Original subtitles

(buffalo grunting)

(water splashing)

(cows mooing)

(wranglers murmuring)

(cow hooves clomping)

(door clanging)

(truck engine rumbling)

(train engine rumbling)

(cows mooing)

(auctioneer chanting)

(auctioneer bid calling)

(men chattering)

(cows mooing)

(cows mooing) (cattle prod slapping)

(auctioneer chanting)

- [Wrangler] Hey, hey, hey!

(horse whinnying)

(cows mooing)

- [Auctioneer] I wanna show you a fancy set

of black baldies, here now.

A fancy set of black baldy heifers right here.

66 head of the good black baldy heifers right here.

All one brand of heifers.

All one brand of heifers out of Eagle, Colorado,

200, I gotta bid, 230 and 229.

I have a bid of 229 and 230.

66 head of the good heifers right here,

we're gonna weigh 'em in twos, sell 'em in one.

Weigh 'em in two drafts, sell 'em in one to you.

Every one of those, and every one a good 'un.

(auctioneer chanting) (bidders calling)

(wrangler shouting) (cattle prod slapping)

(auctioneer chanting)

(auctioneer chanting) (cattle prod slapping)

(wrangler shouting)

(auctioneer chanting)

(wrangler shouting)

(auctioneer chanting)

(wrangler shouting)

(auctioneer chanting)

(auctioneer bid calling)

- [Bidder] 398!

- 189 to 398.

(auctioneer chanting)

(cows mooing)

(auctioneer chanting)

(cows bellowing)

(cows bellowing)

(cows bellowing)

(cows bellowing)

(cows bellowing)

(door slamming)

(cows bellowing)

(cows bellowing)

(truck engine rumbling)

(cows mooing faintly)

(cows mooing)

(cows mooing)

(wranglers shouting)

(cows bellowing) (wranglers shouting)

(cows bellowing)

(cows bellowing)

(cows bellowing)

(wrangler whistling shrilly)

(cows bellowing)

(gate clanking)

(wrangler shouting)

(wrangler shouting) (whip cracking)

(wrangler shouting) (whip cracking)

- Woo!

(wrangler shouting)

(whip cracking)

Woo!

(whip cracking)

(wrangler shouting)

(machinery rumbling)

(cow groaning)

(wrangler shouting)

(cow groaning)

(gate clanking)

(gate clanking)

(water splashing)

(cow mooing)

(cows mooing faintly)

(backhoe engine roaring)

(backhoe engine rumbling)

(truck engine rumbling)

(feed splashing)

(machinery rumbling)

(machinery rumbling)

(conveyor belts whirring)

(machinery whirring)

- [Victor] Victor, 24.

- [Attendant] Okay, Victor.

(machinery whirring)

(truck engine rumbling)

Oscar, that was 215?

- [Oscar] Yes, ma'am.

- [Attendant] Okay, thank you.

- [Oscar] You're welcome.

- [Man] Folgers, 251.

- Okay, Folgers.

(computers clicking and whirring)

- [Man] Indian, 236.

- [Attendant] Okay, Indian.

- [Man] Now we dump it.

(truck engine rumbling)

(truck engine rumbling)

(bus engine rumbling)

(bus driver speaking faintly)

- Thank you.

- Okay.

- Okay, Warren Monfort started the cattle feeding in 1930.

Now we have a packing plant, and he started that in 1970.

Okay, we have two feedlots, and this is one of them,

and there's one at Gilcrest.

And the capacity--

- 90,000.

- 90,000.

- Here?

- No, at Gilcrest, and the capacity's 120,000.

- Did you say 19,000 and?

- 9,000 at Gilcrest, at our other feedlot.

- 9,000!

- 9,000.

- 9,000, and?

- And at this one we have 65,000.

- 65,000.

- And the capacity is 125,000.

Capacity, for a 65, the capacity is 125.

- 125,000.

- Right.

At Kuner.

This is this feedlot.

- Hmm, I don't understand that.

- Okay, at this feedlot we have 65,000 cattle,

and the capacity is 125.

- Oh, I see, yeah.

- And the one at Gilcrest, it has 9,000 cattle

and 120,000 capacity.

- (speaks in foreign language)

- [Tour Guide] We buy all our cattle as yearlings,

and they weigh 650 to 750 pounds.

- [Group Translator] Each, each cattle?

- Each cattle, yeah, weighs that.

- (speaks in foreign language)

- [Man] (speaks in foreign language)

- (speaks in foreign language)

- And right before they leave they weigh 11 to 1200 pounds.

- 11, oh.

- 11 to 1200 pounds.

See that long silver tube?

That's where the corn flakes is going up into the elevator.

- (speaks in foreign language)

- Elevate over there.

