The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America’s Largest Meatpacking Company by Alice Driver

Episode Date: September 8, 2024

Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America's Largest Meatpacking Company by Alice Driver https://amzn.to/3ASgiGu Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, an explosive exposé of the toxic labor practices at the largest meatpacking company in America and the immigrant workers who had the courage to fight back. On June 27, 2011, a deadly chemical accident took place inside the Tyson Foods chicken processing plant in Springdale, Arkansas, where the company is headquartered. The company quickly covered it up although the spill left their employees injured, sick, and terrified. Over the years, Arkansas-based reporter Alice Driver was able to gain the trust of the immigrant workers who survived the accident. They rewarded her persistence by giving her total access to their lives. Having spent hours in their kitchens and accompanying them to doctor’s appointments, Driver has memorialized in these pages the dramatic lives of husband and wife Plácido and Angelina, who liked to spend weekends planting seeds from their native El Salvador in their garden; father and son Martín and Gabriel, who migrated from Mexico at different times and were trying to patch up their relationship; and many other immigrants who survived the chemical accident in Springdale that day. During the course of Alice’s reporting, the COVID-19 pandemic struck the community, and the workers were forced to continue production in unsafe conditions, watching their colleagues get sick and die one by one. These essential workers, many of whom only speak Spanish and some of whom are illiterate—all of whom suffer the health consequences of Tyson’s negligence—somehow found the strength and courage to organize and fight back, culminating in a lawsuit against Tyson Foods, the largest meatpacking company in America. Richly detailed, fiercely honest, and deeply reported, Life and Death of the American Worker will forever change the way we think about the people who prepare our food.About the author Alice Driver is a James Beard Award-winning writer from the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas. In 2024, she won the Lukas Work-in-Progress Prize from Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard for The Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America's Largest Meatpacking Company (One Signal Publishers). Driver is the author of More or Less Dead (University of Arizona, 2015) and the translator of Abecedario de Juárez (University of Texas, 2022).

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm Oaks Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. There you go, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the big show. We certainly appreciate it. As always, the Chris Fox Show has been for you. Here are 16 years, going on 16 years, over 2,000 episodes of some of the most brightest,

wonderful people in the world who are writing the most latest books that come out that educate you, make you smarter, and all that great stuff. Refer the show to your family, friends, and relatives. Go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfox, linkedin.com, 4chesschrisfox, chrisfox1, the TikTok, and all those crazy places on the internet. Today we have an amazing journalist on the show. She's the winner of the J. Anthony Lucas Work in Progress Award for her explosive expose to the toxic labor practices at the largest meatpacking plant in America and the immigrant

workers who had the courage to fight back. Life and Death of the American Worker is the title of the book. The Immigrants Taking on America's Largest Meatpacking Company. Alice Driver joins us on the show today. We'll be talking to her about her amazing insights and books and some of the stuff that I've always been wondering whatever happened, especially during that COVID time. Alice Driver is a J. Anthony Lucas and James Beard award-winning writer from the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas.

She is the author of the book Life and Death of the American Worker, More or Less Dead. I think that's a biography on me. No, it's not. And the Forecoming Artists All Around, a memoir about her family's relationship with Maurice Sendak, the author of Where the Wild Things Are, one of my favorite books when I was a kid. She's also the translator of, I'm going to need translation on this, Absterio de Juarez. Absterio de Juarez.

There you go. There you go. She is the translator of that book and lives in the Ozark Mountains. Welcome to the show, Alice. How are you? Thank you for having me, Chris. I'm good. I'm in the middle of book promotion, as you know.

There you go. Thank you for the cyst on the Spanish I'm good. I'm in the middle of book promotion, as you know. There you go. Thank you for the cyst on the Spanish word there. I flunked Spanish clearly, so I didn't make it past the first class ever. But I used to be able to count to 40 in Spanish. Alice, give us your dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? I am on Instagram. I quit Twitter X, so I'm not there.

But I'm on Instagram under my name, Alice Driver, and I have a website under my name. Come on, TwitterX now or whatever, bankruptcy, whatever it's called this week. It's not that toxic, is it? I had to leave. It's pretty darn toxic, man. It's a cesspool over there. I mean, I think it's worse than ever. Anyway, moving on, give us a 30,000 overview of your new book, Life and Death of the American Worker. I like to say that this is a southern died, been injured or who are on disability.

