We should have never forgiven these factories...
...that called our families essential while they led us to slaughter. Pt 1
Have you heard the news about one of our local Iowa meat processing plants? No, not the news that the U.S. Department of Labor is alleging that Iowa plants sourced a janitorial company wielding illegal child labor to clean it’s factories. And that, “The minors were allegedly tasked with the cleaning of power-driven machines, including meat- and bone-cutting saws, head splitters, jaw pullers and skinning equipment.” Though noteworthy and horrific that’s not the news I’m talking about. And no, I’m not talking about the fact that earlier this year a plant in Postville, “…sent more than 250,000 gallons of untreated food processing waste into the city’s sewer system.” The latest in continued incidents of our already polluted-to-high-hell water systems being infected with more bullshit (or chickenshit, hogshit etc) from the meat processing plants in our state. Nah I’m not talking about that either. The thing I’m talking about hits closer to home and, at first glance, seems a lot less newsworthy and egregious. But, for me, it is the slap in the face that finally, finally, got me to write this years-in-the-making piece.
The headlines stated something along the lines of West Liberty Foods looks to cut costs ahead of upcoming layoffs. The accompanying pieces read more like vetted press releases. West Liberty foods plans to cut 260 positions from its plant. The president deeply regrets the need for layoffs. Not that they regret the act of laying off its employees. They regret the need to do so in the first place. Listen to them as they subtlety shift the narrative. As they displace responsibility. The news broke out in February of this year. They said, “We are committed to connecting each affected person with new employment opportunities and support.” In March of that year I visited students at West Liberty High School, it was disclosed to me from students that, counter to the sanitized declarations of support, they knew of people who already lost their jobs. Fired with minimal heads-up. Dismissed with the type of efficiency usually wielded by those on the factory floor. Some would declare this hearsay. That I shouldn’t rely on anecdotal evidence from small town high schoolers. But here’s the thing, I was one of those small town high schoolers. I’ve seen first hand how these plants treated my own family. I’ve seen how little they care about the people in our community. We are a means to an end. A necessary component of a chain of labor, no different than the animals they slaughter for profit. Don’t believe me? Think I’m being hyperbolic. Well let me really detail the episode that solidified my stance on these factories.
This is an even more widening of my piece, When to cut out a watermelon’s heart. Because although I expanded on it last week, there were still some things I left out, real raw things. Firstly: At the time I originally wrote it, I needed it to be hopeful. I needed to be hopeful. Secondly, up until quite recently, my dad was still working at the plant. There was always the, very real, concern regarding reprisals from those that hold power in our small community. More on this later.
Okay, let me rip this band-aid off. This is about the time my dad got COVID from the factory that he worked at. Scratch that. This is about the time so many of our communities’ family members got COVID from the factories they worked at.
By the time my dad got COVID our town had already felt the impact. West Liberty resident Jose Martinez had passed away from the illness in April of 2020. Jose’s death was the first in our town to get significant media attention. News sites across the state ran the story. A Go-fund-me was setup. Of Jose the Des Moines Register wrote, “Born in 1962, Jose came to the United States when he was 19, looking for work in Dallas. He earned a living inside factories and, at the age of 34, moved his family to West Liberty to drive a forklift for Proctor & Gamble. He liked the idea of raising his children in a small town.” This is our story too. The story of my family. The story of so many in our town. Our parents liked the idea of raising their children in small towns. They liked the idea of working indoors. Out of the sun. They liked the idea of the American Dream. Who knew what that dream would cost them?
