{"id":320,"date":"2021-03-22T20:27:17","date_gmt":"2021-03-23T00:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/?p=320"},"modified":"2021-03-22T20:27:17","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T00:27:17","slug":"tyson-and-storm-lake-can-you-have-one-without-the-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/2021\/03\/tyson-and-storm-lake-can-you-have-one-without-the-other\/","title":{"rendered":"Tyson and Storm Lake: Can You Have One Without the Other?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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by Gillian Davis<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cYou can\u2019t divorce yourself from the fact that Tyson is integrated deeply into the community.\u201d <\/p>\u2013 Art Cullen<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There is\nthe perception that Tyson and the community of Storm Lake rely on one another\nto keep a stable and profitable business and town thriving. Without town\nresidents, specifically immigrant workers, Tyson could not sustain itself in\nIowa. Storm Lake, on the other hand, needs the company, too. It provides\nincentives for immigrants to arrive and maintain (or increase) the population,\nproviding a boost to the local economy. However, might the relationship be co-dependent\nand toxic? Are community members exploited regularly, fitting a pattern of other\nmeatpacking towns? We focused on these questions this week, reading the first\nfive chapters of Dr. Timothy Pachirat\u2019s Every\nTwelve Seconds<\/em>, and speaking with Art Cullen, editor of The Storm Lake\nTimes<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pachirat\u2019s\nbook provided fascinating insights into meatpacking plants and the towns that host\nthem. Pachirat is a political scientist who decided to go undercover as a\nworker in an Omaha slaughterhouse for five months, working on the kill floor.\nThe author went undercover to understand the realities of routinized animal killing,\nhidden from view, while also analyzing the impact it has on the workers and how\nconsumers are able to remain ignorant to this violent production process. His\nbook also seeks to understand how society and even the workers can maintain a\ndistance\u2014spatially and psychologically\u2014from the realities of routinized slaughter.\nThe author highlights this distance by beginning his book with an anecdote of\npolice shooting a cow that had escaped in Omaha, Nebraska, and the revulsion\nthat slaughterhouse workers felt for the act; yet these same people were forgetting\ntheir daily involvement in a job that has an animal killed \u201cevery twelve\nseconds.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pachirat wrote the book narratively and from the perspective of a slaughterhouse worker. His conversations with fellow employees, witnessing the day-to-day life in the slaughterhouse, \u201cchallenges the reader to use these narratives as a way to think through what it means, from the perspective of a lived experience, to perform the daily work of industrialized killing.\u201d He also does not sanitize any of his experiences or conversations, instead including all the gory and graphic details. In doing so, he ensures that readers cannot maintain a distance from the truth of his experiences, and those of all other workers. This decision was his tool to force society to remove the veil from meatpacking plants and slaughterhouses, and to think about the truth behind each piece of meat purchased. Low-priced protein, in fact, comes with very high costs. The author writes, \u201cThe detailed accounts that follow are not merely incidental to or illustrative of a more important theoretical argument about how distance and concealment operate as mechanisms of power in contemporary society. They are the argument.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The author\nhighlights how, even though towns and plants need one another, consumers really\nperpetuate the troubled relationship. Americans want to ignore the truths of the\nmeatpacking industry, which is bolstered by the government and powerful\nlobbies. Pachirat describes how most Americans\u2019 \u201cdemand for a cheap, steady supply\nof physically and morally sterile meat\u201d is \u201cfabricated under socially invisible\nconditions.\u201d This willful ignorance allows the meatpacking plants, for example,\nto impede union formation, necessary to ensure worker rights and the ability to\nmake a livable wage. As we have recognized before, if unions could reestablish\nthemselves, the price of meat would rise to an \u201cunacceptable\u201d price for\neveryday Americans, who typically have the privilege of demanding cheap meats.\nThis privilege allows most of us to ignore the need of the workers to survive\non a living wage, unmet by companies working to meet consumer demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our\nthoughts this week formed around a concept presented in Every Twelve Seconds<\/em>:\nthe \u201cpolitics of sight.\u201d Pachirat defines the term as \u201corganized, concerted\nattempts to make visible what is hidden and to breach, literally or figuratively,\nzones of confinement in order to bring about social and political\ntransformation.\u201d In other words, this concept brings the public\u2019s attention to\nhidden aspects of society, like meatpacking plants in nondescript places,\nhiding routinized killing from society. Doing so can push for change, socially\nand politically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The class used this analysis to examine meatpacking plants in rural areas. Even though Tyson\u2019s turnover rate is around 100%, it continues to manufacture meat cheaply and efficiently in conditions that, to many, are troubling. On this topic, we also watched a couple of YouTube videos this week. One, \u201cAn Inside Look at U.S. Poultry Processing<\/a>,\u201d left much of the class troubled and led to a conversation on the ethics of meat consumption. In this video and another<\/a>, we were confronted with the practice of production. Indeed, Pachirat\u2019s \u201cpolitics of sight\u201d forced us to reconcile a habit of meat consumption with the truth hidden behind factory walls. Our class has not abruptly converted to vegetarianism, of course; but making the hidden visible will, at the very least, lead us to better informed decisions as consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Art Cullen, as a proponent of open discussion and access to information, certainly knows the importance of this issue. He spoke freely with our class on the potential for Storm Lake and the challenges it faces with the meatpacking industry. \u201cIt\u2019s really the responsibility of Tyson to pay their workers twenty-five bucks an hour,\u201d he said, \u201cso they can pay somebody a decent amount of money to care for their family or, perish the thought, one parent might be able to actually afford to stay at home and raise the kids themselves, like I was.