- Yes. - To elevator.

- And then on this side, we have a gentleman

that takes a truck and goes to the ensilage pits

and brings it back and empties it into these troughs,

and it's being weighed up them long silver tubes.

Them two long ones, into the elevator.

- Okay, I didn't get that well.

- Okay, we have a gentleman that goes

to the ensilage pits over here.

- Ensilage pits.

- And dumps the silage into these two troughs,

and it's being measured up these long tubes.

(bus engine rumbling)

(men speaking faintly)

(men speaking faintly)

(men speaking faintly)

(car engine rumbling)

(cows mooing)

- Whoa.

(saddle clanking)

(cows mooing faintly)

(cows mooing)

(wrangler whistling)

(wrangler whistling and shouting)

(wranglers whistling and shouting)

(cows mooing)

(wranglers whistling and shouting)

(wranglers whistling and shouting)

(wranglers whistling and shouting)

(wranglers whistling and shouting)

(wranglers whistling and shouting)

(gate clanking)

(wranglers whistling and shouting)

(truck engine rumbling)

(wrangler shouting)

(wrangler shouting)

(gate clanking)

(wrangler shouting)

(wrangler shouting)

(wrangler shouting)

(wrangler calling)

(steel ramps clanging)

(wrangler whistling)

(wrangler whistling)

(wrangler whistling)

(truck engine rumbling)

- [Man] Well you know, we've got about 9,000 so far.

- Ooh, already? (phone ringing)

- Well, certainly.

The week's about over.

About 650 at Kansas City.

We got about 450 at Springfield.

We're gonna wind up with about 800 and some

at Oklahoma City.

Dodge City, probably 200 yesterday, Salina--

- [Man] Is that all steers?

- Well, we're gettin' a few heifers.

This week we'll wind up with 1500 heifers.

The bulk, steers.

I have them awfully tight on the kind of heifers

that they're buyin' and so forth, so.

I got 'em all scared to death.

Which they should be.

Well, yeah, you know, I want the kind or I don't want 'em.

And so that's what we're doing.

- [Man] Well you got really enough.

- I have all that you allowed me to get.

(laughing)

- The market is down.

We raised, we raised the rib, we lowered the top,

we lowered the ball, we, yeah, well I'll price this off

of next week's price list when the price list comes out.

No, I'm not interested in that.

I will price this next week.

Absolutely right.

Ah see, this will be shipping on the 5th, right?

Tuesday.

- Oh, come on, come on.

You got an order for me?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, they're shippin' Thursday, baby.

I gotta get rollin' here.

I gotta produce it tomorrow.

This is for Sunday arrival.

- All right, if I can get ya a Wednesday outta here

for Friday arrival, is that gonna be all right?

All right.

You got it handy?

All right, buddy, shoot.

32 boxes, 109 ribs, 20 to 22s.

I'm gonna have some ribeyes, Gusaroo,

but nothin' in an eight and down.

Now I'm gonna have some eight and downs the week following,

but next week I'll have some eight to 10s.

I can't get you any eight and downs.

We aren't killin' any light heiferettes.

All of ours are big steers, big-eyed,

thin skinned, no dirt under the skirt.

I can try and get you some Monfort Gold ribeyes,

but I can't get any that light.

What?

I can try, Gus.

That's the only thing I can do.

- Yeah, Bob, and if anything seems, any seems,

give me a call in a couple of weeks if any of these numbers

look interesting or the item, you know.

Just think about it.

We do sell a lot of 119s into the Dallas area.

They barbecue the heck out of those things there.

Okay, listen, great talkin' to you again, Bobby.

See ya later, bye bye.

Bob Paris.

That's me, what's happenin'?

Hold on a sec.

Hey, let me call you back, I got another one here.

Bye.

- You know, how can we put flavor in it?

We put the same thing in,

this is the first complaint we've ever had

on no taste in a hamburger, for God's sakes.

We've had, we've had problems with it being tough,

and all this other stuff, but nothing with taste,

for Christ's sake.

Maybe you got a cold.

Well, in my instance, I've never had this.

It could be, it could be.

But I'm telling you, from my own personal experience

on this thing is that I have not had any problems.

So I don't know what to tell ya.

- Ernie, let me tell you something.

I'll give you ungraded goose necks

in combos delivered Monday, a dollar four.

That's the best I can do.

You wanna call me back or what?

- The what?

Tri-tips, $1.31.

$1.30, $1.31, right in there.

- [Salesman] Al, what's happenin'?

- Well I'm sold out of tri-tips,

but I might be able to get you a few.

- [Salesman] 18 inches of snow?

- You want six boxes?

Talk to me now, you gotta tell me.

I don't know what you're doin'.

