Disassembly Line Model

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One of the problems discussed in chapter 7 and 8 of Fast Food Nation is the set routine of workers and assigning single task to one worker for the entire duration of their shift. Using disassembly line model in slaughterhouses can be explained with order theory. Order theory illustrates how slaughterhouse workers are functional to the slaughterhouse industry. Each worker is responsible for a particular task, which benefits the industry. It allows the slaughterhouses to work faster and more efficiently. Moreover, it lower the cost of production by hiring unskilled workers who don’t require professional training and have lower wages. The IBP revolution is responsible for the change of work construction in slaughterhouses. Meatpacking jobs had …show more content…
IBP revolution created a mass production system requiring de-skilled workers far away from urban areas preventing formation of labor unions. The disassembly line model puts a lot of physical and mental stress on workers. Workers have to deal with pains for the entire shift performing the same task. Workers that experience the most pain are the one responsible for cutting. They suffer from back pains and joint pains. In order to help themselves, they sharpen their knives at home after work to decrease the pressure put on their joints. The disassembly line model is also responsible for the high turnover rate. For instance, during eighteen-month period more than five thousand people were employed at the Greeley beef plant. High turn over rate illustrate how workers quickly become burnt out on their job due to physical or psychological reasons. Some of the solutions to the set routine of workers is to challenge the disassembly line model and replace it with rotating model of work. Another solution is also to provide more training for workers, which would inform them about techniques of work that can protect their bodies from …show more content…
The inefficiency of law enforcement and harsh working conditions can be explained with conflict theory. Conflict theory would focus on how people in power of the slaughterhouses and the industry impose dangerous working conditions on disadvantaged members of our society. Most of the workers are immigrants, a lot of time are illegal immigrants who don’t speak English. Immigrant workers comply with inhuman way of treating them in slaughterhouses in fear of losing their only opportunity to stay in the USA which prevents them from living in their home country. Maintaining the power in hands of privileged mostly white people, reduces the efficiency of law enforcement, therefore creates more dangerous working conditions. The reduction of the health and safety enforcement correlates with replacement of skilled workers and illegal immigrants. The example of law violation in the slaughterhouses is the IBP beef plant in Nebraska, Dakota City, which kept two separate sets of injure lots: one of them recording actual numbers of injuries and illnesses and the other one provided to OSHA inspectors. The actual log recorded 1,800 injuries, while ”the modified log” recorded 160 injuries. OSHA inspectors were also required to look at companies injury log before visiting the plant. If the numbers in the log are being falsified and low,

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