Oh, that’s rich.
That's a really good one. I just might make a sign using that for tomorrow's march.
HA! Good one! My sign will be “the GOP = the PRO-RAPE PARTY”!
Truly funny.
Absolutely perfect and appropriately in-their-face! Thank you for posting it, Jon, and tell your wife thanks. I am unable to go to WaDC this week, even though a couple of activist orgs here are offering free bus transportation. Makes me sad not to be there. Would really love it if somebody going could make a little sign with the uterus logo and put my name at the bottom?
My husband’s idea for a sign here in Florida:
Abortion Bans = More baby Gaetz 😱😂
Priceless!
🤣🤣🤣
I'll be marching in Oakland as well. Love the Episcopal church sign!
Good for you heading to DC. Living now in DE makes it more possible to attend DC marches, and I’d be going if I could deal better with the expected weather. Thanks for the Episcopal update, too. They’ve got it right. Good luck tomorrow!
A poster I saw last fall: "We need to talk about the elephant in the WOMB" [giant outline of uterus and fallopian tubes with GOP Elephant inside between "talk about" and "the elephant in the WOMB"]
Priceless!
Yes, that one has been around for quite some time.
Good for you!! I took both of my daughters in 2019, to DC’s March!
I do agree, jon. I get nervous seeing so many on this forum so pessimistic.
I see the people who vote one issue as the problem. The 100+ people I know who voted for tfg all vote one issue.
But boy do they holler when things go bad.
Same issue for all 100?
The Republicans are holding the football because 60% of white voters (and almost nobody else) handed it to them. They were able to do that, despite being a 20 point minority of the electorate because of voter suppression, gerrymandering, and anti-democratic defects in the Constitution. Democrats cannot do anything about any of those problems. Not with messaging, not with policy proposals, not with legislation. Their only hope is to overcome voter suppression by monumental get-out-the-vote efforts, and even if by some miracle they succeed, the 60% of white voters who want minority rule will still be doing everything they can to gum up the works, and since they comprise 40% of the electorate, they have plenty of gum. The 60% of white voters who vote Republican are the problem, the whole problem, and nothing but the problem.
Yes, I know this. I live in NC. We were overtaken by the republicans in the 2010 red wave. They did a number on our redistributing maps as you may remember.
More gaslighting by the R's and corporations and #45. Not to mention that #46 seems to be doing some, also.
The meat-packing plants are horrible, unsafe places to work. I had an English student, an immigrant from Ethiopia and the mother of 4 children, who worked at JBS for awhile. It was brutal and dehumanizing.
Exactly. People tend to focus on how bad it is for the animals (which I am in total agreement with) but it's also traumatic for the workers. Meat, eggs and dairy. All bad in any but the small scale farming.
❤️
One reason why it’s meat no more for me, there are more reasons…
I support local farmers.
Here in upstate New York, many small-scale farmers, including livestock producers, saw a boost in sales during the pandemic. Hopefully that trend will continue.
Same here in Vermont, Ellen. We even have a coalition of folks (including legislators) looking forward at how VT can meet future possibility of being food-sufficient is that becomes necessary. It's exciting to be able to eat local foods most of the time.
I've eaten less and less meat the more I learn about how these corporations operate.
And, our (ie, the US of A) efforts to address those things are underfunded, therefore relatively ignored, or just presented as.., 'the problem'. Especially today, by the blowhards and pinheads of the Big aRse party. You might want to recognize them in more intellectual terms...like: Flat Earth Boneheads for Jesus - Under god. Aaaahh-Men. Ooops there's that word "men" again..., that's where The Beef is.
You heard it here first!
Here in Iowa, Tyson's plants are non-union, with many immigrant workers. Working conditions were dreadful during the early spread of Covid 19, with numerous workers falling ill and some passing. Safety protocols were inadequate to stem the spread. But workers had to show up, or lose their jobs.
Evil and then some
Flat Earth Rules. Show up or die. Show up and die. You have a choice, amigo.
These meat packing corporations hold a monopoly. Jon Tester in Montana has been asking for an investigation into why there are so few, and huge, managing meat products from ranchers. Their profit hits the consumer.
