An Open Knowledge as a Beef Plant Workers

In the article “Hanging Tongues: A Social Encounter with The Assembly Line” by
William E. Thompson (1983) relates the experience of working on a modern assembly
line in a large beef plant. The article shows the different tests with different types of line
work that are carried out inside the beef plant which involves slaughtering and
processing of cattle into a variety of products. According to him, this kind of work is a
“dirty work’ in a way that it makes someone extremely wet with perspiration and beef
blood. It was considered a low status and degrading type of job but very important in the
society. The relationship between workers from a large beef plant and their role in the
workplace was described as they shared something in common with all others. Death
was not always present in the assembly line, but it did involve danger. It was viewed as
mere extensions of the machines with which they work and their human needs became
secondary in importance. As it was successful in the production sense, but it was
unsuccessful and degrading for the workers.

Thompson stated in the article that the beef plant is in the Midwest, growing and
getting bigger as it considered the third largest branch of a corporation in the United
States. Having employed of approximately 1800 people. He emphasized that only five
women worked in shift “A” where he was assigned and the rest in the line of work were
male because the job was hardly physical labor and the nature of the jobs associated with
slaughtering. He also mentioned the different races of workers such as Mexican-
Americans, white and Native-Americans except for black.

The work at the plant as described by Thompson was a very exhausting physical
job in an extreme condition. In every particular work station requires to work at a specific
speed. The danger was as big as the work in the plant and there was big percentage of
injuries. The social relationship of the workers was complex. The management and the
executives of the company are the top hierarchy. They were separated and keeping them
isolated from the dirty and dangerous work on the factory floor. Foreman was the
management’s link to labor personnel and the one that assigned and supervised the
jobs to his crew members. Dislikes and mistrust were mostly the attitudes of the
laborers towards the foreman because their friendly actions are based only the social
context while between laborers their social relationships are anonymity. Although they
know each other on sight and know who performed what job, they only knew by first
names as it was written in front of their hats. Though anonymous to each other, the
workers shared sense of unity because the assembly line demanded coordinated
teamwork.

Monotony, danger and dehumanization are the three aspects that William
Thompson mentioned in his article that the workers were coping. Workers were
more likely to daydream, coping to escape the mundane, routine and continuous work
every day. Workers also force to cope with the fear of physical harm as danger in the
beef plant was well known because it demanded the use of knives honed to razor-
sharpness. Disassociation from the event and the victim was their defense mechanism.
And, the most devastating aspects of working was dehumanizing and demeaning
elements of the job. The workers were not considered as individuals, but as a
functioning parts of a machine that do their job to create a finish product.

Why did people work at such jobs? Thompson had been asking from the workers
at the beef plant knowing the description and nature of their work. Every crew answered
similarly. The key is money. A financial trap as it was the highest paying job available,
the current economic situation and the lack of employment opportunities. . Over and
over again, Thompson heard stories about the same process of falling into the “financial trap.”

With the current situation of working in the beef plant , the conditions have
slightly improved at least from a safety perspective. Changes to slaughterhouses are
now being implemented. Rules and regulations were strictly implemented that aims to
improve hygiene and reduce the contamination of meat and spread of disease, as well
as protecting workers from occupational health hazards.  I think the packing plants
have dramatically improved their working conditions over a period of time. Over the
past few decades, advancements in automation have transformed the industry and
largely eliminated the need for highly skilled laborers. slaughterhouses and “meat”-
processing facilities are highly mechanized and manual labor is required at several
stages of production. Workers are usually trained for one specific part of the process.

Every company needs employees who are enthusiastic and who bring the very
best of themselves to work. Like any society, the workplace in made of leaders and
followers. The relationship between these two is not always the same , but having the right
internal communication tools can help boost collaboration between different offices or
streamline processes and improve productivity. The secret to unlocking this unlimited
source of energy is to build and strengthen the bonds between your employees and
between management and employees. The beef plant line workers were indeed a “dirty
work.” It was monotonous, difficult, dangerous, and demeaning. Employees are very
aware of the dangerous nature of their work . Why not use the power of the network itself
to create a solution? Improve the organizational network and then use technology to
help people communicate across wide spans of the human network.