Photo credits 4 страница

For the history of cattle ranching and the Beef Trust I relied mainly upon Willard F. Williams and Thomas T. Stout, Economics of the Livestock‑Meat Industry (New York, Macmillan, 1964); Mary Yeager, Competition and Regulation: The Development of Oligopoly in the Meat Packing Industry (Greenwich, Conn.: Jai Press, 1981); and Jimmy M. Skaggs, Prime Cut: Livestock Raising and Meatpacking in the United States, 1607‑1983 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1986). John Crabtree, at the Center for Rural Affairs in Walt Hill, Nebraska, helped me see today’s formula pricing arangements in the proper historical context. Two of the center’s publications were especially useful: Competition and the Livestock Market (April 1990) and From the Carcass to the Kitchen: Competition and the Wholesale Meat Market (November 1995), the latter written by Marty Strange and Annette Higby. Concentration in Agriculture, A Report of the USDA Advisory Committee on Agricultural Concentration (Washington, D.C.: USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, June 1996) is an official and belated acknowledgment of the problems faced by American ranchers and farmers. A Time to Act , the report of the USDA’s National Commission on Small Farms, does an even better job of portraying the harms of concentrated power in agriculture.

Mike Callicrate, one of the plaintiffs in Pickett v. IBP, Inc ., provided a great deal of information about the misbehavior of the large meatpacking firms and the rural unrest now growing in response to it. And Dave Domina, one of the attorneys representing Callicrate et al., explained the legal basis for the case and supplied hundreds of pages of documents. Industry and Trade Summary: Poultry (Washington, D.C.: U.S. International Trade Commission, USITC Publication 3148, December 1998) gives a thorough overview of the American poultry industry. Marc Linder, a professor at the University of Iowa Law School, introduced me to the subject of poultry growers, poultry workers, and their misfortunes. Linder’s article “I Gave My Employer a Chicken That Had No Bone: Joint Firm‑State Responsibility for Line‑Speed‑Related Occupational Injuries,” Case Western Reserve Law Review 46, no. 1 (Fall 1995), contains an excellent history of the industry and its labor relations. Steve Bjerklie’s three‑part article on contract poultry growing, which appeared in Meat & Poultry (August, October, and December 1994), is a scathing indictment of the large processors by a longtime observer of the industry. The investigative reports by Dan Fesperman and Kate Shatzin, published by the Baltimore Sun in February and March of 1999, chronicle the latest processor abuses. For the story of the McNugget, I largely relied on Laura Konrad Jereski’s account in “McDonald’s Strikes Gold with Chicken McNuggets,” Marketing and Media Decisions , March 22, 1985; Timothey K. Smith, “Changing Tastes: By End of the Year Poultry Will Surpass Beef in the U.S. Diet; Price, Health Concerns Propel Move Toward Chicken; The Impact of McNuggets,” Wall Street Journal , September 17, 1987; and John F. Love, Behind the Arches, pp. 338–43.

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133 Hank was the first person: At the request of Hank’s family, I have not used his real name.

136 about half a million ranchers sold off: Based on numbers provided by the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

In 1968, McDonald’s bought ground beef: For the consolidation of the chain’s beef purchasing, see Love, Behind the Arches , pp. 333–38.

137 at the height of the Beef Trust: Cited in Competition and the Livestock Market , Report of a Task Force Commissioned by the Center for Rural Affairs (Walt Hill, Neb.: April 1990), p. 31.

In 1970 the top four meatpacking firms : Cited ibid., p. 31.

Today the top four meatpacking firms: The figure comes from a USDA study, cited in George Anthan, “2 Reports Focus on Packers’ Profits,” Des Moines Register , May 30, 1999.

138 the rancher’s share of every retail dollar: Estimate cited in “Prepared Statement of Keith Collins, Chief Economist, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Before the House Committee on Agriculture,” Federal News Service , February 10, 1999.

control about 20 percent of the live cattle in the United States: 1997 estimate of the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, cited in “Prepared Statement of Keith Collins.” See also “Captive Supplies – Who, What, When, Where and Why,” Colorado Farmer , October 1997.

as much as 80 percent of the cattle being exchanged: Cited in Concentration in Agriculture , p. 31.