I really like Jon Tester. He’s a farmer who farms his own land and takes care of the people who work for him.
Tester is liked but how do you feel about Steve Daines of Montana? You know, the sea turtle genius. I really think that his latest outburst is an attempt to launch himself into the national consciousness as another forget me not Republican.
I honestly don’t know anything about Daines but thanks for alerting me of him.
Just looked Daines up! What an absolutely gem he is, right? 🤬🤬
It’s your fault. He was born in Van Nuys. Must have been at the Budweiser brewery.
Shit!
We probably just need to follow the money as HCR talked about. I think a lot of us have felt we consumers have been taken advantage of time and again. It also seems there are constant recalls of meat products (particularly ground beef).
I also have a good friend in Iowa who said a lot of family members in the meat packing plants were also less skilled workers in nursing homes. But that is a whole other kettle of fish.
I wondered where some came from…
“Forks over knives”
“Game Changer”
Available on Netflix.
Bring back Wild Salmon and the Buffalo.
Farmed salmon are not worth eating either....total mush. Fresh salmon right now is really expensive....last time I looked about $36 a pound. We buy black cod when we can get it....less expensive, good nutritional profile, and very tasty.
I remember wild salmon at .39 cents a bound. Sustainable. inexpensive. Healthy. But Ranchers don’t want that.
I grew up in the midwest where we only had canned salmon. I came to Oregon in 1968 and I don't ever remember that price. Fortunately, my LMT likes to fish, so he sometimes shares his bounty including salmon.
Yikes! Eye-opening that early in the pandemic, meat-packing workers forced by economic necessity to work in contagion conditions were also doing less skilled work in nursing homes! No wonder Covid ripped through workers and patients!
My older brother’s assisted living place required employees to commit to working there exclusively. Not at multiple homes. Resulted in only a couple of cases.
The dog of monopoly caught the car. Like so many industries, every recession results in the consolidation, and over decades has forced the smaller business’s to close or sell out to larger. So when Republicans claim pro business, what they really mean is pro big business, pro monopoly, pro my business at small biz owners expense.
But when there is a bacteria outbreak at the major baby formula producer, we don’t hear from companies spokesman nor CEO. Instead they blame the regulator and current President for Public Health and regulatory rules that keep infants safe from getting sick and/or dying.
See how it works? When ur in power defund, or unwind, or don’t enforce regulation that is there to protect people. When your out of power criticize with claims that governent is ineffective, overreaching, at fault, but they are really the ones that refused to solve the problem by ignoring it in the first time lace. What’s this contradiction called? Do we have a name for it?
There should be one, more specific than standard profanity. Maybe someday “Republican” will be the word people use.
Excuse me... I need to go 'take a republican'. Thank you. Uh Oh.. I was just advised that I should say: "I need to LEAVE a republican" .., not "take" one.
Yes. A shit show.
Yes Christine (FL) Please, flush hard! It's a longways to Mara lago... err ahhhh Is the septic system still clogged...?
Works for me, Christine!
The story of corruption in the USA is long, many sided and deep. I don't know the beginning of Abbott's/Texas first moves on the wallets and lives of the people. Here's a big story. Abbott figures largely, but he was not alone.
'A few years ago, a series of newspaper articles shone a harsh spotlight on the foster care system in Texas. Investigative journalists with the Austin American-Statesman and the Dallas Morning News documented stomach-churning stories of cruelty and neglect made possible by an overstretched and underfunded child-welfare system. Turnover among case workers at Child Protective Services was sky-high, in part because of staggering caseloads that virtually guaranteed at-risk kids would fall through the cracks. In 2015, a federal judge wrote that Texas’s system was one in which “rape, abuse, psychotropic medication, and instability are the norm.” In 2016 alone, 217 kids died of abuse and neglect in Texas.'
'Governor Greg Abbott pledged to take urgent action to overhaul the “broken system.” Lawmakers berated child-welfare leaders during committee hearings at the Capitol, providing clips to be used in local TV news broadcasts. “Nothing is more important than protecting the children of Texas,” said Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. In a letter to the head of CPS, Patrick wrote that the state leaders would “not tolerate” the agency’s “totally unacceptable” failures any longer.'
