The strike at the JBS Greeley meatpacking plant is over, and the house won. After three weeks of holding the line against the world’s largest meatpacker, workers are returning to the blood-slicked floors. They were fighting wage theft and line speeds that turn human hands into scrap. They lost. While the workers picketed, the USDA announced a million dollars in grants for ranchers. The state provides the capital to the bosses while the corporation starves out the labor.

Senator Schumer's bill to 'break up the packers' is a hollow gesture, arriving years too late to matter. The reality is that JBS and its ilk don't need the strikers anymore. They are already pivotally investing in automated robotic butchery. Every day a worker spends on a picket line is another day a software engineer spends coding a robotic arm to replace them. The 'Value-Added' business models the USDA brags about are built on the broken backs of laborers and the eventual elimination of the human element from the American table.