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VIDEO: Book Night – ‘Life and Death of the American Worker’ by Alice Driver
On Jan. 8, the OPC hosted a book night to discuss Life and Death of the American Worker by OPC member Alice Driver. Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, the book begins with a deadly chemical accident at a Tyson processing plant in 2011, which the company quickly covered up. Driver was able to gain the trust of the immigrant workers who survived the horrific incident and its aftermath.
Click the window above to watch a playlist of clips from the program.
Yaffa Fredrick, Senior Director of Investigations at The Houston Chronicle, moderated.
During the program, Driver talked about the genesis of her book idea, the history of the meat packing industry, the political and media landscape affecting workers, Tyson Foods’ medical apparatus, and answered questions from the audience about the implications of mass deportations, translating the book into Spanish, an upcoming podcast based on the book, and more.
During the course of Driver’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, found the strength and courage to organize and fight back, culminating in a lawsuit against Tyson Foods.
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