'It was a good show. Such a good show, in fact, that it was almost possible to quiet some nagging questions: Didn’t the politicians pass the rules and budgets that starved CPS and kept it from retaining a competent workforce? Didn’t the policymakers have much better access to the inner workings of the foster care system than any reporter? Weren’t those in power ultimately responsible?'
'The systemic problems that were hurting and killing so many kids were outlined in a 1996 report commissioned by Governor George W. Bush, a 2004 report by the comptroller’s office, and a 2010 report commissioned by Governor Rick Perry. Little changed then, nor in 2017. That year the Legislature put a bit more money into CPS, and Patrick urged churches to adopt more foster kids in a video he posted on his website. Lawmakers also partially privatized the system despite warnings from some advocates that doing so would create dangerous conflicts of interest. By 2020 the agency was in another crisis, with children removed from their parents sleeping in agency offices in record numbers for lack of any other place to send them.'
'That’s the way our state government works, more often than not. Elected leaders do their best to ignore real problems that only they can solve, …' When someone forces them to acknowledge what isn’t working—as was done in the case of CPS by a crusading federal judge, journalists, and advocates—many state officials profess to be shocked by the shoddiness of the systems they oversee. And then, more often than not, they make token changes and move on.'
'But what if something were to happen that exposed Texans from all over the state and all walks of life to that ineptitude? On the night of Sunday, February 14, as Texas plunged into darkness and cold, as the lights and water went out, state government’s incompetence stopped being somebody else’s problem.'
'More than 4.5 million customers in Texas were without power during the peak of outages in the state this week, as freezing temperatures hit parts of the country.'
'The winter storm caused by the collapse of the polar vortex, likely influenced by climate change, will almost certainly go down in the record books as the most expensive natural disaster in the state’s history, outpacing the $125 billion toll of Hurricane Harvey. It could also prove to be even deadlier than Harvey, which took about a hundred lives. It will take some time to calculate how many died during Texas’s Lost Week, but it seems possible it will be significantly higher once indirect deaths are included.'
'An 11-year-old boy in Conroe died of hypothermia under a pile of blankets in his family’s mobile home, soon after having played in snow for the first time. A 75-year-old Vietnam War veteran went to his truck to fetch his last oxygen tank and froze there. An 8-year-old girl who died was one of 580 cases of carbon monoxide poisoning in Harris County alone, as Texans turned to generators and car engines in an attempt to stay warm. One doubts that these Texans, and those needing dialysis and chemotherapy, would be glad to go even longer without electricity if that’s what it takes “to keep the federal government out of their business,” as former governor Perry, one of the key architects of the state’s failed electricity grid, defiantly told Fox News.'
'The number of deaths will be roughly calculable, eventually, as will the economic losses, but the psychological damage is harder to quantify, though no less important. For those who lost power, water, and cell service, the experience was briefly that of being part of a collapsing civilization. It came after a year of a pandemic and an economic crash that have already put Texans under almost unbearable pressure.
'(Ted Cruz had flown to Cancún amid the worst of the crisis.)'
'Most importantly, the pain fell across geographic and socioeconomic divides. The suffering, of course, wasn’t evenly distributed—it never is—but it nonetheless included many middle-class and affluent folks who have previously had little reason to doubt the state’s ability to protect them. Poor Texans may be more used to having the power cut, but the experience of leaving a once-comfortable suburban home to find firewood for heat was probably a bit more eye-opening.'
'The winter storm that brought all this about, though severe by Texas standards, would have qualified as a brisk weekend in some parts of the country that wouldn’t experience so much as a flicker of their lights. Someone had blood on their hands. But who?'
'Texans looking to their governor for answers heard little, at first. A day and a half into the crisis, on Tuesday night, Abbott finally surfaced to be interviewed in the friendly environs of Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News. Abbott pinned the blame on wind turbines. The blackouts, he told Hannity, showed “how the Green New Deal,” and the rise of renewable energy, “would be a deadly deal for the United States of America.” (This was a few hours after the eleven-year-old boy froze to death in Conroe.) “Our wind and our solar, they got shut down and they were collectively more than ten percent of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis,” he said.'
