“The Jungle” is a novel by Upton Sinclair, an American Socialist with the intention to address the plight of meat packers in the hands of the beef trust. The setting of the novel is in Chicago; a town where Upton traveled while he was just twenty-six years old with the grand vision to help in sensitizing and pushing for better working conditions of the meat workers. The meat industry seemed to weave together all the misfortunes experienced by all other workers in the American society in the early 1900s.
Upton's novel The Jungle was first published in 1906 and became a genuine sensation for American book lovers. From one perspective, it portrayed the preposterous practices of meatpacking industry predominant at those times on the illustration of slaughterhouses in Chicago suburbs; then again, it uncovered the hapless life of American laborer. The book indicated what sort of agony the workers experienced from their unpleasant work and poor living conditions.
The quote "I aimed for the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach," Was used by Upton to mean that he anticipated United States will get to be offended by the treatment of the specialists in the business (Sparknotes.com). However, the principle clamor that went up was over the messiness of the meat-pressing operations that he portrayed in his book. The most prompt outcome of the book, which made a just about moment sensation and transformed Sinclair into a universal superstar, was the section of the Pure Food and Drug Act (Chicago Tribune).
When Upton wrote this novel, his intention was to highlight the filthy life of the American workers who served capitalist bosses. However, the American government instead of improving the living and working conditions of the laborers went on to change the regulation of the Pure Food and Drug Act. The Pure Food and Drug Act was not the central intention of the book and therefore felt he did not achieve what he intended to achieve with the book (Chicago Tribune).
The question of whether the meat industry in USA in the early 1900s required reforms can be conclusively answered by drawing facts from the book. The writer describes the way that workers had no water to wash their hands and therefore instead used the water that they would later use in making sausages. The author also describes the way the workers did not remove dead rats that had died from poisoning from the meat used in making sausages. With the facts considered, the industry needed to be reformed to ensure that the food products were produced with proper guidelines to provide healthy and safe food. Despite the need for regulation of the meat industry, the major theme of the book was to revolutionize the lives of men who worked in the industry. The idea was to ensure they were able to live a modest life with amenities that were available to other members of the society (Sinclair).
The food industry in USA needs to be regulated today just like it required regulation in the early 1900s. However, in today’s world, the sanitation of the meat processing environment is not the issue that needs to be regulated. What needs to be controlled mainly should include the lives of workers who works in those industries by raising their wages and ensure health guidelines are adhered to in the right way. The importation of processed meat in the United States of America should be regulated to ensure that the meat adheres to international health guidelines. The countries allowed to import meat into the United States should only be those that strictly follow the guidelines of meat production from animal growth to the slaughtering and packaging. This is to ensure that meat that is from genetically modified unsafe to eat animals is not allowed to reach American consumers. The industry also needs to be regulated to ensure that the factory workers in various food chains such as McDonalds serve Americans with high-quality meat products.
Poor working conditions such as those that were experienced by laborers in the meat production industry in the early 1900s still are there in the less developed countries. Bangladesh is an exquisite example of the existence of the world of “The Jungle” today. In the recent past, Bangladesh has witnessed massive loss of lives of workers in their textile factories. In November 2012, a factory inferno razed dead approximately a hundred workers before another fire in 2013 claimed more lives in the same country. However, the most memorable disaster occurred on April 2013 in Bangladesh capital-Dhaka is where a textile industrial plant collapsed killing more than a thousand workers. These three incidences serves to establish the working conditions of the workers in imported jobs by American firms.
Stricter rules in the United States has led to many American companies to establish their production plants in other countries with cheap labor force and high supply of the same. The practice is specifically aimed at cutting down the cost of production to boost the company profit, but it has become apparent that the firms do not take good care of their workers in the other countries. Large enterprises such as Apple have been in the spotlight for their decision not to have their production plant in United States of America and instead have them in China. The company has been criticized for making its production plant in Hon Hai, denying Americans the job opportunities despite the company being listed in America.
