Schlosser notes that, in Greeley, the meatpacking plant was originally worked as a small business and controlled by the Monfort family with “compassionate paternalism.” The
Monforts negotiated with meatpackers who were in a union, and job conditions and wages remained strong. Schlosser notes that meatpacking plants, in the earlier part of the 20th century, tended to be found in cities—such as the stockyards in Chicago, detailed in
Upton Sinclair’s famous expose,
The Jungle (1906). After the book prompted President Theodore Roosevelt and Congress to pass sweeping food-safety regulations, urban meatpacking entered a more stable period—worker wages were relatively high, unions negotiated with management, and meatpacking companies were largely run privately—without stockholders.