Jurgis begins his life in the United States of America in Packingtown, Illinois. He begins working at a meat packing plant. This factory process meat from pigs and cattle. The animals are kept in a pen outside the factory. This area is very unclean. Because of this disease runs rampant through this area. As the animals go to the slaughter house they go through an inspection. Although it is meant to filter out the sick animals, not every animal is checked for disease or infection. Those who are checked are not checked very well. Many of these animals are sick. When thy are brought into the slaughterhouse they spread the sickness to the other animals.
In the slaughterhouse the conditions got worse. As the animals are fed to the slaughter machine the blood runs to the center of the floor. To deal with this a worker would sweep up the extras and the blood. Jurgis had his first job doing this. He got this job because the person before him got his arm caught in the slaughter machine. This is another problem in the factory.
Unions tried to solve the problems of the working man. These problems included the low wages and poor working conditions. The unions also tried to solve the problems of job security and long hours. The unions would do this by staging strikes and walkouts. These were generally ineffective. This was so because of the power the big companies had.
This never worked because of the influence of the big businesses. These people would not benefit from such a situation.
If the company had chosen to lay off hundreds of workers to improve the quality of the work place then the company would have to lower production. This would raise the price of the finished product. By raising the price of the goods the company would open the market to other businesses. These businesses would be able to have lower prices on their goods. These businesses would attract more customers and more money. And when these new businesses got powerful enough they would force the old company out of business.
Here the company had to make a choice. The company owning the plant had to either cut the number of workers and there
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