All right, six boxes of tri-tips.

- [Salesman] That's the snowbelt down there.

- Yeah.

Well, give me some more boxes

and I'll go over to somebody else that'll fill it up.

You will not.

Alright, Sally, that's fine.

Then I hope we can get this out for you, okay?

You get the stags!

I don't, Sally, Sally, believe me.

Sally.

That's it, bubby.

- Bert Curt at Monfort.

You've made the stink list.

Well, you understand I'm stagecoach from Denver on up.

So the money could be in Denver.

But how about the 17?

I appreciate that because I just finished discussion.

I know what you're doing, Phil, I know you're expanding,

and I know you've got an enthusiastic program.

But it's just like a fella just now said to me,

banks loan money and we sell meat,

and you know he put his finger right on it.

And he's a rather large fellow who I don't wanna walk over.

- 32 boxes of 12 to 14 MR strips and a box of prime strips

and a box of prime shorts.

Have you got somebody that's on a prime sale

or whaddya got goin' there with the primes?

What are you tellin' him, Mel?

Oh, yeah.

Well I tell ya what, anybody that's looking at prime

is looking up a dead horse's tuchus, that's about it.

Boy I tell ya, Kenny Monfort keeps tellin' us

to get people away from prime because it just is not there.

(truck engine rumbling)

(truck engine rumbling)

(truck engine rumbling)

(truck engine rumbling)

(wranglers whistling)

(cows mooing)

(wrangler whistling and shouting)

(wranglers whistling and shouting)

(cows bellowing)

(wranglers whistling and shouting)

(wranglers whistling and shouting)

(wranglers whistling and shouting)

(wrangler shouting and whistling)

(wranglers shouting and whistling)

- [Wrangler] Full house!

(cow bellowing)

(wrangler shouting)

(injector clicking)

(bell ringing)

(injector clicking)

(bell ringing)

(men shouting)

(cow plopping)

(cow thudding)

(machinery rumbling)

(bell ringing)

(machinery clanking and rumbling)

(machinery clanking and rumbling)

(alarm buzzing)

(alarm buzzing)

(saw whirring)

(conveyor belt clicking)

(engine rumbling)

- Morning.

(workers chattering faintly)

- Hi buddy, how are ya?

What are we gonna do here, big kid?

We have...

We have no hindquarters, that I can tell you.

Hey, Sally, Sally, listen.

I went to the Baby Huey, I went to the cooler people,

I said Sally needs some hinds,

he says, "How we gonna get 'em, they're all on a rail?

"They're all mixed up, how can we get 'em?

"We can't rail 'em off down in the plant."

We're in trouble, that's all I can tell ya, sweetness.

(workers chattering faintly)

- Okay, Solomon, what'd ya do?

- We bought 6932 cattle, we got that many in.

We're total Monfort of 6363.

We killed 8223 cattle last week, which 7305 were ours.

We had 218 cows and bulls and 700 Canadian type.

We are projected for 4625 this week,

of which 2000 will be our own.

What we have outside cattle of 2625 on site.

We have 62,645--

- [Man] You're projected for what?

- 4625.

- [Man] Killed?

- No, no, that's in-site.

- No, we're on our in-site deal.

- [Man] Oh, live.

- Yes.

Kuner, we have 62,645.

Gilcrest, we have 94,901, which 3296 are outside.

Total Monfort, 154,250.

We have about 2900 cattle

of our own yet to come in.

- How's your stuff lookin'?

- The night shift started today with 30 people.

So we got about 170 people on board.

I think that some of the meat is low enough now

to where we're sellin' it, some of the loin cuts,

some of the middle meat cuts.

I'm not sure that it's gonna stay that way.

We're a little nervous about havin'

that many people, you know, on board.

I think our sales are about 380,000 a week,

which is a little lower than we'd like to see it.

Probably--

- [Man] How's your Jack's Steak?

- Jack's Steak business is runnin' at about $60,000 a week.

60 to 80, the week before last we sold $118,000 to 'em, so.

- [Man] Are they going out on promotion

this week or this month?

- Yeah, it's a promotion, but it's a special promotion

where they send out a mailer to

X number of people in a given area.

It's not like a blanket thing, so.

- [Man] They didn't cut their price any?

- No.

We're tryin' to encourage a price cut

with that formula sheet.

I don't know if you, did you get that sheet I worked up?

- [Man] If I did I haven't looked at it.

- Price it two different ways.

One is give 'em a fixed price for nine months,

the other one is on a scale.

We're tryin' to encourage a 99 cent Jack's Steak,

something like that.

- [Man] What is it now, $1.19?

- Yeah, a $1.09.

$1.09, and we think if we can get it a .99,

we might be able to sell another 50% or something like that.