Other big companies such as Wal-Mart and Nike have faced disapproval for the way their act of building production plants outside the countries where they are listed in order to cut on the costs of production. Despite the increase in a number of multinationals enlisted in the United States, the unemployment levels in the country have reached very high levels in the past few years. Although the increased unemployment could be attributed to the economic recession experienced globally, if American industries had production plants in the country would have gone long way in arresting the situation. The organizations have also been criticized for the deplorable conditions and peanut salaries that they subject their workers to in the third world countries
It is unethical for American firms to export jobs to third world nations, lake millions of dollars and then pay the workers peanuts without even providing for proper working conditions for the labor force. The organizations should ensure that the terms of their workers are safe to ensure that laborers also benefit from working for the multinationals. It is sad to have employees of big firms such as Nike just because they are not Americans getting different treatment from their colleagues in the same industry with the same country in America. If the businesses need to utilize the cheap labor in the third world countries, they have to ensure they set their working conditions in a way that the working conditions of the employees are well taken care of. This can be achieved in terms of secure working conditions, insurance policies, and reasonable salaries.
Bangladesh is a country that provides one of the low-cost labor market in the world, with the country also having one of the most deplorable working conditions for garment workers in the world. The industry is highly unregulated thus many businesses such as Nike capitalizing with profits and ignoring the laborers (NPR.org). Many of the worker in the Bangladesh sweatshop production plants do not earn a living salary but are just paid for the work they do in day-to-day terms. The temporary nature of employment is a frustrating option for the workers as they do not know when they will lose a job. Businesses argue that the need to hire workers on a temporary basis helps to increase productivity of the workers. Despite it being good business for the firms, it is unethical to keep employees in the dark about their future with the organization, and this significantly reduces the productivity of the workers.
The solution to the problem of laborers who are temporarily employed by international corporations in third world can be tackled through enabling of two policies. One of these policies should be to have companies that are listed in United States of America follow the regulations of both the American regulations as well as those of the country they are operating in. This is to ensure that the loopholes that the corporations utilize in the third world countries are sealed effectively. The other policy is to check on the way those international companies pay their workers, and ensure that they are all employed with defined contracted terms.
Other books that led to the enactment of legislative laws in USA includes “How the other Half Lives” by Jacob Riis that exposed the living situations of the pitiable in urban areas. The book led to the enactment of a legislature code of building in the city of New York to safeguard buildings are safe and healthy to live in. The Octopus (1901) by Frank Norris is another fictional book that revealed monopoly of railway practices in California, leading to breaking up of the holding company controlling railroads in the Northwest in 1904. Lincoln Steffans’ book named “The Shame of the Cities” published in 1904 exposed the political corruption rings in cities across United States of America. The book caused installation of city commissions and city Managers’ offices to help curb the corruption (Pani and Holman).
There are various crisis in the history of United States of America that led to change in legislative of different states and even the federal government. One of the crisis is the Subprime Mortgage Industry crisis in late 1990s and the industry nearly went into dormancy. Enactment of the Mortgage Reforms Act led to increasing in the number of subprime borrowers. By 2006, it was estimated that twenty percent of the total number of the primary residence were home mortgages were made to subprime mortgagor . This has caused significant changes in the recent to decades in subprime borrowing and thus increased the number of American house owners.
Works cited
Chicago Tribune,. ''I Aimed For The Public's Heart, and. . .Hit It in the Stomach''. N.p., 1995. Web. 4 Dec. 2014.
NPR.org. 'Bangladesh Collapse: The Garment Workers Who Survived'. N.p., 2013. Web. 4 Dec. 2014.
Pani, Erica, and Nancy Holman. 'A Fetish and Fiction of Finance: Unraveling the Subprime Crisis'. Economic Geography 90.2 (2013): 213-235. Web.
Sinclair, Upton. 'Chapter 27 from the Jungle'. Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts 5.1 (2011): 1-11. Web.
Sparknotes.com. 'Sparknotes: The Jungle: Key Facts'. N.p., 2014. Web. 4 Dec. 2014.