“A free market requires”: Competition and the Livestock Market , p. v.

139 Eight chicken processors now control: Cited in Industry and Trade Summary: Poultry , p. 8.

Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Mississippi now produce : Ibid., p. A‑3.

“I have an idea”: Quoted in Monci Jo Williams, “McDonald’s Refuses to Plateau,” Fortune , November 12, 1984.

140 a new breed of chicken: See Love, Behind the Arches , p. 342.

the second‑largest purchaser of chicken : Cited in Williams, “McDonald’s Refuses to Plateau.”

A chemical analysis of McNuggets: The researcher was Dr. Frank Sacks, assistant professor of medicine at the Harvard University Medical School, and he utilized gas chromatography to analyze McNuggets for Science Digest . See “Study Raises Beef over Fast‑Food Frying,” Chicago Tribune , March 11, 1986, and Irvin Molotsky, “Risk Seen in Saturated Fats Used in Fast Foods,” New York Times , November 15, 1985.

140 still derive much of their flavor from beef additives: The ingredients and fat profile of McNuggets can be found in “McDonald’s Nutrition Facts,” McDonald’s Corporation, 1997.

“The impact of McNuggets” : Quoted in Smith, “Changing Tastes.”

Twenty years ago, most chicken was sold whole: Industry and Trade Summary: Poultry , p. 21.

In 1992 American consumption of chicken: Cited in Linder, “I Gave My Employer a Chicken That Had No Bone,” p. 53.

Tyson now manufactures: Cited in Sheila Edmundson, “Real Home of the McNugget Is Tyson,” Memphis Business Journal , July 9, 1999.

and sells chicken to ninety of the one hundred largest restaurant chains: Cited in Douglas McInnis, “Super Chicken,” Beef , February 2000.

A Tyson chicken grower never owns: Interview with Larry Holder, executive director of the National Contract Poultry Growing Association.

141 Most growers must borrow: See Steven Bjerklie, “Dark Passage,” Meat & Poultry , (August 1994), as well as Dan Fesperman and Kate Shatzkin, “The Plucking of the American Chicken Farmer; From the Big Poultry Companies Comes a New Twist on Capitalism,” Baltimore Sun , February 28, 1999.

A 1995 survey by Louisiana Tech: “Economic Returns for U.S. Broiler Producers,” National Contract Growers Institute study, completed with cooperation of researchers in the Department of Agricultural Sciences, Louisiana Tech University, October 11, 1995.

About half of the nation’s chicken growers: Cited in Sheri Venena, “Growing Pains,” Arkansas Democrat‑Gazette , October 18, 1998.

“We get the check first”: Quoted ibid.

when the United States had dozens of poultry firms: See Marj Charlier, “Chicken Economics: The Broiler Industry Consolidates, and That Is Bad News to Farmers,” Wall Street Journal , January 4, 1990.

142 “Our relationship with our growers”: Quoted in Venena, “Growing Pains.”

A number of studies by the U.S. Department of Agriculture: The most recent study, issued by the USDA’s Economic Research Service in May 1999, found “no evidence… that increasing [packer] concentration results in lower farm prices” – a finding considered absurd and ridiculed by a number of ranchers and economists. Quoted in Anthan, “2 Reports Focus on Packers’ Profits.” See also “Meatpacking: Where’s the Big Beef?” Bismarck Tribune , May 9, 1999.

Annual beef consumption in the United States: See Chris Bastian and Glen Whipple, “Trends in Supply and Demand of Beef,” Western Beef Producer , October 1997.

A pound of chicken costs: Cited in Industry and Trade Summary: Poultry , p. 19.

“alternative methods for selling fed cattle”: Quoted in Alan Guebert, “Chew on This: USDA, Congress, Take on Meatpackers with Little Success,” Pantagraph , June 7, 1998.

143 Three of Archer Daniels Midland’s top officials: For the prison terms, see Sharon Walsh, “Three Former Officials at ADM Get Jail Terms,” Washington Post , July 10, 1999. For the cost to farmers, see Sharon Walsh, “ADM Officials Found Guilty of Price Fixing,” Washington Post , September 18, 1998. For a detailed account of the conspiracy, see Angela Wissman, “ADM Execs Nailed on Price‑Fixing, May Do Time, Government Gets Watershed Convictions, But Company Still Dominates Lysine Market,” Illinois Legal Times , October 1998.