The town plant actually shut down for a three day period before Joses’ death in late April. To “clean and sanitize” the grounds. (Though Jose did not work at the plant in West Liberty, but rather at another factory nearby, I’m laying down the timeline to show the order of various responses.) I remember a facebook thread in the impending reopening of the factory. It was filled with people roughly my age. People I grew up with. Mexican and South East Asians. Brown people that were sickly worried about their parents going back to work at that plant. Children of immigrants and refugees who knew the work ethic of our parents. Who knew that if the plant told them to come back, they would oblige. Because work was their grounding. Because work was their dream for us. The thread felt like a group of bystanders watching the levee break. Anguishing as the waters cascaded upon their loved ones. We voiced our grievances. The factory reopened. Trump issued an executive order deeming factories like ours essential and that they needed to stay open. Vonnegut opens Slaughterhouse-Five with, “All of this happened, more or less.” A little later on he offers this exchange:
"Is it an anti-war book?"
"Yes," I said. "I guess."
"You know what I say to people when I hear they're writing anti-war books?"
"No. What do you say, Harrison Starr?"
"I say, 'Why don't you write an anti-glacier book instead?' "
What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too.
And even if wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death.
I am reminded of this passage whenever I think about our Facebook thread. Whenever I think about what happened next. Because the factory opened back up, our family members went back to work, and then the Omicron wave hit. My dad stayed clear for a few months. But it was a glacier. You could hear the crackling at night as the ice inched its way towards the people we loved.
Here’s what you already know: my parents got sick in the middle of one week. My dad looked like death and his co-workers told their supervisors, he was swabbed at the plant and sent home on a Friday. Late Sunday evening an automated phone call told him he tested negative and they expected him the next day. As he listened to the canned message my mom sat beside him with her own, confirmed, positive case.
Here’s the bit I keep leaving out. That my mom called me after the phone call. That she was terrified that my dad would actually try to pick himself up and clock in the next morning. Because they expected him to. Because they thought he wouldn’t question it. Because they knew he was positive with COVID but didn’t give a fuck about him or any of the other workers on their floor. They knew. They knew and would have gone about their way if it wasn’t for the stink that I made. Here’s what happened next. In a stupor I rage posted on my socials. It was the opposite of hope. It was despair. I lashed out at the callousness of these factories. At our complacency at the glacier of inevitability within our essential front-lines. I wept.
Here is something I have touched on a few times in this substack. I’ve been fairly open about my struggles with mental health. Hell, in one of my first posts I mention the personal heaviness I felt at the suicide of the dancer known as tWitch. Remembering my mind-space during this posting I’m reminded of a conversation I had with my Primary Care Provider. At this time I was in a real bad place with depression and the self-assessment questions reflected it. But she asked about an outlier, when it came to suicidal ideation. “Known thoughts?” She asked. I shook my head no. She then provided a context I’ve thought about a lot since. “Sometimes, it’s not that we are thinking of it as physical act. Sometimes we are thinking of it as a desire. A desire to not exist. That it would just be better for you if you didn’t have to deal with it all. That you imagine what it would be like to be gone. Like you want to pack your bags and leave everything, right then and there. Forever.” That’s what I felt after my mother’s phone call. That’s what I felt when I made my social post. It was the first time I ever really, truly felt that desire. To give up. To not have to feel anymore. It was too much. The glacier of our systems triangulating onto my family. I felt utterly helpless. I wanted to not exist in a world that could pile on so much.
Two important things happened in this nadir of my being. The first was a reaction. A cascade. Of reactions, comments, affirmations, calls to action. Have you ever been on the creation end of a truly “viral” moment? Have you witnessed the momentum that it can bring? No lie, it can be scary. I wrote my post in the throes of emotion and made it “public” so that maybe other people in our community could share. Within a minute the reactions were at 100 and counting. I thought of public perception. Of those reprisals again. I thought of news media and rubber neckers. In the span of minutes I saw that this was beginning to become more than I could handle in my already fragile state. So I deleted the post. But not before seeing the second important thing. A friend messaged me. This friend happened to be in the public health field. She told me to call her. “You need to talk to the Department of Health,” she said. This phone call would help pull me out of that dark space. It would help me to where I am now. Angry. Bruised and recalcitrant. But hopeful.
Pt 2 next time. -Chuy
Explosive...heartbreaking...