Beef Plant Assembly Line Work

Beef Plant Study: Assembly Line Work

Introduction

This study is a qualitative sociological analysis of working on a modern assembly line in a large beef plant.
It examines the slaughtering and processing of cattle for human consumption and other uses.
Working in the beef plant is considered "dirty work" due to the nature of the job.

The Setting

The study took place in a major beef processing plant in the Midwest.
The plant was the third-largest branch of a corporation operating ten plants in the U.S.
It employed approximately 1,800 people.
The plant had been operating for twelve years and was considered stable and important to the community.
The study focused on 350 employees on the "A" shift in "Slaughter."
Of the 350 employees, approximately one-third were Mexican-American, two-thirds were white, and two individuals were Native Americans.
No blacks worked on this shift, and only five women worked on the "A" shift; all the line workers were male.

Method

The method was nine weeks of full-time participant observation.
The researcher went through the standard application process for a summer job without mentioning the research intent.
After screening, a physical examination, and a reference, the author was hired to work on the Offal crew in the Slaughter division of the plant.

The Work

The physical exhaustion of assembly line work at the beef plant was extreme.
Jobs on the line required physical exertion, and the strain of assembly line work went beyond physical exhaustion.
The line speed on the kill floor was 187, meaning 187 head of cattle were slaughtered per hour.
Workers were required to work at that speed at any particular work station.
At the author's work station, 187 beef tongues were mechanically pulled from their hooks, dropped into a water-filled tub, hung on a stainless steel rack, branded with a "hot brand," and covered with a small plastic bag in one hour.

Worker Social Relations

Worker social relations were complex and influenced by their occupational roles.
Major occupational roles were manager, foreman, nurse, federal meat inspector, and line worker.
The hierarchical structure was clear-cut, with plant superintendent, general manager, and executives at the top.
Management's link to labor personnel was the foreman, who assigned jobs and supervised work activities.
The foreman also performed physical labor and had to know all the jobs performed by his crew.
Foremen worked on monthly salaries, whereas laborers worked for hourly wages and were paid "time-and-a-half" for overtime.
Foremen's dividends were based on the production of their crews, so they tended to push their crews to the maximum.
The foreman role was analogous to that of the "overseer" on slave plantations.
The foreman was an example of "marginal man" and not fully accepted by either management or labor.
The general attitudes of the laborers toward the foremen were those of dislike and mistrust.
Social relations between laborers were marked by anonymity.
Workers knew each other on sight but might only know each other's first names after working together for years.
Despite anonymity, the workers shared a sense of unity and "uncooperative teamwork."
Workers occasionally helped each other, and there was a common bond among them as beefers.
The hard work, danger of the job, and ambivalence toward the company and its management united the workers.

Language and Communication

The line workers in the beef plant constituted an “occupational culture.”
Language emerged as one of the most important symbols at the beef plant.
There existed special argot or language to facilitate communication among beef plant workers.
Non-verbal gestures were the primary form of communication due to excessive noise.
Exaggerated gestures and shrill whistles were used to get a fellow worker’s attention.
The “thumbs up” sign indicated everything was alright, whereas “thumbs down” meant one was in the hole.
Beating knives against stainless steel tables and tubs indicated a break in the line was coming or that the men on slaughter had quit "knocking."

Coping

One of the difficulties of work at the beef plant was coping with monotony, danger, and dehumanization.

Monotony

Workers would hang, brand, and bag between 1,350 to 1,500 beef tongues in an eight-hour shift.
The work was mundane, routine, and continuous, so workers drifted into daydreams.
Workers would sing, tap their feet, or carry on conversations with themselves.

Danger

The danger of working in the beef plant was well known.
The beef plant employed over 1,800 people.
Approximately three-fourths of those employed had jobs which demanded the use of a knife honed to razor-sharpness.
Serious cuts were almost a daily occurrence.
Workers who cut meat continuously sometimes suffered muscle and ligament damage to their fingers and hands.
Workers coped with the fear of physical harm, and defense mechanisms were observed.
Workers tended to view those who suffered major accidents or death on the job as either partially responsible or very different from themselves.
Terms like “only a part-timer,” “stupid,” or “careless” were seemingly used to reassure the worker describing the accident that it could not happen to him.

Dehumanization

The most devastating aspect of working at the beef plant was the dehumanizing elements of the job.
The assembly line worker became a part of the assembly line.
Workers are viewed as mere extensions of the machines with which they work, and their human needs become secondary.
Workers on the assembly line are seen as interchangeable.
The dehumanization process affected the social relations of workers, as well as each worker’s self-concept.
Workers strove in a variety of ways to maintain their sense of worth through horseplay, daydreaming, unscheduled breaks, social interaction, and occasional sabotage.

Sabotage

Assembly line work situations often lead to employee sabotage or destruction of the product or equipment.
There was an art to effective sabotage, and subtlety appeared to be the key.
Sabotage did exist, and there appeared to be several norms (both formal and informal) concerning what was acceptable and what was not.
It was not uncommon for workers to deliberately cut chunks out of pieces of meat for no reason or for throwing at other employees.

The Financial Trap

The key to why people work at such jobs is money.
The lack of steady employment opportunities, combined with the beef plant’s wage exceeding the minimum wage by approximately $5.50$ per hour, were important reasons people went to work there.
Despite the high hourly wage and fringe benefits, the monotony, danger, and hard physical work drove many workers away in less than a week.
Those who stayed fell victim to the "financial trap."
The “financial trap” was a spending pattern which demanded the constant weekly income provided by the beef plant job.
Workers purchased new cars, stereo systems, motorcycles, and houses and then postponed school or other plans in order to pay off their debts.

Summary and Conclusions

There was a subtle sense of unity among the line workers, and workers developed a system of non-verbal symbols to communicate with one another.
A system of “uncooperative teamwork” seemed to combine simultaneously a feeling of “one-for-all, all-for-one, and every man for himself.”
Workers employed coping methods in a dehumanizing environment to retain their sense of humanity and self-worth.
Workers developed and practiced a multitude of techniques for retaining their humanness, such as daydreaming, horseplay, and occasional sabotage.
Consumer spending patterns among the beefers seemed to “seal their fate” and make leaving the beef plant almost impossible.
These items became tangible rewards for the sacrifices endured at work.
The possession of these expensive items required the continual income of a substantial paycheck which most of these men could only obtain by staying at the beef plant.
Working at the beef plant was monotonous, difficult, dangerous, and demeaning.
Through a variety of symbolic techniques, workers managed to overcome the many negative aspects of their work and maintain a sense of self-respect about how they earned their living.