'This was a lie. It was a convenient lie, because it slotted the disaster into a familiar front of the culture war—green energy versus fossil fuels, New York socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez versus Texas. This mess was environmentalists’ fault, somehow.
'Who, then, is to blame? Just as with the child-welfare system, the buck stops with state government—with lawmakers and governors past and present. For one, ERCOT is overseen by the Texas Public Utility Commission, whose three commissioners are appointed by the governor. He is the elected official most directly accountable for their performance and, through them, the performance of ERCOT.'
'The utility commissioners are the sorts of figures a governor appoints when he wants people to toe the party line, individuals with close ties to him and to the industry they’re empowered to regulate. The current chairman, DeAnn Walker, was a senior adviser to Abbott prior to joining the board. Before that, she was the director of regulatory affairs at CenterPoint Energy, the Houston electricity and gas giant. Another commissioner, Arthur D’Andrea, has been working for Abbott in various capacities since Abbott was attorney general, most recently as a lawyer in the governor’s office.'
'The commissioners are paid more than $200,000 annually, but face little scrutiny. Last summer, the commission disbanded its oversight and enforcement division, which among other things investigates deceptive practices by electricity retailers, apparently because it was acting as a check on the commission’s power. And in November, the commission unilaterally junked its relationship with the Texas Reliability Entity, an independent monitoring organization that makes sure electric companies follow state guidelines. Predictably, Abbott and his allies have directed fire at ERCOT, not his apparatchiks on the commission.'
'Deregulation also made the grid less robust and less resilient. By design, ERCOT has no “capacity market,” whereby electricity producers are paid to ensure generating capacity on future dates. Instead, the energy-only system relies on high wholesale power prices to encourage more generators to come online when demand rises. (That’s why some Texans with contracts pegged to the wholesale market have been getting post-freeze electricity bills in the tens of thousands of dollars.) The reliability of the Texas grid has always been an open question: we’ve seen relatively brief blackouts in winter storms and summer heat waves, but there have always been warnings of something worse.' (TexasMonthly) If you have read The Texas Monthly more that twice in a year you are out of luck reading the entire article because of paywall. Unfortunately, I am not a subscriber, so unable to gift.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/responsible-texas-blackouts/
Oh Fern, this should be loudly broadcasted throughout the land!! The usual suspects are guilty Guilty GUILTY! I so pray that members and former members of the Pro-Rape Party give Abbott the axe.
Marlene, You shouted it exactly; there was a time, a long time ago, when PBS and and local educational stations covered corruption and the culprits to some degree, not enough, but some. We need investigative journalism, regularly on local and national network tv, on social media, cable, newspapers... all over the ___damn place! Bring back LOCAL NEWS - rural and urban!
Definitely!!
Plain old-fashioned self-serving hypocrisy.
Republicanism?
Flat Earthers, sans a leader (at the moment). That's "republicanism" personified.
I posted this link elsewhere; here it is again. I can't remember if it answers the question why so few (greed, is my assumption) but it does explain how it happened.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_hCLjUrK1E (Vox)
I was going to say shameful, but it is corrupt. Our ignorant, and greedy, politicians bear much of the blame. Bought off, and controlled by PACs and mega producers, these crooks belong in jail with swinging door regulators and CEOs.
Just one more reason to finally cut the last of processed beef from my diet. Sickening in so many ways.
Meat gone, not missed,
Me too. 10 years and I haven’t died of protein deficiency.
30-plus years for me!
❤️
I only buy beef and pork locally. Mostly chicken as well, although I do buy pre-coked Costco chickens occasionally. I buy a half-beef annually that is raised by an organic farm under organic conditions, except that the butchering process is done on site (again under organic conditions, but not up to "federal code") in that the animals are not transported and terrified but butchered on their farm.
We, too, have local options, run by folks who have been in the business for many years.
My local butcher shop is Union, and offers a Military and First Responder discount (very few places recognize first responders…)
I do not buy "ground beef" ....UNLESS... I'm the BB'Q guy, then I figure all the beer we're gonna consume will save us. Yuhh., not a pleasant thought. Chicken is almost as bad. I'm for "local" too!
