it was a utopian community: My account of early Greeley is based on Mike Peters, “Meeker Killed on Western Slope,” Greeley Tribune, 1998; Mike Peters, “Controversy over Cattle Ranches Leads to ‘The Fence,’” Greeley Tribune, 1998; and Carl Ubbelohde, Maxine Benson, Duane A. Smith, A Colorado History (Boulder, Colo.: Pruett Publishing Company, 1995), pp. 123–32.
151 started his business in the 1930s with eighteen head: See Curt Olsen, “Monforts: Changing the Way the World Is Fed,” National Cattlemen, August 1997.
a place on President Nixon’s “enemies list”: See “Beef Baron,” Rocky Mountain News Sunday Magazine, May 3, 1987.
“If I can ever be of help”: Quoted in Andreas, Meatpackers and Beef Barons, p. 37.
152 “the greatest aggregation”: Sinclair, Jungle, p. 40.
“cogs in the great packing machine”: Ibid., p. 78.
“conditions that are entirely unnecessary”: Quoted in Yeager, Competition and Regulation, p. 200.
153 “I aimed for the public’s heart”: Quoted in Skaggs, Prime Cut, p. 118.
paid the industry’s highest wages: See Stromquist and Bergman, Unionizing the Jungles, pp. 25–33.
154 “We’ve tried to take the skill out”: Quoted in Stull et al., Any Way You Cut It, p. 19.
as though it were waging war: Holman is quoted in Christopher Drew, “A Chain of Setbacks for Meat Workers,” Chicago Tribune, October 25, 1988.
close ties with La Cosa Nostra: Steinman was a central figure in New York City’s meat business, dominated at the time by the Lucchese and Gambino crime families. See Kwitny, Vicious Circles, pp. 252–53.
155 a five-cent “commission”: The arrangement, technically, was a fifty-cent commission for every hundred pounds. Ibid., p. 301.
155 “knew virtually nothing about the meat business”: Quoted ibid., p. 375.
investigations by Forbes and the Wall Street Journaclass="underline" Jonathan Kwitny, the Journal reporter, and James Cook and Jane Carmichael, writing for Forbes, drew somewhat different conclusions about the meaning of the IBP case. Kwitny was outraged, arguing that it was as though “the Mafia had moved into… the oil industry, bringing Exxon to its knees.” Cook and Carmichael were more detached and pragmatic. “The ordeal of Iowa Beef Processors shows as clearly as anything can,” they wrote, “how legitimate business can become linked with organized crime, to their mutual benefit.” Kwitny, Vicious Circles, p. 252; Cook and Carmichael, “Mob’s Legitimate Connections.”
wages that were sometimes more than 50 percent lower: While Swift and Armour were paying $17 to $18 an hour, IBP was paying just $8. See Winston Williams, “An Upheaval in Meatpacking,” New York Times, June 20, 1983. See also Cook, “Those Simple, Barefoot Boys.”
once employed 40,000 people: According to Erin Troya of the Chicago Historical Society, Packingtown employed about 40,000 workers at its peak during the 1920s. The current estimate of 2,000 comes from Ruben Ramirez. Dot McGrier, at the U.S. Census Bureau, says that Chicago now has a total of 6,000 meatpacking workers, but most of them are employed in the Watermarket area on the western edge of the city.
157 a sweetheart deal with the National Maritime Union: See Bill Saporito, “Unions Fight the Corporate Sell-Off,” Fortune, July 11, 1983; Jim Morris, “Easy Prey: Harsh work for Immigrants,” Houston Chronicle, June 26, 1995; Andreas, Meatpackers and Beef Barons, p. 68.
158 wages that had been cut by 40 percent: Andreas, Meatpackers and Beef Barons, p. 98.
“if the industry was going to be concentrated”: Quoted ibid., p. 76.
the largest foodservice supplier: Interview with Karen Savinski, director of corporate communications, ConAgra.
159 annual revenues of about $500 million: Cited in Limprecht, ConAgra Who?, p. 98.
the market value of its stock: Ibid., p. 7.
“Harper told each general manager”: Quoted ibid., p. 12.
“Patience, my ass”: Ibid., p. 120.
45,256 truckloads: See Tom Hughes, “Alabama Growers’ Court Settlement Not Chicken Feed,” Montgomery Advertiser, October 7, 1992. See also Richard Gibson, “ConAgra Settles Case of Cheating By Bird Weighers,” Wall Street Journal, October 9, 1992.
ConAgra agreed to pay $13.6 million: Cited in Richard Gibson, “ConAgra, Hormel Pay a Pretty Penny in an Ugly Catfish Price-Fixing Case,” Wall Street Journal, December 29, 1995.
ConAgra paid $8.3 million in fines: See “ConAgra Pays $8.3 Million in Penalties for Fraud Scheme,” Federal Department and Agency Documents, March 19, 1997. See also Scott Kilman, “ConAgra to Pay $8.3 Million to Settle Fraud Charges in Grain-Handling Case,” Wall Street Journal, March 20, 1997.
160 more than five thousand different people were employed: Cited in “Here’s the Beef: Underreporting of Injuries, OSHA’s Policy of Exempting Companies from Programmed Inspections Based on Injury Records, and Unsafe Conditions in the Meatpacking Industry,” Forty-Second Report by the Committee on Government and Operations (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988), p. 12.
160 roughly two-thirds of the workers at the beef plant: Interview with Javier Ramirez, former president of UFCW Local 990, Greeley, Colorado.
A spokesman for ConAgra recently acknowledged: Interview with Brett Fox, director of industry affairs and media relations, ConAgra Beef Company.
“There is a 100 percent turnover rate annually”: Quoted in James M. Burcke, “1994 Risk Manager of the Year: Meatpacker’s Losses Trimmed Down to Size,” Business Insurance, April 18, 1994.
161 Arden Walker, the head of labor relations at IBP: Quoted in “Here’s the Beef,” p. 11.
162 Picking strawberries in California pays: For the role and the wages of Latino migrants in California agriculture, see Schlosser, “In the Strawberry Fields.”
refugees and asylum-seekers… homeless people living at shelters: See “IBP; Meat Processing Plant Fails to Uphold Social Contract with Waterloo, Iowa; Crime and Homelessness Increase,” 60 Minutes, CBS News transcripts, March 9, 1997; “IBP’s Hiring Reflects Evolution of Meatpacking Industry,” Quad-City Times, June 30, 1997; Marc Cooper, “The Heartland’s Raw Deaclass="underline" How Meatpacking Is Creating a New Immigrant Underclass,” Nation, February 3, 1997; and George Rodrigue, “Packing Them In: Meat Processing Firm’s Hiring of Ex-Welfare Recipients Questioned,” Dallas Morning News, September 25, 1997.