- Feedlot's nice and wet and sloppy?

- Well, this is the total rain over here.

So we're really only about a half an inch of rain

last week, total moisture for the week,

But the humidity and the temperature end of it,

you've got practically half of the hours

for the total week last week at over or at 100% humidity.

So we sure didn't do any evaporatin' and--

- [Man] No, no.

- That just graphically shows what was going on.

- [Man] My knees told me.

- Oh yeah.

Well this thing pulled it up.

In fact, I might send that to you every week.

You can relate that to your knees.

- [Man] Well, maybe I can save you the trouble

and send you my knee reading.

- But anyway, we certainly collected

moisture last week, in both places.

Now we got about a quarter of an inch more total moisture

at Kuner than at Gilcrest last week.

The week before, it was the other way around.

- [Man] Whaddya lookin' for feeder cattle price?

- Well we're trying very hard to get it down,

and I see some vague, slight weakness, but not much.

In the kind of cattle that we wanna buy

they're very steady to weak, but not very much weakness.

- One's we're closing out now is runnin' around 50 cents.

But for what we're puttin' on feed now,

you gotta figure 63, 64.

Corn is, we're about done with the five something, 100 corn,

five and a half, 5.70, and we'll be in

to over six then, $6, 100 corn.

For years, why, it was amazing.

The bad automobile years were good beef consumption years.

Now people aren't making big purchases.

Lots of times they have more money left around

for things like food, et cetera,

And I think we're showing every indication

that there're no big purchases gonna be going on.

The only appliance that's sellin' well is home freezers,

which means that people are nervous about food supplies.

They tend to stock up, which hurts the market,

but also they tend to eat more beef

if they've got it sittin' there in the freezer

than if they have to go to the store.

(keyboard clicking)

- In seven minutes in hot water, it's completely defrosted.

You open the egg up, there's a slicer that comes with it.

You can slice it, you can dice it, you can chop it.

As I said, sandwiches, salads, breakfast items,

whatever it may be.

It eliminates all that cooking, peeling,

all that waste and spoilage and pilferage.

As I said, four years ago, it was 10 years

of developmental stages at Cornell University,

and four years ago we started test marketing it,

and trying to find out what it was

and where it would appeal.

And today it is a multi-million dollar business.

- Did you go to Cornell?

- No, I did not go to Cornell.

Penn State.

- [Man] You mean that the yolk is in there?

- The yolk is in there, and it's centered.

Let me give you an oversimplification

of what that product is.

We take a dozen eggs and separate them.

We take the yolk and put it in a very thin sausage tube.

We take that tube and partially cook it.

We take the yoke and deposit it

in the outside container that you see there.

It's about three quarters full.

We remove that partially cooked yolk

from it's container and insert it inside that container,

which then fills the container.

We seal it, and this goes over a continuous

hot water bath, which is cooking it.

The centrifugal force as it goes over

the bath keeps the yolk centered.

When it comes out the other end, it's completely cooked.

Now we had a very small--

- [Man] It's in the casing all the time?

- No, the casing is removed from the yolk.

We put a small amount of modified--

- A Visqueen-type case.

- Yes.

We put a small amount of modified starch in that yolk,

which gives it an adhesive factor to the white.

So that when you slice this, the yolk will not

separate from the white as it does from a egg

if you were to do them individually.

As I said, it's an oversimplification.

We hold 36 patents on this, and the equipment

is very complicated, but that's primarily

what's being done to that product.

We just put a dozen eggs back together again

into one convenient form.

Instead of being a dozen eggs,

it's the equivalent to 17 eggs of your center-cut slices.

Those things run about a buck 40 now,

and eggs are up anywhere between

70, 80, and 90 cents a dozen.

I'm just taking this product,

I'm also responsible for the international market.

And we're just taking this product to Europe now

where eggs are up around two dollars a dozen,

and we've had an incredible reaction over there.

The possibility exists we may sell more of this

in Europe than we do in the Unites States right now.

- [Man] And that would be produced in the U.S.

and exported to--

- Yes, eventually we would consider a joint venture

over there and putting up manufacturing facilities,

if it becomes successful.

So maybe there could be something

of a meeting of the minds two ways.

Primarily, we're interested in chatting with you

about things such as that egg, and bakery items,

and some salads that we have just developed

that we haven't even gone to market with,

and finding out if your distribution center

would be interested in handling these products.

And if you are interested in that type of thing,

we would develop a program for you

and your distribution centers

to get them interested in this type of thing.

One of the great problems with distributors today

in the country is that that egg is a commodity item,

but they're treating it as a specialty item,

and they wanna mark it up 25, 35, and 40%.

Okay, with that we have been able to grow

the way that we have grown.