143 “We have a saying at this company”: Quoted in Kurt Eichenwald, “Videotapes Take Star Role at Archers Daniels Midland Trial,” New York Times , August 4, 1998.

many ranchers were afraid to testify: See Concentration in Agriculture , pp. 7, 29–30.

144 “It makes no sense for us”: Quoted in Kevin O’ Hanlon, “Judge Clears Way for Alabama Lawsuit Against Nation’s Largest Meatpacker,” Associated Press , May 4, 1999.

Colorado has lost roughly 1.5 million acres: Cited in “A Report on the Conversion of Agricultural Land in Colorado,” Colorado Department of Agriculture and the Governor’s Task Force on Agricultural Lands, 1997.

eight of the nation’s top ten TV shows: Cited in White, It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own , p. 613.

145 The median age of Colorado’s ranchers and farmers: Cited in Sam Bingham, “Cattlemen Organize Land Trust: Ranchers’ Group Works to Keep Colorado Properties Agricultural,” Denver Post , June 22, 1997.

thus far protected about 40,000 acres: Interview with Lynne Sherrod, executive director, Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust.

vanishing at the rate of about 90,000 acres a year: Cited in “Loss of Agricultural Land Figures for Colorado,” Memorandum by David Carlson, resource analyst, Colorado Department of Agriculture, January 8, 1998.

146 The suicide rate among ranchers and farmers: The statistic comes from Florence Williams, “Farmed Out,” New Republic , August 16, 1999.

147 “To fail several generations of relatives”: Osha Gray Davidson, Broken Heartland: The Rise of America’s Rural Ghetto (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996), p. 95.

7. Cogs in the Great Machine

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906; reprint, New York: Bantam Books, 1981) unfortunately remains the essential starting point for an understanding of America’s meatpacking industry today. Nearly a century after the book’s publication, many of the descriptive passages still ring true. Sinclair’s prescription for reform, however – his call for a centralized, socialized, highly industrialized agriculture – shows how even the best of intentions can lead to disaster. For a contemporary view of nineteenth‑century meatpacking, I relied mainly on Yeager, Competition and Regulation and Skaggs, Prime Cut . For the struggle to improve working conditions in Chicago’s Packingtown, see Unionizing the Jungles: Labor and Community in the Twentieth Century Meatpacking Industry , edited by Shelton Stromquist and Marvin Bergman (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1997). One of the essays in the book, “The Swift Difference,” by Paul Street, gives a strong sense of the corporate paternalism and decent working conditions that were later eliminated by the “IBP revolution.” For an account of that revolution’s leadership, see Jonathan Kwitny, Vicious Circles: The Mafia in the Marketplace (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979); James Cook and Jane Carmichael, “The Mob’s Legitimate Connections,” Forbes , November 24, 1980; and James Cook, “Those Simple, Barefoot Boys from Iowa Beef,” Forbes , June 22, 1981. Also see the inadvertently revealing corporate history by Jane E. Limprecht, ConAgra Who ? $15 Billion and Growing (Omaha: ConAgra, 1989). Jeremy Rifkin’s Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture (New York: Penguin, 1993) is a provocative diatribe against “the industrialization of beef.” Kathleen Meister’s response to Rifkin, “The Beef Controversy,” American Council on Science and Health Special Reports , August 31, 1993, is less convincing, but makes a number of good points. Osha Gray Davidson’s Broken Heartland does a fine job of explaining the root causes and social implications of the rising poverty in America’s meatpacking towns. Carol Andreas’s Meatpackers and Beef Barons: Company Town in a Global Economy (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1994) examines the recent transformation of Greeley. I am grateful to Ms. Andreas for discussing her work at length with me.

