A former job developer reveals that meatpacking recruiters would explicitly request workers of specific nationalities, such as Burmese refugees. This was based on a belief that they were more docile and harder working than others, creating a discriminatory hiring pipeline that treats people as commodities.
When ICE raids removed hundreds of undocumented workers from Swift & Co. meatpacking plants, the company faced a crippling labor crisis. Its solution was to aggressively recruit a new, legally authorized, but equally vulnerable workforce: refugees fleeing war and persecution.
The federal mandate for refugees to achieve economic self-sufficiency within three months creates immense pressure. This forces resettlement agencies to place vulnerable individuals into any available role, making high-turnover, hazardous industries like meatpacking a primary and exploitative employment channel.
Pressured by a three-month deadline for refugee self-sufficiency, caseworkers forge relationships with companies like Tyson Foods that are always hiring. They effectively begin "selling a product" by delivering a steady stream of vulnerable workers, prioritizing placement speed over the individual's well-being or career path.
The constant demand for labor at Greeley, Colorado's meatpacking plant has driven successive demographic transformations. The town shifted from primarily white, to white and Latino as the plant recruited from Mexico, and finally to a diverse international community as it began hiring refugees from Asia and Africa.
The historical impact of the 1904 novel reveals a lasting public bias. Sinclair aimed to expose brutal worker exploitation in meatpacking, but public outrage and subsequent regulation focused on unsanitary food practices. As he noted, "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident, I hit it in the stomach."