But one of the things we wanna see it do

is get more into a commodity level,

if somebody wants to mark it up 15%

and move huge volumes of that type thing.

I visualize as you possibly being that type of company.

(workers chattering)

- Hello, Governor Vanderhoof.

How are you getting along?

Say hello?

How are you, sir?

Governor Vanderhoof, good to see you.

Fall down here, yeah?

- [Man] How's everything going?

- Pretty good.

- [Man] Good.

- It's hard work.

Not as hard as you work.

- [Man] (laughing) Yeah.

- Governor Vanderhoof, good to see you.

How are you today?

- [Man] Good, doin' fine.

- How do you do, sir.

How are you today?

- [Man] Great, sir.

- [Governor] Good to see you.

How are you?

- [Man] Fine.

- [Governor] Good.

Johnny Vanderhoof.

How you get along?

- Pretty good, I'm not complaining.

- [Governor] Gonna come and join ya.

Gettin' a little hungry.

How are you?

How you fellas today?

How are you doing, Garcia?

- [Man] Fine.

- [Governor] Gettin' along all right?

- Yeah. - Good.

- How are you, sir?

How are you?

How are you?

Governor Vanderhoof.

Good to meet you.

- [Man] He's got a tough schedule.

- [Governor] Good to meet you.

How are you?

(machinery buzzing and saws whining)

(offal plopping)

(saws whining)

(saws whining)

- [Man] Time to shut the water off down there.

(saws whining)

♪ That I have been thinking of ♪

♪ What kind of man is this ♪

♪ An empty shell ♪

♪ A lonely cell in which ♪

♪ An empty heart must dwell ♪

♪ What kind of lips are these ♪

♪ That lied with every kiss ♪

♪ That whispered empty words of love ♪

♪ That left me alone like this ♪

♪ Why can't I fall in love ♪

♪ Like any other man ♪

♪ And maybe then I'll know ♪

♪ What kind of fool I am ♪

(whistling and shouting)

(saw buzzing)

(saw buzzing)

(saw buzzing)

(saw buzzing)

(meat thudding)

(meat thudding)

(saw whining)

(saw whining)

(conveyor belt rumbling)

(workers shouting)

(truck engine rumbling)

(machinery rumbling)

(clippers buzzing)

(wranglers shouting and whistling)

(wranglers shouting and whistling)

(wranglers shouting and whistling)

(sheep bleating)

(gate clanking)

(sheep bleating)

(sheep bleating)

(wranglers shouting and whistling)

(chains clanking)

(wranglers shouting and whistling)

(truck engine rumbling)

(bells clanging)

(bells clanging)

(bells clanging)

- [Wrangler] Get up there, Skinner.

Skinner, get in there!

Skinner, get up there!

(wranglers shouting and whistling)

(bells clanging)

(wrangler shouting)

(bells clanging)

(wranglers shouting)

Skinner, get up there!

(wrangler shouting)

(bells clanging)

(wranglers shouting)

(machinery rumbling)

(machinery rumbling)

- I reviewed the area that we've talked about.

The company believes that they are willing

to give this back to the bargaining unit

at four brackets, one man.

And then it would be the company's worry then

on some of the questions brought up

by the employees in this area.

We cannot justify that it would take

two people to do this thing.

Particularly in the area where we only load

two to three loads of lambs per day

in association with the lamb fabrication department.

In other words, lamb fabrication pretty well

determines how many lambs that we send out

of the lamb cooler area per load.

So it is the company's position

and feeling at this time that we go back

to the original setup that we had.

We're gonna give it back to the union, one man,

and if some of these guys have any lax time,

then we're certainly have the right

to keep 'em busy during the balance

of their eight hours or nine hours a day.

And that's where we stand to date.

- Our primary concern is that the scale

does come back to the bargaining unit.

That's all we're concerned about.

You have the right to adjust,

and if we don't feel that that is really

completely right down the road, we have the right

to grieve and try to work out those items,

and that is all there is to it.

- Well, we're headed for trouble, I can see that (laughs).

- [Norm] There isn't gonna be any trouble up there, Bill.

- It just, you're gonna create a big problem, all right?.

Harvey will agree with me, he has to.

He can see what I'm talking about.

I still go back on the same argument

that we need two people that can scale lambs

and do their own pushing and sorting,

because you just can't keep up with two areas at one time.

- All we're saying that you scale the lambs

and mark on those tags and everything.

The supervisor, it's my understanding,

has the right to do all that and he's

gonna make sure that that invoice is correct.

- But the only point I'm trying to make,

Harvey understands, I think.

I wish he'd would tell ya that

if we have one man that can do the scaling

and the scaling only, and one man that can do

the pushing and the pushing only,

we can't keep up with both areas, Norm.

