ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the U.S. meatpacking industry, arguing that racism, both structural and as a social norm, has been sustained and even deepened by discriminatory employment practices. The methodology of this chapter, synthesizing the literature from a variety of fields – labor history, economics, political science, sociology, and critical race studies – highlights the creation and deployment of social structures of injustice that remain obscured when we engage in a siloed disciplinary approach. The resulting argument runs counter to the neoclassical economics framework which predicts that persistent hiring biases not based on worker productivity should disappear over time because they are inefficient. This puzzle will be addressed by showing that the perpetuation of strong social norms like racist ideology can in fact result in higher and more secure profits for industry. The meatpacking industry went from a beacon of interracial solidarity among workers to an arena in which racism and oppressive labor practices among workers and managers are unsurpassed. Moreover, meatpacking represents one of the most dramatic examples of declining working conditions, worker rights, and earning capacity over the last 80 years. The analysis offered here suggests not only that high degrees of racial tensions and racism as a social infrastructure incentivized race-based hiring practices that ultimately lead to lower wages and poorer working conditions, but more importantly, that the U.S. meatpacking industry has systematically and intentionally sought out and employed racist infrastructure in order to undercut and disempower the labor movement, resulting in the welfare reducing societal outcomes that exist today.
