Quantcast
Channel: Interceptor7
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 100

Upton Sinclair worthy scene played out at Tyson plant, Waterloo, IA

0
0

I remember reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair in my senior year of high school as part of a college prep class. For those not familiar with this iconic screed, the protagonist, Jurgis, an immigrant from Lithuania gains employment in Chicago’s infamous Packingtown.  There , amid the hellish, dangerous, and toxic work environments of the Stockyards, Jurgis sees his father sicken and die from the toxic work environment of 1920’s Chicago. After injuries and illness reduce him to working shoveling poisonous fertilizer, he learns that his younger sister has become a prostitute. Jurgis, of course, has no union to represent him or bargain for better working conditions, so he joins the then popular socialist movement. 

Fast forward a hundred years later, and NBC News among others is reporting that Tyson plant managers at the company’s Waterloo, Iowa plant established a gambling pool based on how many of the plant’s 2,800 workers would contract Covid-19. As it turns out, the lawsuit filed by one of the families of the six employees that died of Covid 19 last spring states that Tom Hart, one of the plant managers, organized a winner-take-all pool for whomever could guess the correct number of infected employees. You know, like the you bet on the Superbowl or a boxing match. The plant is reportedly represented by the UFCW. Union President Marc Perrone said the report “should outrage every American.” I agree it should.  The plot thickens. 

Tyson has opened an investigation into the incident which will be led by Eric Holder. In addition to the “worker infection pool”, the suit alleges that numerous safety regulations were not adhered to. Additionally, the suit charges that as Waterloo employees became sick, other employees were brought in from other Tyson plants to fill the vacancies but were not properly tested. The plant was closed on April 22 due to widespread outbreak of Covid 19 but was reopened on May 5 following Trump’s Executive Order to keep all meat processing plants open.

 As a union carpenter who enjoyed competitive wages and relatively safe work environments building houses for 12 years of my life, I am sickened to learn of the callous treatment of workers nearly a hundred years after so many of my union brothers and sisters fought and died for the right to be represented by unions.


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 100

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images