Vanderbilt was walking down the cinder block and cement hallway that lead to the Kill Floor. He obstinately still referred to it as "The Kill Floor" despite Canterbury Meat's recent memo that went out to everyone in the plant, including his USDA Office, advising that from this point on the decision has been made to refer to the center of slaughter operations as "The Harvest Floor," and that any in-plant correspondence should refer to Kill Floor by its new designation. Some''Suit;" some shithead of a marketing major who'd never set foot in a packing house had no doubt come up with this semantic brainstorm. Vanderbilt could just imagine the unctuous asshole presenting his suggestion during a brainstorming session in some boardroom.
"We're dealing with an image problem in this aspect of the meat industry. It's easy for enviro-nut groups such as PETA to label us as the bad guys when they can dump a bucket of blood and offal on us in the eyes of the public. The term "slaughter' has such negative connotations. Same with "Kill Floor." Why don't we begin to refer to a "Kill Floor" as "The Harvest Floor," from now on. When John Q Grocery Shopper thinks of harvest, in his mind he conjures up shocks of wheat, images of trees resplendent in their Fall colors; a Thanksgiving feast of turkey, ham, apples, squash and corn; the rich harvest of a land laden with bountiful crops; a cornucopia of plenty resting upon a table." These are the kind of images we want the term "Harvest Floor" to engender."
He smiled, extended his arms, and puctuated his suggestion with...
"We'll be feeding them wholesome family-friendly, industry-friendly images."
This was the kind of suggestion the CEO of Canterbury Meats liked. It cost nothing and it could be easily implemented with a memo. "Make it so," he ordered, relishing the opportunity to use the catch phrase that he'd stolen from Star Trek's Captain Piccard.
Such was the dialogue Vanderbilt imagined in his dark anti-capitalist musings. "And so it went." Vanderbilt mused sourly. "Corporate America is as adept at double-speak as any of the politicians that they own."
Hearing some loud voices ahead of him, Vanderbilt was roused from his bitter reverie by the sight of one of the Medical Management staff and a Kill Floor foreman pushing a wheelchair down the hall. The employee slumped in the chair, a young Hispanic woman, looked as though she had just woken up from a hundred year Rip Van Winkle slumber. She was still visibly groggy.
Ebeneezer Orness met Vanderbilt in the hallway a few seconds after the wheelchair and company had moved on. Vanderbilt normally had to behave professionally and keep his pro-union, anti-capitalism sympathies to himself, but "Eb" was one of the few people who worked in the plant that he trusted enough to allow himself to vent his thoughts to. A vocal critic of his employer, and a staunch union advocate, Eb would have been handed his walking papers a long time ago, except that he was good at his job. His precise cuts as a backsaw operator ensured that the company would maximize their yield on carcasses that he split. To put it in layman's terms, he made them enough money to where they could overlook his heretical views.
Eb wiped the sweat from his forehead and muttered, "it's a god-damned blast furnace out there today. It's pushing 100 degrees already and it's only a little past eleven." He motioned down the hall in the direction of the wheelchair and observed "that's the 6th goddamned person that's collapsed on the Kill Floor today."
It's the same every summer," Vanderbilt responded, hardly the type of commiserating comment that Eb was looking for. The back-saw man mopped his brow again, then pointed upstairs and snorted contemptuously.
"Corporate don't care. They sit in their comfortable little air-conditioned cubicles. The only time we see any of them is if they join us for a smoke out in the Cancer Shack, (Canterbury, citing a rare concern for the health and well-being of its employees, confined smoking to a tin-roofed area outside the plant). We grunts down here are as disposable as Bic lighters. If enough of us break down physically, or have the balls to walk away from these brutal working conditions in this economy, they'll just send another bus down to Mexico to bring up another load of warm bodies."
"Mexico, my ass," Vanderbilt retorted. "You're behind the times. The flavor of the month now is refugees from Myanmar. I'm sure you've noticed all the little Asians that have been coming in with the recent crops of new hires. They're allowed to emigrate here because of their status as "oppressed Christians." Our government, in its infinite wisdom, even pays half their wages in order to help them ease their way into settling into a new culture. It's a win-win situation for the big packing houses. The Feds pick up half their wages and the new hires are too damn scared to even listen to any talk about joining a union.'
"Yeah," Eb growled, I'm not surprised. I remember it used to be the Mexicans who were the ones who would come around with stunned, frightened expressions on their faces. They used to respond "no habla Union" when I'd approach them about getting one in the plant here. Not anymore. Now they're approaching me. They've been in this country long enough to know that management isn't supposed to treat them like dogs. Now some of them are coming up to me and asking me about a union. Things are heating up."
