Today as I was leaving work, I looked in my rear-view mirror and caught sight of what appeared to be city lights. I was really confused, since Savannah doesn't have a sky line. Then I realized that I was looking at the paper factory that I smell every time I go outside. I'm not sure I've ever paid attention to it in the evening, but it looks much prettier all lit up than it does during the day with all sorts of thick gray smoke surrounding it.
Factories are a very important part of my patients' lives. Many of them work in meat-packaging factories, which is another way of saying that they work in giant refrigerators. I get frustrated because those with the same employers all seem to have the same ailments: headaches, dizziness and stomach pains. They also complain of very dry, burning eyes and weird skin rashes. I would love to know the long-term side-effects of working in one of these factories 12 hours per day for several weeks/months/years.
Factories symbolize a lot for me. My grandfather went from working as a chemist in Italy to working in a factory in Massachusetts before he learned English. At that time, hard work in a factory meant being able to support one's family and potentially even "move up" in the world. Today, thanks to stagnant wages, full-time factory workers are generally still living significantly below the poverty line. This is bad enough in the U.S., but factory workers in most parts of the world have it much worse. And the argument about sweatshops is always a difficult one; after all, is it better to have a job making little money in bad conditions or no job at all?
Our society loves cheap goods that are made on assembly lines. Thanks to de-industrialization, most of this labor is out of sight and out of mind for people in the United States. Thus, we often don't think about the human price that is paid.
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