Anyone who has read Fast Food Nation (and if you haven't, DO, because it will change your eating patterns for the better forever) knows how slaughterhouses touch on many issues that face Americans everyday: union labor (and union busting), illegal immigration, fair labor, OSHA and humane practices, health and sanitary factors for consumers and employees, etc.

Well, over at DailyKos, we have the story of David, a former Tyson plant employee, and it really is a 21st century version of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.

This is the part of the diary where I go on an angry rant. What the hell does Tyson think its doing, and what the hell is wrong with the supervisors who comply with practices that force a grown man to urinate on himself? Why do we let them get away with it? And they don't just get away with it - they profit!

The injustices David described to me make me furious. They make me furious, and they also make me frustrated. [..]

This is supposed to be the land of opportunity, in which any person, regardless of their status at birth, can work their way up in society. Without health care for all, that idea seems little more than a sick joke. And don't even get me started on the way we fund public schools.

The very fact that Tyson has gotten away with this behavior up until now (and will most likely continue to get away with it) shows even more flaws in our system. Where was OSHA? Why should Tyson be allowed to run their lines so fast and allowed to maintain conditions in which most workers are injured from their jobs? Why can they keep a man in pain for four hours before he receives medical care? Why?

David's story is NOT unique to Tyson. The sad, simple truth is if you are eating meat and you do not specifically know exactly where it came from, chances are that many human beings were exploited to produce it.