The Virginian-Pilot (9-22-18_

“The book offers genuine white-knuckled, page-turning action…”

In “Hog Wild,” how pork workers took on an anti-union behemoth

• By Terrell Orr
  
• Journalist Lynn Waltz has written an accessible work of recent history that might give readers pause before they eat their next cut of pork. “Hog Wild” argues that behind that forkful of meat is a cost best measured in the pain of workers, the failure of federal regulations, and the degradation of the environment.

  The book is intended to provide an exposé of how our food gets to our table similar to Upton Sinclair’s epochal “The Jungle” or Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” Despite these sizable ambitions, Virginian-Pilot readers in Virginia and North Carolina will recognize the topic of “Hog Wild” straight from their backyard: the Smithfield meatpacking plant in Tar Heel, N.C.

The Daily Press (9-15-18)

HRBooks review: Dive into labor practices with Smithfield Foods brought to light in book by HU professor

The quest to unionize American manufacturing has been an enduring campaign for the past century. Its stories have often been generalized, but Lynn Waltz in her book, “Hog Wild — The Battle for Workers’ Rights at the World’s Largest Slaughterhouse,” makes the workers’ story much more personal.

Her book offers compelling insight into the fate of the modern American labor movement and, crucially, evidence for why the United States is increasingly divided between rich and poor.

~ Wilson J. Warren, author, Tied to the Great Packing Machine: The Midwest and Meatpacking

Lynn Waltz weaves in-depth interviews of key actors and court records with contemporaneous newspaper reporting into a compelling saga of the fourteen-year campaign to unionize the world’s largest meatpacking plant. Hog Wild is a valuable addition to the literature on workers’ struggles for better wages and working conditions in the meatpacking industry.

~ Donald D. Stull, coauthor, Slaughterhouse Blues: The Meat and Poultry Industry in North America

 

The Progressive magazine, April 8, 2018.

Keeping Time, May 3, 2018

Foreword Reviews, May/June 2018

 

Goodreads, April 21, 2018