The Killing Floor Summary

In the documentary; the Killing Floor, it shows the struggles workers faced in the business of meat packaging. The employees worked in terrible conditions without a union contract that promised them that their jobs were safe. Workers were divided into factions because some wanted an increase in wages, while others thought that they should not step over the line due to the fear of losing their jobs. This documentary shows that several black workers did not want to join a union because if they did the white workers would eventually exclude them. However, many workers did join in resisting the employers. The forces that caused the workers to unite and resist, was the low wages, long hours and unsafe work conditions. The workers in the documentary …show more content…
The workers started to lose their jobs and those involved in a union were not allowed back in. This caused numerous individuals to doubt the organization they were in and made them believe that if they were not in a union they would still have their jobs. As the employers began to gain more and more power, the nonunion workers tried to break the unions so that they can keep their jobs and maybe even receive a better paycheck. The nonunion workers were the main cause of the unions being driven away due to them agitating the union workers and causing a race battle. The battle caused white men to believe that black men did not deserve to work in the business so they started killing black individuals. This lead to many of the black individuals to not be able to get to work. The unions, then became exclusive to white workers because they did not want to be next to people who were trying to “take their jobs.” The race war caused the black workers to leave the union since they believed that the members of the union betrayed them and did not help them get back to work. In addition, to the nonunion workers and the race war, the union was driven apart because many employers fired various union employees and did not allow them back in. The employers did not want workers who would go against and out power