Project Gutenberg EBook of The Jungle

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Part 1
One way the meat packaging industry in Chicago abused its workers is by underpaying them. Employees worked for long hours with little pay, indicating exploitation. Labor exploitation is the abuse of employees in the workplace for profit. The abuse can be direct or brutal. In this case, the abuse of workers is direct because the industry did not consider the workers’ needs and the workplace conditions. It also did not bother increasing their wages, meaning that the meat packaging industry's concern was profit. The author writes, ‘‘under the system of rigid economy which the packers enforced, there were some jobs that it only paid to do in a long time, and among these was cleaning out of the waste barrels’’ (Sinclair 3). It implies that the industry paid workers meager wages despite doing risky jobs for long hours. For instance, employees worked in an unhealthy environment with no safety measures. This condition exposed them to health risks, yet the pay was low. Studies show that worker exploitation has devastating impacts ranging from physical to psychological. In the book, this abuse subjected some employees to stress and drinking because the work was stupefying and brutalizing.
Part 2
One way the meat packing industry defiled the meat they were in charge of was by failing to observe proper hygiene standards while handling and storing the meat. Lack of proper hygiene during storage spoiled the meat. According to Sinclair (3), the industry was marred with unsanitary practices, such as a lack of water to wash their hands after handling spoiled meat and removing poisoned rats from the ham. This exposed workers to health hazards. Some meat fell on the dirty floor during st...