Within the article “Hanging tongues: A Social Encounter with the Assembly Line” by William E. Thompson, is described the relationship that workers from a large beef plant have with one another, and their role in the workplace. This form of society had different elements that affected mainly the workers. In order to understand the society in the workplace, the author of the article himself went to work in the division of Slaugther. He performed his study in “nine weeks of full-time participant observation” (1). To have more sociological perspective of the life of these employees it was necessary the involvement of Thompson in the society. The beef plant was located in the Midwest. It employed approximately 1,800 employees for each …show more content…
This was only because the work needed to be done. Most of these workers did not really know each other; the most they could know about each other was their first name. They even developed a form of sign language that allowed them to communicate because they had to use earplugs, due to the loud noise. Each part of the process was a routine they all did on a daily basis. It was normal that the workers spent their hours daydreaming on singing to themselves. Death was not always present in the assembly line, but it did involve danger. Workers would injure themselves all the time, or get muscle and ligament damage to their fingers and hands. Because being injured was so common “after a serious accident […] the workers would immediately disassociate themselves from the event and its victim” (4). There was a way of insensibility among the …show more content…
That is exactly what these people were doing. Thomson believed that they were viewed “as mere extensions of the machines with which they work, their human needs become secondary in importance […]” (4). People tried to keep their sense of worth in different ways. Social life was indispensable to keep their humanity present. Social life was affected as well, thought. Some sabotage also helped these people. They could have found another job, but it was difficult when they had so many benefits. One of them was the financial need they had. Their weekly wage was very generous for the time they were living in. The workers used this wage to fulfill financial rewards. This would put them into a term put by Thompson as “financial trap”. The problem described “that the possession of these expensive items required the continual income of a substantial paycheck which most of these men could only obtain by staying in the beef plant”
Ehrenreich adopted the sociologist's tool of an ethnography for her research. She became a covert participant observer while at the jobs she worked. As such, she did not expose herself as a journalist to her coworkers until the conclusion of each job. She did this in order to not experience the Hawthorne Effect; the effect that happens when people knowingly are observed and therefore change their normal habits to please the observer. While the book was an interesting read and her personal experiences enlightening to many of the low wage worker's dilemmas and alienating jobs, her pitfalls in research outweigh her strengths.
Social Issues of Work in Ben Hamper's Book Riverhead Ben Hampers book Rivethead; Tales From The Assembly Line is a gritty in your face account of a factory workers struggles against his factory, his co-workers, and the time clock. Hamper makes no apologies for any of his actions, many of which were unorthodox or illegal. Instead he justifies them in a way that makes the factory workers strife apparent to those who have never set foot on an assembly line and wouldn’t have the vaguest idea how much blood, sweat and tears go into the products we take for granted everyday.
Fink explained that the title of her book “describes the painful and extended process by which women and ethnic minorities inserted themselves into the meatpacking workforce and redefined the struggle for recognition of workers’ rights”, (Fink, p. 3). Fink detailed that because the majority of the early meatpacking industry was centered mainly in the Midwestern cities which grew in part from receiving government help and contracts, the government then had some influence over labor in these packinghouse plants. Government regulations has strengthened the unions, improved the workers’ compensation, and “improved the conditions on their production floors”, (Fink, p.193). Furthermore, Fink also described that the entrance of Iowa Beef Packers in the 1960’s has resulted in the shift of the packinghouses from urban to rural areas which later on resulted to the government pulling away from “labor and toward business” (Fink, p. 193) which eventually weakened the union. Moreover, when the power of the union degraded, so did the incomes and the conditions of the workers on the production floor. In addition, Fink also explored how the union’s ability to represent the wage workers in the packinghouse has eroded with the admission of women in the workforce during and after the World War II. Although the union added women in the workforce, they were treated not as men’s equals and were paid cheaply less than men. Furthermore, Fink added that “Women’s position in post-World War II packinghouse continued to erode until the situation came a head with a passage of the Civil Rights of 1964” (Fink, p. 194) which was supposed to stop gender bias in employment but did not. Similarly, Fink mentioned that “contempt for women facilitated the meatpackers’ use
Did they have a good quality of life before the death that turned them into someone’s dinner?” (Steiner 845). With these questions the author tries to hook up his audience and make them think about how and where does everyday meat comes from.
In Andrew Braaksma 's essay Some Lessons From The Assembly Line he provides the perspective of a college student learning life lessons from his summer job in a factory and how it showed him not to take his ability to have a higher education for granted. While most students never give it a second thought about not going to college, Braaksma learned from the hard work and low pay to appreciate the opportunities he has. Most college age students have never experienced the struggles of what real life can throw at them. Long hours with low wages, the physically taxing nature of some of these jobs and lack of job security. Having myself worked construction jobs for many years before going back to college his essay could prove invaluable to many students.
