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And that plant is now one of the largest in the US
“Today, that same beef plant in Greeley is owned by JBS USA and has grown into one of the biggest slaughterhouses in the country with more than 6,000 workers”
https://sentientmedia.org/profit-over-people-the-meat-industrys-exploitation-of-vulnerable-workers/
I'm sorry, but when was it exactly that the meat packing industry offered a "middle class way of life"? Was it in the early 20th century when they exploited thousands of European immigrants in the Chicago slaughterhouses? Or in the present day when they exploit immigrants from central and south America?
I can only speak for the UK but in the 60's and 70's here, you could be a welder, marry a nurse and buy an average three bedroom detached house with a nice garden. I'm not saying that it would have been a cake walk, but it was absolutely possible if you put your mind to it.
Now those combined wages will struggle to pay the rent on the shittest property in town whilst your landlord struts about telling you how entitled you are.
I'm pretty sure the text tells you, prior to the 1980's, but they probably mean more the 50's and 60's, the 70's was definitely a down economic era in the US.
Reagan's administration did a lot of de-regulation, privatization, and cost cutting that are causing now catastrophic consequences on the country. Clinton also screwed the pooch with the NAFTA agreement , Nixon never found a union he didn't want to crush, we can keep going like this about the screwing of the middle class by other presidents, but none were more destructive and consequential than Reagan.
Probably back when they were butchers and not meat packers
I don't think the takeaway here is to improve slaughterhouse worker conditions or retention investment. I'm pretty sure the takeaway here is that the slaughterhouse is incompatible with human dignity, and should not exist.