A Review of Alice Driver’s Life and Death of the American Worker
The golden morsel of meat known as the chicken nugget became a staple in the American household and fast-food industry after its introduction in 1970. Despite the popularity of the McNugget and Burger King chicken sandwich, few people know that these items were invented by Tyson Foods. The company quickly became an industry giant, producing one out of every five pounds of chicken, beef, and pork sold in America in 2022, while remaining largely invisible to the public. As the company grew, so did its influence. Tyson became heavily involved in politics, using its power to limit worker regulation and boost profits. Life and Death of the American Worker: Immigrants Taking on America’s Largest Meatpacking Company, written by Alice Driver, explores these influences. The book exposes the internal operations that allow the company to maintain its influence, focusing primarily on the exploitation faced by the immigrant population that works in the processing plants. Driver takes a worker-centered approach by drawing on interviews conducted from 2020 to 2024. She uses these interviews to explore the psychological and physical toll that working in the plants has, stating, “their labor was invisible, but I could see the marks of it on their bodies” (XIII). Although these workers process meat for millions of Americans, their work goes unseen— due in part to ag-gag laws […]
