A few years ago, I interviewed an author here by the name of Ted McClelland, a former Michigander who, as you might recall, had stirred up a little bit of a shit storm after referring to our home state as “Michissippi” in an article on Salon.com about our passage of so-called right-to-work legislation. “Michigan,” said McClelland in the article, “has lost so many educated workers that the state’s leadership seems to feel it has no choice but to become a low-wage haven. The kind of place that attracts chicken processors, not software engineers.” Well, here we are, almost exactly two years later, knee-deep in yet another lame duck, race-to-the-bottom legislative session, and it looks as though McClelland was pretty much right on the money. Today, the Michigan Economic Development Council proudly announced that, thanks to their efforts, there would be 810 new jobs in the state of Michigan… at a hog slaughtering facility.

Merry Christmas, Michigan! All of your dreams have come true!

The following comes from today’s Detroit Free Press:

In the biggest such project landed by Michigan since Gov. Rick Snyder targeted food processing as a jobs-growth sector, Clemens Food Group, of Hatfield, Pa., plans to build a $255-million pork processing plant in Coldwater that will employ 810 workers.

The Michigan Strategic Fund approved $12.5 million in Community Development Block Grant funds Tuesday for the city of Coldwater for infrastructure improvements, land acquisition, workforce development and on-the-job training for the plant.

Clemens Food CEO Doug Clemens, in an interview with the Free Press, said he aims to have the new Coldwater plant operating by late 2017, and that processing of hiring and training employees will begin in the next six months. Entry-level production jobs will pay about $13 an hour, but a wide range of higher-skill management and technical positions will also be available, he said.

Michigan took an unusually proactive approach in courting Clemens Food, a sixth-generation family-owned outfit founded in 1895 that now has 2,200 employees, nearly all based in eastern Pennsylvania…

You read that right, we’re not only getting a pork processing plant, and all of the lost fingers and environmental degradation that will invariably come along with it, but we got to pay for it!

Yup, we have the distinction of living in a state that, while cutting public education to the bone, has decided to invest millions in pork processing. That, my friends, pretty much says it all. We were promised high tech jobs, and, instead, they took our money and used it to lure one of the dirtiest industries this side of fracking to our state.

This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. These are the industries that thrive in areas where unions are legislated out of existence and public schools are being closed to make room for for-profit charters. Bright people do not want to live here. And that’s why, right now, we’re talking about luring an enormous slaughterhouse to Michigan instead of a cutting edge manufacturer of wind turbine blades. This is what we’ve chosen for ourselves.

Before we go any further, I’d like to share a little something from the National Institutes of Health about what the folks of Coldwater can expect in exchange for those $13 an hour, non-union jobs slitting the throats of pigs.

…Meat processing involves animal slaughter at facilities where the meat is to be sold or kept on-site for canning, cooking, curing, freezing, or making meat products. It also includes preparing byproducts such as lard, gelatine, or tallow.

Meat processing uses large quantities of water and generates wastewater which includes significant amounts of organic matter such as fat, blood, manure, hair, feathers, and bones. This wastewater can also contain disease-causing organisms, bacteria, parasite eggs, oil, grease, salt, nitrogen and ammonia compounds, phosphorus, and chlorine.

Air pollution generated by meat processing can include particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, and hazardous air pollutants. Other byproducts of meat processing include odors, noise, and solid waste for treatment or disposal.

The slaughtering, processing, and packaging of meat has long been associated with a high rate of accidents, injuries, and illnesses caused by handling bacteria or infected carcasses or tissues. Meat processing has a much higher injury and illness rate than the average U.S. factory. Because of the repetitive motion involved in meat processing, worker safety and health issues also include ergonomic concerns…

It’s hazardous work. And, with the increasing speed and volume of production, working the “cut line” is fast becoming one of America’s most dangerous profession. Here’s an interesting little anecdote from a recent feature in Business Week on the true cost of pork.

…A Fremont worker, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals in the workplace, describes a recent incident involving a “gut snatcher,” the person responsible for pulling innards from the abdominal cavity. One day last year, the snatcher still had one of his hands inside the carcass when a saw cut through the spine of the animal and sliced off four of his fingers. “I think he lose two of these,” the witness says, pointing to his middle and ring fingers. Then as if an afterthought, he adds that he too has lost part of a finger—the tip of his left pinkie—to a rib cutter. And his wife also lost her index finger, severed by a fat trimmer. In every case, he says, “they washed it up but never stopped production.”

And then there are the environmental costs associated with pork processing, which, as stated above, is a very resource intensive industry, especially when it comes to water… My hope is that the folks living along the Coldwater River fare better than the folks who live along the Trinity River in Dallaw, which is known to run red with “pigs’ blood and other toxic biohazard refuse.”

I should add that I know that that there are likely good reasons to have a facility such as this located in close proximity to the animals to be processed. (As it is now, as I understand it, many animals raised in Michigan are exported for slaughter.) Putting aside for the moment the fact that American meat consumption isn’t sustainable, and can never be at present levels, given the negative impact the industry has on the environment, and the resources required to produce a pound of meat, I do imagine that having a facility like this in Michigan could perhaps cut down on highway miles traveled by meat industry trucks, and thereby have some environmental benefit. (Granted, it’s likely a drop in the bucket when the industry is looked at holistically, though.) Furthermore, not everyone is well-suited for a high-tech, “next-generation” job, like those Snyder used to talk so eloquently about. I get that. For war it’s worth, I’m also aware of the fact that this processor, Clemens Food, the 16th-largest pork producer in the United States, may not be the most evil company in the world. A friend just pointed out, for instance, that they’ve committed to switch from crates to “free-to-roam” pigpens across their operation. Sure, they’ve said that it will take them until 2022, to get all of their suppliers on board, but it’s probably still worth pointing out. Furthermore, the company states on its website that it requires employees to sign a “swine handlers code of conduct” and complete a training program in animal welfare. And, to their credit, I have not found any evidence of severe violations in the reading I’ve done thus far. (Granted, I haven’t invested a lot of time thus far.) With all of that said, though, I’m still disappointed in our State. I’m disappointed that it’s gotten to the point where dangerous jobs inside a hog processing plant for $13 an hour are seen as something to be proud of.