There you go. And you cover this for quite a distance of a story. You follow these folks around for quite a long time how long are you on the beat here in in describing what's in the book i started reporting in 2020 when the pandemic hit and you know this book it began as one article um and so at no point did i think this is going to be a book that's how that's how these things usually start one article you know someone broke into the watergate hotel what's that about you know yeah so this began with one article and and then what happened in the pandemic is that meat packing plants were you know one of the largest sites of outbreak in the pandemic is that meatpacking plants were, you know, one of the largest sites of outbreak in the United States of COVID aside from prisons. And so workers started to get infected

and die. And, and also it was a time when all of us began reevaluating labor. What is labor? What are we willing to do? What are we willing to sacrifice? And what do we want to improve? It was a crazy time too, because, you know, you would hear about these workers at these plants and they're, you know, I think standing side by side of each other. And so it was so easy for the COVID to spread in their workplaces, right? Yeah. I mean, that was going into this. I thought, you know, I know that they work, they work side, you know, elbow to elbow, production depends on that closeness. And if you know, I knew, you know, they often don't want even want workers to go to the bathroom, because going to the bathroom lowers production. So if you don't want to work and go to the

bathroom, what what are you going to do when COVID arrives and workers need to social distance? Oh, yeah. I think I remember seeing them put up plexiglass between the workers. In some places, but it really depended upon the job, the line, what was being done. Because some things that there was, I mean, that's what workers said there was no social distancing yeah i mean they're they're still close together too close together from the pictures that i saw and i was just like oh my gosh now you focus on the immigrants and and what they're going through in these experiences and it's kind of interesting this double standard that we seem to have in america where you can't you can't don't immigrate here and we don't want to give you citizenship and the ability to work, but we would like to have you

be an illegal immigrant and work for us. And if anybody catches on to anything, then we'll just send you back. It's kind of interesting that weird double standard we have. Yeah. And that's what I really wanted to discuss that because especially in the meatpacking industry, a large percentage of workers are undocumented. And the same goes for agriculture. You know, the backbone of our food system is upheld by immigrants and refugees, many of whom are undocumented. And many of them come here to do, you know, what is the most dangerous job in the United States, which is meatpacking. And so we should be discussing how can we create more legal pathways for these people who are doing this very difficult work instead of the opposite discussion, which we keep

having about people invading us or about our borders being overrun, because every person who's coming here, they're coming here because they are looking for work and they know that they can get a job. Yeah. They know these companies are hiring and they're promised income, they're promised jobs, you know, and it's weird how these companies get away with it too, or they seem to get away with it. I remember, I think during COVID, there was one meat plucking plant in the south

that was raided and it was there's like 800 immigrants that they busted that day if i recall rightly and yeah i was just like what's you know what's going on and you'll hear people complain about food prices in america and then they're like we don't want immigrants here and you're like these gen z-ers are all busy making freaking tiktoks they don't have time to pick produce yeah i mean it's a busy question yeah and i mean they do the jobs no one wants and and i mean california and agriculture is huge and you fit you you understand the amount of food that comes out i mean i think we i think we i mean if they're if we have immigrants come to this country, I mean, yeah, evaluate them and do all the things that we do to evaluate, you know, to make sure

they're not, you know, sometimes there's criminals that get through, but for the most part, like you said, they're people that are just looking for a better life. They're looking for stability. They're looking for the American dream. They're looking for work. They usually just, they, they just love the American ideal of, of being, you know, if you work hard, you can get ahead and freedom and security. And we should, we should just, Hey, let them work and let's tax them. You know, this, this whole thing that we can't let them work. And, you know, I've got friends that visit to do like comedy shows and stuff like that. And they're from Canada and they can't because they're from canada and they can't because