In Greeley, many former and current Monfort employees – some at the managerial level – shared their perspective on changes at the company after its sale to ConAgra; at their request, I have not included their names. I am grateful to Javier and Ruben Ramirez for the many hours they spent with me discussing the labor histories of Greeley and Chicago. For a straightforward analysis of structural changes in the cattle business, see James M. MacDonald and Michael Ollinger, “U.S. Meat Slaughter Consolidating Rapidly,” USDA Food Review , May 1, 1997. The best book on today’s meatpacking industry is Any Way You Cut It: Meat Processing and Small‑Town America (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995), edited by Donald D. Stull, Michael J. Broadway, and David Griffith. The essays by Lourdes Gouveia, Donald D. Stull, Mark Grey, and Steve Bjerklie were especially useful to me. I am indebted to Ms. Gouveia, a professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska–Omaha, whose work on the recent changes in Lexington, Nebraska, is exemplary and who helped me contact people there. Her essay “Global Strategies and Local Linkages: The Case of the U.S. Meatpacking Industry” is well worth reading, as is the rest of the book in which it appears: From Columbus to ConAgra: The Globalization of Agriculture and Food , edited by Alessandro Bonanno, Lawrence Busch, William H. Friedland, Lourdes Gouveia, and Enzo Mingione (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994). For a government report that belatedly confirms many of the findings made by Stull, Grey, Davidson, Gouveia, and others, see “Community Development: Changes in Nebraska’s and Iowa’s Counties With Large Meatpacking Plant Workforces,” Report to Congressional Requesters , United States General Accounting Office, February 1998. Milo Muungard, the executive director of Nebraska’s Appleseed Center, gave me useful material on the social and environmental effects of a migrant industrial workforce. Greg Lauby, an attorney whose family has lived in Lexington, Nebraska, for generations, graciously shared his knowledge of the town’s history, its residents, its recent changes – and the reasons for its smell. I am particularly grateful to the many IBP workers who invited me into their homes and told me their stories.

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150 earns more money every year from livestock products: 1997 Census of Agriculture (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce), p. 36.

150 the largest private employer in Weld County: Indeed, a recent study by two Colorado State University economists found that ConAgra’s facilities are “practically synonymous with Greeley and Weld County.” Andrew Seidl and Stephan Weiler, “The Estimated Value of ConAgra Packing Plants in Weld County, CO,” Agricultural and Resource Policy Report , Colorado State University Cooperative Extension, Fort Collins, February 2000, p. 3.

A typical steer will consume: Interview with Mike Callicrate, Kansas feedlot operator.

deposits about fifty pounds of manure: The figure was determined by researchers at Colorado State University. Cited in Mark Obmascik, “As Greeley Ponders Tax, Cows Keep On Doing Their Thing,” Denver Post , July 29, 1995.

produce more excrement than the cities: According to O. W. Charles, of the Extension Poultry Science Department of the University of Georgia, one head of cattle generates the same amount of waste as 16.4 people. Cited in Eric R. Haapapuro, Neal D. Barnard, and Michele Simon, “Animal Waste Used as Livestock Feed: Dangers to Human Health,” Preventive Medicine , September/October 1997. Using that ratio, the roughly 200,000 cattle in Monfort’s two Weld County feedlots produce an amount of waste equivalent to that of about 3.2 million people. The combined populations of Denver (about 500,000), Boston (about 550,000), Atlanta (about 400,000), and St. Louis (about 375,00) produce much less execrement than Greeley’s cattle.

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 Journal: 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 Deal: 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.

a labor office in Mexico City: See Laurie Cohen, “Free Ride: With Help from INS, U.S. Meatpacker Taps Mexican Work Force,” Wall Street Journal , October 15, 1998.

one‑quarter of all meatpacking workers in Iowa: Cited in “Changes in Nebraska’s and Iowa’s Counties with Large Meatpacking Plant Workforces,” GAO Reports , p. 15.

Spokesmen for IBP and the ConAgra Beef Company: Fox interview; interview with Gary Mickelson, IBP Public Affairs Department.

“If they’ve got a pulse”: Quoted in Rick Ruggles, “INS: Undocumented Workers Face New Meat‑Plant Tactics,” Omaha World‑Herald , September 11, 1998.

