Meat packing slaughter houses were familiar sights in America as far back as one can remember. They were usually found near a railroad in the warehouse area. The buildings were most always brick and three to four stories in height. The animals shipped in were usually grass fed and corn fattened. That all changed half way through the 19th century. What was once, one of the nations best paying industries, has established a migrant-worker oriented work force and according to those studying the situation has left workers powerless to correct inhuman work place conditions. Although newspapers are publishing the results of the changes, and other groups offering suggestions of what needs to be done to help the worker, the whole dilemma has stagnated without being corrected. Without the support of banding together and forming unions the immigrant workers remain at the mercy of their employers. The efforts, if they can be called that, amount to for the most part, empty suggestions when actions are long overdue.

The early sixties found the meat packing industry cutting wages in half and dropping many benefits. Unions no longer had the hold needed to protect the worker. Workers were for the most part immigrants from Mexico who accepted the meatpackers’ low wages and tried to successfully keep pace with the high speed operation of which the industry demanded. More and faster production left workers extremely vulnerable to an industry already fraught with accidents. Kutalik called it a “meaner industry.” Crisis was inevitable as the meatpacking industry restructured, closing old, union controlled, urban plants while setting up newer non-union plants and recruiting cheap immigrant labor. With the rise of the fast food business and the population explosion following World War II, there were demands for more and more meat products. Opportunists in the meat packing business took