Meatpacking Jobs Affected The American Industrial Revolution

Where I am from in Massachusetts is part of the Blackstone Valley, which is home to the Blackstone River. In 1790 Samuel Slater opened American’s first water powered cotton mill named Slater Mill, using the Blackstone River as it’s water source. This created many more mills to be opened along the Blackstone River and greatly affected the American Industrial Revolution. Because of this, growing up I had been used to see mills in many of the towns around me, whether they were closed, operational, or repurposed. Even though mills have surrounded me my whole life, I never experienced or witnessed the economical affects that they had on my community, since a majority of them where closed before I was able to understand their affect. Because of this

However, the industries have been faced with a huge demand from supermarkets and fast food restaurants and to cut costs, they have cut wages making meatpacking jobs into one of the lowest-paying manufacturing jobs. The reduction of wages means less income for those employed, which affects the community as a whole if the majority of the community is employed by meatpacking industries. The reduction in wages and high injury rates has made employees look for work elsewhere and caused many of the industries to employ migrant workers. The increase in migrant workers and reduction in wages have both had a significant impact on the crime, poverty, drug abuse and homelessness rates that the Midwest communities are

Holman and A. D. Anderson opened a meatpacking company that would reduce costs called the Iowa Beef Packers. The IBP was much different than normal meatpacking companies. They were a one-story workplace that had a disassembly line where workers stood in the same spot during their whole shift. The workers stayed in place repeating the same knife cut over and over again. This eliminated the need for skilled workers, which meant they could hire employees at lower wages. Another difference of the IBP compared to other meatpacking companies is that they could utilize the new interstate highways and transport their product by trucks rather than trains. In 1967 the Iowa Beef Packers started to provide “boxed beef” which consisted of smaller cuts of meat that were vacuum-sealed. This allowed supermarkets to eliminate a majority of their skilled, unionized butchers. Holman didn’t like unions and which is why one did not represent his company. In 1969 many of his workers went on strike because Holman wouldn’t meet their demands. Holman replaced the workers, which caused the workers on strike to do dangerous acts, such as firing bullets through Holman’s office window and bombing the homes of IBP executive employees. In 1979 while in the middle of a contract with ConAgra Beef Company, in which Ken Monfort wanted lower wages and the ConAgra Beef Company employees did not, Monfort purchased a slaughterhouse from Swift and Company. He also signed a deal with National