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Art Cullen answered our questions for an hour on March 15.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cullen was\nnoticeably frustrated by a recent phone call with a Tyson media relations\nrepresentative. We asked him bluntly if Storm Lakers should ever be nervous\nthat Tyson would relocate and threaten residents\u2019 livelihoods. That view\n\u201creally goes back to busting the Union in 1980,\u201d he said. \u201cThe bullshit was instilled\nin our heads that they\u2019ll leave Storm Lake, [that] \u2018we\u2019ve got to give away the\nfarm to IBP to come in here to bust the union and pay half the wages.\nOtherwise, we wouldn\u2019t have any jobs at all.\u2019 Well, hello, wake up! We are\ngrowing two hundred bushels [per acre] of corn here. Nobody is more efficient\nat feeding hogs. There\u2019re going to be hogs here as long as there\u2019s corn. What\nwere we thinking?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the\nheart of this issue, in Cullen\u2019s view, is workers\u2019 lost trust in the good-faith\ndirection of their employers. \u201cTrust with Tyson (or JBS of Brazil or Smithfield\nof China) is something that needs work,\u201d he wrote in his recent editorial, \u201cTrust\nis the Issue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really the responsibility of Tyson to pay their workers twenty-five bucks an hour, so they can pay somebody a decent amount of money to care for their family or, perish the thought, one parent might be able to actually afford to stay at home and raise the kids themselves, like I was.\u201d<\/p>\u2013 Art Cullen<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

At the\nsame time, Cullen recognizes the importance of diversity to Storm Lake, how it\nhas revitalized the town to create a thriving place for many to live. At what\ncost, though? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the\npast, Tyson \u201cdid offer solid guaranteed employment to a paranoid community that\nnever wanted to see another layoff again,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was a horrible\nexperience for Storm Lake, for that meatpacking plant to shut down for a year.\nAnd so nobody ever wanted to see that thing shut down again, and Tyson came in,\nand they cleaned up the plant, and they made it look better. Planted some\nflowers and raised wages. But it\u2019s still, you know, an average of 18 bucks an\nhour, and that\u2019s just not enough, and I\u2019ve just had to wake up to the fact\nthat, when are we going to pay the real patriots in this country a living wage?\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s hard to ignore, to put out of sight: the town has been revitalized in part by the exploitation of the many people who have come for work opportunities and to have a place to settle and raise their children. Yet they are compelled to do so on a wage that cannot even let them afford child care, or for one parent to stay home for a few years, as Cullen was able to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cullen recognizes that, for years, he (like others) had lived under the fear of layoffs, as in 1981, or a fear that the town would die without continual plant operations. However, is the threat of closure necessary, or would consumer pressure and unionization be able to fix the issue? How can the town trust the company to do the right thing? \u201cWho\u2019re you going to believe,\u201d Cullen asked rhetorically, a company \u201cthat just paid a $221 million fine for price fixing and which fights their employees\u2019 wages for putting on and taking off their equipment at the beginning and end of the shift? A company that uses Donald Trump to order its employees back into work without personal protective equipment? You know, is this the kind of people you want to do business with?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ndiscussion we have had all week as a class, and the insights gleaned during the\ninterview with Art Cullen and the book Every\nTwelve Seconds<\/em>, lead to a very important question: is Tyson truly integral to Storm Lake, now in 2021<\/em>? The immigrant\nworkers have now formed a tight-knit community and have built successful small-town\nbusinesses, and many of their children are going to college and returning to\nbegin addressing key issues in the community, like Joanne \u00c1lvorez, a leader of SALUD!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or is\nthere, perhaps, a more symbiotic relationship between Storm Lake and Tyson,\nwhere one relies equally on the other for prosperity? The town is now thriving\nand has established that Tyson needs its workers, and the company needs the\ntown. Why hasn\u2019t there been significant change to wages and protections for\nemployees?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, the pandemic has revealed much of the vulnerabilities of the industry. The \u201cpolitics of sight\u201d have shown the American public, even if briefly, that the industry\u2019s business policies can be highly questionable, if not morally compromising. Perhaps Tyson needs Storm Lake more than the town needs the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gillian Davis is a history and American studies double-major who plans to enter law school in the fall of 2021. She anticipates specializing in international law. Gillian is currently involved in the History Department\u2019s Honors Program and is researching hair shearing in post-Occupied France from 1944-1945. She enjoys women\u2019s and European history, as well as American history (any era).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Gillian Davis \u201cYou can\u2019t divorce yourself from the fact that Tyson is integrated deeply into the community.\u201d \u2013 Art Cullen There is the perception that Tyson and the community of Storm Lake rely on one another to keep a stable and profitable business and town thriving. Without town residents,… Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4173,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-project-update"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4173"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}