- You've got all those other guys

that stand around and wait for the scale.

- [Bill] Now wait a minute.

You're talking about all these people standing around.

I think Harvey will verify me there, or back me up,

that we don't have all these people standing around.

There's a big misunderstanding there.

- The only thing I can tell you, Bill,

is that the management of the company

says it's gonna be four-bracket scale job.

We're gonna keep the same number of men

that we've got in there, and that's it.

- [Bill] I agree with the four brackets on the scaler--

- We negotiated, we negotiated all of the brackets,

the money, the jobs in the last negotiations.

We're not gonna renegotiate the entire department again.

- I'm not renegotiating the entire department.

All we're talking about is the scale.

Let's let both people scale and select.

To keep up with two departments,

you have to have two people doing it.

- And the supervisor's there and he's gonna take care

of what the lineup is for the day.

He's going to organize your labor along with ya.

And it's my understanding that you do the scaling,

make those lambs, whatever goes with the job

of getting it on and off.

That part and the selection can come

either with your time and the labor there.

If he says watch the bruisers on this next group,

then that labor can help.

- We eliminated the labor job that used to push cold lambs.

Okay, all that work falls on the guy on the scale.

He's gotta go down the whole length of that cooler

on every rail and bring 'em out 15 or 20, 25, at a time.

And when they're mow packin' 300 an hour

and the loaders are loading 300 an hour,

you cannot keep up.

So what happens when one department runs out?

You're gonna jump on that pusher and that pusher,

there's just no way he can do it.

- Bill, you're makin' all of these statements--

- [Bill] I'm not makin' 'em.

- About what's gonna happen, this is gonna happen to ya,

and you haven't even got up there and tried it yet.

- [Bill] We have tried it.

We have been doing it for a week and a half, ask Harvey.

We have.

We've been doing this job on a verbal agreement

with ya for the past week and a half, Norm, we have.

This is almost the end of the second week.

- You heard my statement from what management wants

and what they've said, and that's where we stand.

- Take a man on a line that's scaling.

He's drawing four brackets for scaling.

The product comes to him on a conveyor, whatever,

by whatever means, in a box.

He scales the lamb, writes the weight on the box,

or he scales the product, I mean, excuse me,

puts the weight on the box and pushes it by

and the next piece comes to him.

Our scaler has got to go in and select

2500 to 3000 lambs a day.

Each one individually has to be looked at.

The tag has got to be marked whether it's an X bruiser,

an X butcher, good, buck, yearling, whatever,

and be put away at that time, you know,

in the right category where the junk goes,

and, you know, it's a big responsibility.

And we've got some customers that'll take

a few bruisers, we've got some that won't take any,

we've got some that'll take a lot more.

And you know, there is a lot more responsibility

on that job than just a scaler on a production line.

And that's the argument I've been tryin' to make.

- I think maybe you're confusing your job

with the responsibility of what the company wants,

and that's the company's responsibility

of what they sell their customers.

- Well, okay, now.

You approached us, Norm, we didn't approach you.

And this is the way we've been doing it

for the past week and a half.

With the understanding that it would be our responsibility.

We know how to pull the junk, what the company expects.

Okay, if you're saying that we don't have to,

let's get it understood right now then.

In other words, if some rough lambs get in those trucks

or go the wrong way, you're not gonna come back on us

and say, "Listen, what about all these bruisers

"that we sent to Rosen, or Froleck, or Salmon?

"They're not supposed to be in there."

I'm saying that you told us that it was

our responsibility, and we've been doing it.

Now you're saying that...

- I didn't say that.

You was telling me what you're doin' up there, Bill.

And all we're sayin' is you're gonna scale the lambs.

Four brackets.

The rest of the responsibility lies with the company.

- Well we've got to make that point clear for sure

to make sure that we know exactly where

we stand and what responsibility we have

as far as the scale's concerned so there, you know,

nobody comes back on us in the future

and says, "You're not doing your end of the job.

"You're responsible for selecting all these lambs,

"marking all the tags, and you're not doing it."

And that's why I say, we've gotta make it clear right now,

and I think that a four-bracket scaler is okay

if all he has to do is stand on that scale and make sure

that he gets the right lambs on each manifest.

But if has to do all the selecting every day,

you're talking about a lot more

responsibility and a lot different job.

- I'll state one more time.

- [Bill] Well, I agree--

- The responsibility that you have is scaling the lambs.

The responsibility of the other lies with the company.

- The selection of lambs does not lie

with the bargaining unit.

- [Norm] That's my understanding.

- Could I have a recess (mumbling).

- Well, John, I'll repeat it one more time.

- I heard you. - Okay.

- [John] I heard you, and I've got it down.