Ford's Assembly Line Assembly Line The assembly line has changed the world as drastically as it has been changed by the world since it began. It brought people together to work as a group. toward all achieving the same goal. Henry Ford was only aiming to bring cars into the homes of the average citizen.
... stealing, and sleeping with random women, there was no way they could help make the United States a better place. The commercial class needed such people in order for their own business’s to prosper, yet they still disapproved how the lower class spent its free time. Instead of helping change the lower class’s lifestyle, the commercial class just complained about it.
After arriving in America, they are taken to Packingtown to find work. Packingtown is a section of Chicago where the meat packing industry is centralized. They take a tour of the plant, and see the unbelievable efficiency and speed at which hogs and cattle are butchered, cooked, packed, and shipped. In Packingtown, no part of the animal is wasted. The tour guide specifically says “They use everything about the hog except the squeal,” (The Jungle, page 38).
Throughout the day’s observation, a plethora of sociological concepts become abundantly apparent. However, for the purpose of this paper, we will only focus on the day’s greatest prevalent concepts. The first concept that strikes as a significant sociological concept is family as it is the opening and closing concept of the day. Next, the concept of gender roles appears as important because of the masculine groups that are so prevalent during observation. Third, the theory of religion grabs its place in prevalence due to its ability to center and focus the entire day. Lastly, the concept of stage theory rears into the spot as a result of interactions in the work center. When reviewing these sociological concepts, it becomes abundantly clear
The corporation had no compassion towards its laborers. This extract from Sinclair’s novel The Jungle explains the terrible conditions in which employees work: “.your hand slips up on the blade, and there is a fearful gash. And that would not be so bad, only for the deadly contagion. The cut may heal, but you never can tell,” (Sinclair, 12).
Many farmers and craftsmen left rural areas, and moved to cities to work as an industrial worker. While many farmers and craftsmen left rural areas the city 's population had doubled. There was also improved medical knowledge which lead to the conclusion that less people died during their childhood and the average length of life was much longer than in the past. When the new industrial life started, major changes came about for industrial workers. Most of the workers weren’t to pleased about the changes. The workers couldn’t do as they pleased, they had to abide by the policy of the factories and textiles. The new industrial workers had to work long hours, they also had to in work the same pace as the machine that they were operating. The longer hours and hard work made the workers suffer severely, the women and children suffered the
In the book Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser talks about the working conditions of fast food meat slaughterhouses. In the chapter “The Most Dangerous Job,” one of the workers, who despised his job, gave Schlosser an opportunity to walk through a slaughterhouse. As the author was progressed backwards through the slaughterhouse, he noticed how all the workers were sitting very close to each other with steel protective vests and knives. The workers were mainly young Latina women, who worked swiftly, accurately, while trying not to fall behind. Eric Schlosser explains how working in the slaughterhouses is the most dangerous profession – these poor working conditions and horrible treatment of employees in the plants are beyond comprehension to what we see in modern everyday jobs, a lifestyle most of us take for granted.
From the start of the Civil War until the 1920's Chicago was home to the countries largest meat packing facilities; Philip Armour, Gustavus Swift, and Nelson Morris. As much as 85 percent of consumer meat in the US came from Chicago's vast packing plants. Behind the companies were around 25,000 employees, making up almost half of the entire US meatpacking work force. Most of the employees were underpaid immigrants who spoke little to no english and made a meager one cent an hour. The highest an employee could aspire to was being a "butcher" who were considered the most skilled workers and made up to fifty cent an hour. Workers slaved away in gruesome, unsafe conditions for ten to twelve hours a day, six days a week. Laboring through the ear deafening shrieks of animals a slaughter, treading over slick blood soaked floors, suffering in unventilated rooms and constantly breathing in the vile, putrid smell of every that was the slaughter house. In 1904 the meatpacker union in Chicago went on strike and demanded better wages and working conditions, but the strike didn't even slow down p...
During this time period there was also a drastic growth of cities, employment of skilled and unskilled workers, the role of children, and the change of laws. Children jobs were now changing from working on the farm to working in the factories. The reason was because there was disparity amongst the classes, the rich and the poor. While the rich own companies they were exploiting the poor. People started working as young as the age of 6. The average work day was 14-16 hours a day. Living conditions were horrible for the working class. If the factories lack of safety didn’t kill the working class than the living conditions did. There were no health sanitation laws that protect the working class so most of them died from diseases that could have been preventable.
Schlosser devotes chapters to various aspects of the industry. They do not all fit together however the picture he created is frightening. In particular, the conditions described in the meatpacking industry are terrible and the description of the federal and state power regarding inspection and consumer safety is disturbing .