Cogs In the Machine

1. Cogs In the Machine By: Boyd & Watson

2. Author’s Intent • Eric Schlosser attacks how the meat industry evolved from having the best-paying industrial jobs to transitioning into a migrant workforce requiring little to no skill. • The Meat Industry used shady business tactics and revolutionary ideas to maximize profit and lower worker wages.

3. Findings from the Chapter The author mentions a small meat packaging town in Colorado that was once a small Utopian community composed of farmers. After the transition to a meat packaging town the town has never been the same. Migrant Workers soon filled trailer parks and there was a high turn over rate of workers increasing crime-rate. Also another con was a horrid smell that filled the town of blood and manure. The citizens have learned to inure the manure. TL;DR As a factory moves into a small town it transforms the towns economy and population bringing in a high percentage of migrant workers with crime to follow.

4. Proven Points • Looking at the way of life from the town pre-factory and then post-present factory it is apparent that the way of life has changed. • Immigrants do get brought into factory towns to work with a rather high turnout rate. • The smell is atrocious like blood, death, and tears. • The meat still taste pretty good.

5. Author’s Bias • The author immediately starts off by exposing the negative impact that the meat packaging company has brought to the town of Greeley. The author also goes as far as saying that a once admired occupation has now turned into a migrate work force giving it a negative connotation.

6. Overall Relevance • The author links how the evolution of Meat Packing industry helped encourage the advancement of Fast Food Restaurants as mass quantities of meat became readily available. The Industry has become ruthless and unforgiving to the places factories are located showing a dark-side of Fast Food.