they're coming from canada and they're on like a short visa tour they can't get paid and i'm just like this is so dumb let's tax them this is what we do in america we tax the crap out of everybody not the billionaires but everybody else that's true that's a good point so your story starts in 2011 around a chemical blast. Tell us a little bit about this. When I started reporting in 2020, I was really focusing on workers who were getting COVID and some of those workers died of COVID. But what came out of my reporting was that several of the workers who died of COVID had been in a 2011 chemical accident at a Tyson plant in Springdale, which is the headquarters of Tyson. And this chemical accidents are very common in the meat

packing industry because for several reasons, you're mixing chemicals that if mixed incorrectly can produce weapons, like a weapons grade chemical. And you have people from many different countries speaking up to 50 languages at a plant. And so even though companies like Tyson say, oh, we always have a translator or we translate into other languages, workers say that is not true. And in the case of this chemical accident, the investigation said that, you know, the individual who was mixing the chemicals was did not speak English, but all the instructions were in English. Tyson said that wasn't true. But so you have these chemical accidents and in the workers who were in that accident, you know, there's many parts of this.

Tyson keeps on site medical care. So medicals internal to Tyson. So the workers who were in the accident who were, many of them were hospitalized, but they were told to come back to work the next day. Then on-site medical care said, you're fine. But when they got a second opinion, for example, one of the main workers in my book, his name is Blasidon. He's from El Salvador a doctor outside of Tyson told him one and you have one entire lung that was eaten up by the the ammonia and the chemicals from the chemical accident and so by the time COVID arrived he was predicting his own death he said if I get COVID I will die that is wild and I know that a lot of these immigrants they're kind of trapped there like

you say they've got the internal the medical thing because obviously you know they don't want them going to a public hospital and and i guess the police catching them i know they keep their like their own apartments and stuff like i've heard they buy you know they'll buy up hotels and and and everyone stays in in basically company housing is that still going on that is a question that i had. There were so many things that I wished I had time to investigate, for example. And that's a question that I have because in Arkansas, there's a group of about 300 Karen from Myanmar, refugees.

And when I spoke to some of them, many of them were living in housing that they said had there was some relationship to tyson but i i didn't there was i really need a team of 25 people to investigate all the things that came out of of my work over those four years there you go i mean it's it's unfortunate that we have these conversing opposite sort of uh opinions and attitudes towards immigrants and workers. You know, we don't really seem to, I guess, understand. I understand it, but I guess a lot of Americans don't understand this is really where their food comes from, or do they just not care? Yeah, and so I really wanted to make that point because immigrants make up the largest percentage

of labor in the meatpacking industry. And, you know, at a time when the political discussion has really been focused on, you know, that the border is in crisis, the border is not in crisis. You know, most of these people who are crossing the border, whether they're documented or undocumented, are coming here to work in meatpacking, in agriculture, in construction. There you go. One party knows that those people bring future voters,

so that seems to be what the problem is. And I think they seem to be worried about the power of one race of people, I suppose. At least that's the way they seem to position themselves and their parents. So it's interesting. Tell us a little bit about yourself, how you were raised, what made you become a journalist and get into journalism? I was born in the Ozark Mountains, and my parents were part of the Back to the Land movement in the 70s who wanted to grow their own food and build their own house. And so I grew up in that environment. I grew up without a TV, really spending a lot of time outdoors.

Wow. So you're a fully developed human being then. I would like to think so, yes. I was a latchkey kid too, so we had to be outside because mom was like, get the hell out of my house until dinner. I think that made us into better people. But I don't know. I guess Gen Z will have the last laugh on that one. Or whatever the next one is after that.

I'll leave it to them. I guess, what is the saying from Trump's corrupt attorney, Bill Barr? The history is written by the victors. So we'll see what they say. And so how did you get into journalism then and want to write? I always wanted to write ever since, you know, really since my first memory I wanted to write. But I never, you know, when I graduated from high school, my parents said, do whatever you want, you know, as long as you can pay for it. So I applied to

a college in Eastern Kentucky. That's a work school. If you get in, you work for the school and you don't pay tuition. It's called Berea and it's a really incredible model. I'm very thankful that I went to school there because I graduated with no debt. Wow. That's a really incredible model. I'm very thankful that I went to school there because I graduated with no debt. Wow, that's a good thing to have nowadays. I really couldn't have done what I have done with debt because writing is obviously a risky, a financially risky endeavor.

