Cross-posted at the Writing on the Wal.
On February 17, 2000, meatcutters at Wal-Mart's Jacksonville, Texas store voted to join an indepedent trade union. This was the culmination of the only successful organizing campaign at any Wal-Mart in the United States. A few days after the vote, Wal-Mart announced that it would be switching to pre-packaged, case-ready meat at all its stores nationwide. The dispute as to whether this was a direct response to the organizing campiagn is still under litigation, but looking back at this incident I find the response of the Wal-Flack who talked to In These Times particularly twisted:
"Wal-Mart is going case-ready for one reason," says company spokeswoman Jessica Moser, "it's the highest quality you can provide customers today."
Because Wal-Mart didn't want its meatcutters to unionize, it has farmed its meatcutting out to its suppliers. This not only means the meat is less fresh and that they can't fill special orders, it means Wal-Mart wouldn't have the faintest idea of what's under the cellophane wrap they cover their meat with unless they opened it up and re-wrapped it (and they won't do that because that would cost money).
So what's under the cellophane? That's a crapshhot for customers too, as this 2002 story from NorthJersey.com explains:
"We couldn't believe what we found [at the local Wal-Mart]," [Leandra] Fill [of Wallington] said. "All of the meats (roasts, chops, ribs, chop meat, etc.) were pre-packaged in thick white plastic-like containers (the contents cannot be viewed from the sides or bottom) with only the top area covered in clear plastic revealing what might be inside."
Not seeing what she wanted in the case, Fill asked "a gentleman dressed in butcher whites" about getting a pork loin cut a certain way. "He basically told me, 'What you see is what you get,' Fill said. "All meat products are cut and packaged off premises and no butchers are available in the store.'"
This recent comment by "Janny8" from a forum at Camping World is more specific about what's under the wrapping:
Many years ago I complained to a local Wal Mart because the ground round was red on the outside and brown on the inside. The butcher came out and told me it was because Wal Mart made them put dye into the meat to make it look better in the package and the meat was actually the same color in the center as it comes out of the machine. Then he added that if I thought that was bad just wait until they got rid of all the butchers. Well they did get rid of them and the results are meat not fit to feed my dog.
Wal-Mart used to buy from a company called Hudson Meats before it went bankrupt. "Firms such as Hudson Meats acted as meat brokers," explains Roger Horowitz in a new book about the history of meat consumption in the United States:
"collecting beef from many sources, using meat recovery systems to salvage meat from bones, then grinding up the mixtures and sealing the ground beef in vacuum-packed containers that could be sold to institutional food suppliers or retail stores."
What bankrupted Hudson was an E. coli scare in 1997. To be fair, Hudson also sold to stores like Safeway, but Safeway still has meatcutters. You can walk into a Safeway today and buy meat that is cut on the premises. At Wal-Mart, you have no choice but to buy the cheap outsourced product.
And Wal-Mart shoppers have the company's anti-unionism to thank for that.
JR