Has management noticed any changes in their change of attitude? Are they getting nervous?" Vanderbilt asked.
"Damn right management's worried," Eb admitted, looking in both directions before he began to speak again. "Talking about forming a Union is the road some of the smarter Mexicans are starting to travel down now. The boys upstairs are starting to feel the heat. Now they've got the foremen putting down the Hispanic workers every chance they get. I heard one of them, you know, the greasy Frenchman we all call "Butt Fuck Chuck," yell at Roberto the other day when he let an abscessed head get past him. He said something to the effect that "You goddamned Mexicans aren't worth a shit. These little Asian kids are working circles around you."
"Divide and conquer," Vanderbilt muttered grimly. "One of the World's oldest management tools."
"Yeah," Eb agreed. "It's all about "team" when they want us to add to our work load or take a hit on one of our benefits. When the weather warms up though and tempers smolder, and resentment flares up among the slaughter employees like so may small prairie fires, they'll start bulldozing firewalls between the races to keep the conflagration from spreading. Goddamned conniving greedy sons of bitches. All this talk about cultural diversity, acceptance and toleration gets flushed down the toilet when it stands in the way of the corporate bottom line." Eb looked both directions down the hall again, then whispered, "a few of us are meeting with the Meat Packers Union this evening to see if they'll invest money or manpower in a drive to get the Union recognized here. They're reluctant to help us though. The votes gone have gone against them too many times in this plant."
"Yeah, I've witnessed a few of those former campaigns. The same corporate whores who whittle away at their wages and benefits constantly; the same assholes who are constantly running time/study job reports to see how much more labor they can squeeze out of every job, are now calling every employee into an office individually to stress how important they are to the team and how letting the "god damned Union thugs" in would be the death of the company. Ofttimes you'll see the employee exiting with the corporate cheerleaders arm around him or her, actually beaming because they've been made so much of. Another holy warrior enlisted to smite the evil union by being cajoled into refusing to sign a union card."
"Things are heating up though," Eb insisted. "Maybe this will be the summer. We've got to get someone in that can talk to the Nigerians. We've no one right now who can speak their language, yet you can bet the company has interpreters who can. You can bet you'll know what message they'll be hearing and how they'll vote."
"Yeah, they still haven't assimilated yet," Vanderbilt observed. The company has built a little community for them just to the east of the plant. It also serves to isolate them from the community a bit so that the locals don't realize just how many black non-English speaking employees they're bringing in. The fulfillment of every greedy capitalist's dream from the West Virginia coal barons to George Pullman's community in Chicago. Workers shackled to a company town. Remember the old song by Tennessee Ernie Ford?
Sixteen tons..what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter don't you call me cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store.
" You don't have much of a singing voice, Vanderbilt, but that song is just what we're up against," Eb complained, the anger boiling just beneath the surface of his conversation. "Wherever there's poverty in the world now, the big packers send out recruiters to exploit it. How the hell can we fight an economy that's gone global? An economy run by greedy corporations who callously recruit from war zones and disaster devastated populations such as Haiti in order to use these people looking to better themselves to beat down the wage scales and break the Unions in this country? I don't know how the hell we can fight them within the system when they pay lobbyists to make certain the laws are written for their benefit."
Eb looked down both directions of the hall again. To Vanderbilt it almost seemed a paranoid reaction, but then Eb lowered his voice and when he spoke, Vanderbilt realized why Eb didn't want anyone to overhear him.
"Union membership is down to ten percent of the workers in this country, after a high of thirty five percent sometime after World War Two. Corporate America and their political toadies still think that's too threatening a number though. They won't rest until the Union label goes the way of the dinosaur. Let's face it. The system's broken. We need to take the battle to the streets; tar and feather or hang a few CEOs, torch a few factories. It's a war and they're showing us and our families no mercy as they beat us down. It's time we start fighting back."
"Ssssh," Vanderbilt cautioned him. "I don't care how good a worker you are. That kind of talk will get you fired."
"I don't care anymore," Eb said defiantly. "I really don't. I just don't know if I can handle another summer in this hellhole."
"You will, " Vanderbilt assured him, trying to settle him down a bit. "You've only got a few more years until you retire with full benefits. Curb your tongue or it will get you into trouble. You can still work for change. Just be discreet about it."
Both men turned. The supervisor of the head-boning table was steadying a groggy employee, a wizened little caucasian gentleman in his 60s whom everyone called Tattoo Tommy because of the profusion of body art that he sported.
"Here comes another one. Things are really heating up out there," Vanderbilt observed, dreading the thought that he'd soon have to head back to that hot, humid blast furnace of a Kill Floor
"Things are going to be heating up a lot more," Eb assured him. "Just wait and see."
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