❤
I think science has proven that diets high in processed meat, are much more likely to get and die from cancer and/or heart attacks.
Thanks for sharing Lynell.
You're very welcome, Trisha!
I just watched that video and I wondered who the farmers blame in Congress? I had seen another Vox special on this very subject go on full force attack against these beef packing companies but also on chicken companies too. They hit Perdue (Purdue?) up pretty hard. This was good, Lynell. I try and eat only organic chicken or wild fish. Stopped red meat almost 40 years ago.
That's a good question, Marlene. I suspect they are Republicans who aren't properly vetting their representatives. Just my guess.
I, too, saw something about the chicken industry and the hogs, too.
We eat organic chicken, too, mostly, and buy eggs locally. And we still eat red meat occasionally. We are lucky where I live to have a couple of sources for local beef.
We too, can get local foods and many grocery stores here supply them.
I’m pretty sure it’s “The Jungle” No unions in sight. Corruption and cruelty at it’s best
Or more appropriately at it’s worst
I wonder if it’s on Christy Noem’s “to be banned list”
I doubt she’s ever read it or anything that has meaning or makes you actually think. But as soon as someone points it out to her and gives her a book report...it will be headed to the bonfire
Unf**kingbelievable
I can’t stand hearing her name which conjures up watching her at any lecturn being loathsome.
Goebbels's grand daughter.
Ha.. Ted, The only thing on Christy Noem's agenda is that she is obviously constipated in the worst way. She needs to go to the Womens Room and relieve some republicanism. Flush hard.
Probably...the Gnome is one of the worst. My husband has relatives in South Dakota who regularly report (as in one almost daily) on her vile doings.
Karen Perhaps an itty-bitty better than “The Jungle?” I haven’t read lately of fingers and wedding bands in sausage. What’s much worse is the monopolization of the food industry, especially in meat and poultry. The absence of unions and the sweetheart inspections by the government make the food industry is disgusting area of human exploitation and, not infrequently, excremental food. Workers of the food industry unite!
At the JBS plant in Greeley, CO.
“In a new contract secured last summer, the union gained substantial raises from JBS, the Brazilian conglomerate that owns the plant. Colorado passed legislation mandating paid sick leave, after the state shut the plant for more than a week last year. Inside the slaughterhouse, dividers and partitions have been installed to help maintain social distancing.
wages jumped from about $18 an hour to more than $26 under the new contract.
The Greeley plant, which paid $2,100 bonuses to workers who got the coronavirus shots, has achieved an 80 percent rate of vaccination, Ms. Richardson added. The facility has increased wages more than 50 percent over the past five years.“
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/29/business/meat-factories-covid.html
And how were their profits affected??? Not at all, I suspect
Which is actually great news. It proves a company can treat its employees well and still prosper. Spread the word!
Profit is not a four letter word.
Profit is what makes our economy among the strongest in the world.
Profit is fine, but not unreasonable profit at the expense of both workers and consumers. Price gouging is what makes profit dirty.
Especially when they kick us when we’re down!
But isn’t greed the operative word
Ms. Rose, Mr. Spencer’s point, I believe, is that the Greeley plant’s owners lost NOTHING while making their workers’ lives so much better.
It’s the massive bonuses for the essentially all white and male management that is problematic.
This link is off your link, H.H., and mirrors the September 2021 Vox article, posted elsewhere on this page:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/business/beef-prices-cattle-ranchers.html?
👍🏼
Thanks!
So glad you asked, Ted:
https://www.ufcw.org/who-we-represent/packing-and-processing/
Biden's State of the Union address about meat packers (political?):
https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/biden-calls-out-meat-packers-sotu
Vox's September 2021 expose about the Big Four - 14 minutes (nonpolitical?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_hCLjUrK1E
Thanks!
There was a more recent discussion of the processing of meat workers experience in either The Omnivore's Dilemma or Fast Food Nation. It might be the later where I recall the disgusting reality of the meat workers being discussed. I read them a long time ago. However, not as long ago as The Jungle. All of these books show the meat industry industry to be an awful one to work in.
That book electified my as a kid.
Yes!
It's quite likely Tyson and the other companies have no unions.