Reading Notes

In "Fast Food Nation", Eric Schlosser comments on the line speed of slaughter houses in the meat packing business: "I could always tell the line speed," a former Montfort nurse told me, "by the number of people with lacerations coming into my office." "A faster pace means higher profits. Market pressures now exert a perverse influence on the management of beef plants: the same factors that make these slaughter houses relatively inefficient (lack of mechanization, the reliance on human labour) encourage companies to make them even more
dangerous (by speeding up the pace)" "The line speeds and labour costs at IBP's non-union plants now set the standard for the rest of the industry. Every other company must try to produce beef as quickly and cheaply as IBP does: slowing the pace to protect workers can lead to a competitive disadvantage." " From a purely economic point of view, injured workers are a drag on profits. They are less productive. Getting rid of them makes a good deal of financial sense, especially when new workers are readily available and inexpensive to train." Just some of the basic tenets of the capitalist mode of production. John Ayers