And I did not know how to make money as a writer, so I got a PhD in Spanish. I love languages and I did not know how to make money as a writer. So I got a PhD in Spanish. I love languages and I love, I knew I wanted to work in Spanish. And after I finished my PhD is when I said, I'm going to give myself three months to figure out how to freelance as, as a writer, as a journalist. And if I, you know, I can't live with myself if I don't do that and that's when I started I started reporting mostly I report stories in Spanish which is the same was true for this book and probably helped in interviewing able to interview immigrants with your language yeah it would have been impossible in the pandemic because you know because I did this for four

years imagine if I had to pay a translator for four years. Oh, God. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting, you know, things we learn about life and the things that are part of our journey end up being products we use as we go along and things along that lines. So you follow several families, I believe, in the book. Do you want to tease out some of the experiences of those families? Mm-hmm. Do you want to tease out some of the experiences of those families? The book opens with two of the main workers, Angelina and Placido.

They're from El Salvador. Angelina never went to school. She worked from a young age. She's illiterate. And Placido, she and Placido came to Arkansas and got jobs at Tyson together. And eventually she got fired from Tyson. Tyson has a point system where if you accumulate points, like you show up late, you automatically are fired if you accumulate too many points. And she said she thanks God that she was fired because she was not in the chemical accident in 2011, whereas her husband, Placido,

was. So he was in the chemical accident. And I wanted to follow him because the story of workers is really the story of safety and labor conditions and what happens over time when safety conditions are not maintained. So after the chemical accident, he can't breathe. He talks about crying every day before work in the bathroom, but he's being told by nurses on site at Tyson, you know, you're fine, keep working. And eventually, you know, he needed to, because if a worker wants to consult with a doctor or a nurse outside of Tyson, they have to pay for it themselves. So when he eventually did, which was years later, you know, years later, he finally consulted with a doctor

and his wife shared his medical records with me. And the doctor said, you know, you have one lung that is completely gone, not functional because of the chemicals. And, you know, you could because um it was an ammonia it was an explosion that that like slowly eats away at the lungs basically and and so when covid arrived he really he predicted his own death and he wanted to stop working he won't but his family because he was supporting family both in el salvador and in U.S., needed the money. And so when he got COVID, he did die. And 10 of his family members got COVID also from him. And several were hospitalized, including his wife.

And Angelina is the one who said, I want justice. I don't care. You know, I'm not afraid of Tyson. I am willing to figure out how to get justice for what happened to my husband and i'm willing to talk about i'm willing to use my name i mean she's one of the very few workers in the book the only workers that use their real names are either dead or they no longer work at tyson wow that's crazy these people are really trapped in the position that they're in so what do you hope readers come away with when they read your book? The first thing is I really hope that readers look at the way that workers are organizing in Arkansas.

It's a worker-led model, meaning workers came together. And originally it was 16 women working in poultry processing. And they formed an organization called Benzeremos and then they began providing a space for workers to meet, learn about their rights, organize like for example right now they're organizing around the issue of child labor which is a problem in the meatpacking industry and to organize protests and write letters and really use the voice of those who are working in these plants to share their stories, which is something that's been really difficult for them historically because there's so many barriers, especially, for example, workers say that when they enter Tyson, when they start working,

they're required to sign a document, a legal document that says we will not speak to a journalist. Anything we have to say, we will take to Tyson. Wow. Wow. There should be laws against that. I don't know. That's what I think. This has been very insightful. Give people your dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs to find out more about the book? Thank you. My website is alice driver.com and you can buy the book at amazon if you want to support independent bookstores at bookshop it's at barnes and noble i think it's even at target there you go support the book wherever fine books are sold folks thank you very much alice for being on the show we really appreciate it thank you chris i appreciate it too there you go and order the book it's called life and death of

the american worker the immigrants taking on the america's largest meat packing company out september 3rd 2024 i should correct that actually life and death the american worker the immigrants taking on america's largest meat packing company thanks for everyone for tuning in go to goodreads.com for chest christmas linkedin.com for chest christesschristmas, chrismas1, the TikTok, and all those crazy places. Be good to each other. Stay safe.

We'll see you guys next time.