Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser [190]
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 mi-grants 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, Meth-amphetamines 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,