(door closing)

Where we at on the damn thing, Bill?

The way I see it now...

What we're saying is we want the scale back into our unit.

That's ours, right?

So the point that we get the scale

and the scale does pay four brackets,

if they wanna start addin' other work to the guy,

and we're not agreeing to their setup anyway.

We're not agreeing to all this lineup.

All we're agreeing to is that the scale's

coming back to bargaining unit where it belongs.

It should never have left in the first place.

But now it's comin' back and the contract

says it pays four brackets, right?

If they expect us to do all the selecting lambs

and doin' all this marking and all this other kinda crap,

and then we'll grieve that and make

that an individual grievance.

Because at that time, and if the labor is overloaded

like you say it's going to be and probably will be--

- There's no doubt.

- [John] Probably will be if he pushes 600 lambs an hour,

and if your guy, I don't think he can make it.

- No way, he's got 200 feet of cooler in there

that he's gotta chase lambs down all day long,

and you just cannot do it.

You take 600 head an hour out of there,

and by the time you select 'em and sort each one,

each one has to be looked at individually.

And I know that Harvey Seller, the supervisor,

isn't gonna to have time to do that, no way.

And the first thing they're gonna want us to do

is to agree and go along and do it part-time

and maybe give a guy an extra bracket.

And we're gonna say no right now.

It's gonna be exactly the way they put it down

and the number of men, and that's the only way it can be.

But I tell ya, John, I'm afraid they're gonna come along,

it'll go smooth for a week or so,

and they're gonna get some rough lambs in these loads,

and then they're gonna start chopping our heads

and say, "Okay buddy, you're fired.

"It's your responsibility to select these lambs

"and we're getting bad lambs in loads,

"and customers are all raisin' cane with us.

"You're dead."

- Well, I think we gotta just agree.

We're gonna agree today that we'll take the scaler

at four brackets, that's all.

They're gonna try to work it out with one scale,

and they're gonna try to keep this labor at the labor rate,

and if it don't work we're gonna have

to do somethin' else, that's all.

But you'll know within a day or two what's happening,

or you know already.

You know already.

- [Bill] Yeah, I can see it right now.

That's what scares me.

- And if it doesn't work tomorrow or the the next day,

then tell the guy that's overloaded to go ahead

and file a grievance, and we'll shoot another angle.

It's all you can do.

- I can see now we're (chuckles) definitely at a standstill.

Reached the point, okay.

- I dunno, Norm, we feel this is gonna create

some problems up there, and maybe we're,

maybe we're seein' problems that aren't going to be there.

We will agree that the scaler be paid four brackets.

We'll agree to that, here in this meeting.

Now, the gang lineups as you've got 'em here,

if that's the way you see it, that's fine.

But we're not gonna agree to that

until we have an opportunity to let this thing work.

I'm talkin' about so many people at a different speed.

I guess you discussed this fifth speed

last week on the luggers.

And now the labor in the sixth speed,

which we thought should become a scaler.

We don't know what's gonna happen and how it's gonna work,

so we will agree that the scaler should come in,

and he should be paid four brackets for scaling lambs.

We'll agree to that.

And as far as the rest of this stuff,

I guess you've still got a right to rearrange

or try to rearrange, and have a right to grieve

or whatever we gotta do.

But we don't wanna get ourselves in a position

that the laborin' man is gonna be doin' all the pushin',

and the scaler man is gonna be standin' there,

and then when the time comes that

he can't get caught up or whatever,

or no lambs are comin' out, that the scaler man

has to go do all the labor work.

And this is the area that Bill's real concerned about,

and he should be.

He feels that if we had two scalers,

they could work together, and it would work

and make for a smooth operation,

and we may be back talkin' to you about that real quick.

But we want the scale, we think it's ours,

and we well agree to that, to four brackets,

and you've still got a right to adjust

or whatever you gotta do up there.

- All we're saying, John, is we create jobs

for the employees to perform.

We feel strongly that the employees

come and give their best each day.

We make sure that they get paid.

And all this concern and upset about

somebody's gonna be overworked, et cetera.

- Well, our concern is to make,

our concern is the same as yours, Norm.

We're tryin' to make your operation

just as smooth as we can.

Our concern is identically the same as yours,

but Bill is raising these question because he works there.

He feels there's going to be problems.

Maybe there won't be.

The supervisor of the department hasn't said a word,

which is, I guess, his right.

- We're going to organize the thing

the way it should be up there.

Everybody will be much happier,

and there won't be anybody gettin'

in serious trouble over too much free time.

And that's all we're saying.

We're tryin' to establish the workloads evenly.

We give you back the four brackets on the scale.