In September of 1994, GFI America: See Joe Rigert and Richard Meryhew, “Food Company Takes Hired Workers to Homeless Shelter,” Minneapolis Star Tribune , September 14, 1994; Tony Kennedy, “International Dairy Queen to Review Its Relationship with Meat Supplier GFI,” Minneapolis Star‑Tribune , September 15, 1994; and “GFI’s Frugal Ways Led to Problems for Some Workers,” Minneapolis Star‑Tribune , December 9, 1994.

163 “Our job is not to provide”: Quoted in Rigert and Meryhew, “Food Company Takes Hired Workers.”

Mike Harper personally stood to gain: Cited in “Capital Gains Exclusion Would Benefit Key Backers,” UPI , April 19, 1987.

164 called Harper’s demands “blackmail”: See Limprecht, ConAgra Who? , p. 269.

“Some Friday night, we turn out the lights”: Quoted in Dennis Farney, “Nebraska, Hungry of Jobs, Grants Big Business Big Tax Breaks Despite Charges of ‘Blackmail,’” Wall Street Journal , June 23, 1987.

164 after the revision of the state’s tax code: See Henry J. Cordes, “Did It Prime the Pump? Report Questions Economic Incentives,” Omaha World‑Herald , December 28, 1997. Ernie Goss, an economist at Creighton University, thinks the estimate of $13,000 to $23,000 is fair. Interview with Ernie Goss.

like giving his employees a 7 percent raise… “The move shows you how ungrateful”: Quoted in John Taylor, “IBP’s Move Prompts Look at Tax Policy,” Omaha World‑Herald , June 13, 1996.

a $300,000 loan: See Kenneth B. Noble, “Signs of Violence in Meat Plant’s Lockout,” New York Times , January 18, 1987.

165 the highest crime rate in the state of Nebraska: See Robert A. Hackenberg, David Griffith, Donald Stull, and Lourdes Gouveia, “Creating a Disposable Labor Force,” Aspen Institute Quarterly 5, no. 2 (Spring 1993), p. 92.

the number of serious crimes doubled: Cited in “Changes in Nebraska’s and Iowa’s Counties with Large Meatpacking Plant Workforces,” GAO Report , p. 39.

the number of Medicaid cases nearly doubled: Ibid., p. 36.

a major distribution center for illegal drugs; gang members appeared in town: See Richard A. Serrano, “Mexican Drug Cartels Target U.S. Heartland: Officials Say Illegal Immigrants are Using Interstates as Pipeline to Bring Cocaine, Methamphetamines to Midwest and Rocky Mountain Areas Where Abuse Is Burgeoning,” Los Angeles Times , December 10, 1997; Jennifer Dukes Lee, “Meatpacking Towns Seen As Key Funnel for Meth,” Des Moines Register , March 7, 1999.

the majority of Lexington’s white inhabitants… the proportion of Latino inhabitants: Lexington is the principal city in Dawson County, and in 1990, 4.7 percent of the county’s population was Latino, according to census figures. A recount in 1993 found the Latino population to be almost 30 percent and expected to reach 50 percent within three years. Cited in Lourdes Gouveia, “From the Beet Fields to the Kill Floors: Latinos in Nebraska’s Meatpacking Communities,” unpublished manuscript.

“Mexington”: For some of the positive effects of the new immigration wave, see Edwin Garcia and Ben Stocking, “Latinos on the Move to a New Promised Land,” San Jose Mercury News , August 16, 1998.

“We have three odors”: Quoted in Melody M. Loughry, “Issues Now,” North Platte Resident , January 15, 1996.

the Justice Department sued IBP: See Elliot Blair Smith, “Stench Chokes Meatpacking Towns,” USA Today , February 14, 2000; “U.S. Sues Meatpacking Giant for Violating Numerous Environmental Laws in Midwest,” press release, Environmental Protection Agency, January 12, 2000.

“This agreement means”: Quoted in “Meatpacker Must Cut Hydrogen Sulfide Emissions at Nebraska Plant,” press release, Environmental Protection Agency, May 24, 2000.

166 The transcript of this meeting: “Presenting IBP, Inc., to Lexington, Nebraska: A Public Forum Conducted by the Dawson County Council for Economic Development, July 7, 1988, at the Junior High School Auditorium,” transcription by the staff of the Lauby Law Office, Lexington, Nebraska.