And the responsibility of the scaler,

if it's markin' the X tag along with

his sheet that he weighs them,

why then, he puts the X there,

check mark, or whatever needs to be done.

- Fine, we'll accept the scale.

- In 1973, the performance of our fund,

as you all know, turned down.

And that was really the first disappointment that we'd had

as a company in terms of our investment performance.

The book, put together by A.G. Becker and Company

in Chicago, which is an investment banking firm

that reviewed approximately nine years of history in the

two plans, Monfort Feedlots and Monfort Packing Company,

two basic plans, and they concluded that the

investment performance in the plan through 1972

was in the top 10% in the country,

comparing the fund to all other funds of a like kind.

The performance in 1973 was in the bottom 10%,

and the performance in 1974 will place us

in the bottom 5%.

- This money belongs to us.

A lot of people think because they've never seen this money

and never had it, that it doesn't,

it's something that was given to us.

It is a gift, but it is in form

of a salary or money that is ours.

And this is a thing that I'm glad to see everyone turn out.

Now, I've been in 10 years, and very few of us here

that've stuck it out and been here 10 years.

And we have seen, we have had dreams when this started

of what it would amount to at the end of 10 years.

But we've seen the end of 10 years come

with a very disappointing dream.

This is a thing that I think that should be stressed

to the people in here that's in this plan

that this money is their money.

It don't belong to Monfort Packing Company.

I doesn't belong to anybody but us.

And this is the thing that I think that

in the past, we have never, none of us have ever knew

what our money was invested in.

We didn't know if it was in coal or anything.

We had no idea where our money was invested.

We asked someone, no one knew.

In the future, this should be known

to all of us because this money is ours.

It doesn't belong to nobody but us.

The new plan that you have talked about,

I think that this should be spelt out to the Nth degree

to everybody rather than just someone saying,

"Well, you're in a new plan now,"

and sign this little slip of paper and give it back to ya.

And go about your business, no.

When this plan started, I was 35 years old.

It was as far away from me as anything

that I'd every thought of.

But now I'm 50.

It makes a difference.

So whoever's 35 years old now, is goin' become 50.

So this is something people should be thinkin' about.

- Our normal program here maybe was to buy

a 700-pound steer, put on 450 pounds,

and sell a 1150-pound steer.

The new program may call for buyin'

an 800-pound steer, 100 pounds heavier,

puttin' on 325 pounds,

selling 1125-pound steer, so that's a slight reduction.

But a big reduction in what we're doing in the feedlot.

- How much less grain will you

consume with a program like this?

You're talking about, what, maybe 20, 23, 24 pounds

of grain a day per animal in the feedlot?

- No, we're talking probably an average of 18 pounds.

- [Interviewer] About 18 pounds.

- Of grain.

Okay, and 18 pounds of grain,

and we're going to, on the average, take off 25 days.

So on, per animal coming out of the feedlot,

you're talking 450 pounds less grain.

That's roughly nine bushels,

eight bushels, I guess, eight bushels.

We'll have 450,000 cattle go through the feedlot

this coming year, so you're talking about us

reducing our demand by 3.6 million bushels.

- What is the moral responsibility

of, say, the U.S. consumer as well as producer?

- Exporting grains is not just a moral thing

or a humanistic thing.

We need the money to buy the oil.

So, you know, the economist that might or might not

given a damn about someone else will say,

"Yeah, we gotta export grain so we can import oil."

In the long run, I have some questions about

whether we won't get very selfish,

and if we did get self-sufficient in energy somewhere

along the line to where we didn't have to export grains,

why, we might say to hell with the rest of the world.

In that case, we better spend a hell of a lot of money

for defense because we got problems there.

I don't think any more big wars

are really going to be fought on ideology,

communism versus free enterprise.

We're getting to where we're using enough of our

potential resources, whether they be energy or food,

where I think we're going to, the fear of big wars

result from shortages of essentials to people.

In my scenario of what's going to happen,

why we're saying that there's going to be

plentiful supplies of beef for another three years

why we're doing away with some of our extra numbers,

that means, I think, that we're going to have prices

probably averaging no higher than they are now

for the next three years.

That's at the feedlot/packing plant level.

Now, there may be some upward movement

because of costs of transportation,

costs at the retail market, the profit margins there,

although I think they're high enough now.

But I think we're gonna see stable prices

for about three years.

Then when we get to this 90-pounds-per-capita

consumption figure, at that time, I think we'll see

prices at the feedlot/packing plant level

probably 50% higher, maybe 75,

maybe twice as high as they are now.

So beef will become quite expensive.

It'll be high enough to allow the rancher to make a profit,

which he'll have to make by that time,

feeder to make a profit, and the grain farmer

to sell very high-priced grain.

And beef will become more and more of a luxury item.

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