Got a bone to pick about occupational safety and workers' rights in the meatpacking industry?  If your answer is "yes," then Eric Schlosser is your man. But it gets better – if you have no interest in hearing about the squirrel meat that routinely gets thrown into sausage mix, he can also converse (in beautiful, flowing prose, no less) about sex, drugs, and politics.

Eric Schlosser, author of New York Times bestsellers Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness, spoke last Monday at the Carnegie Music Hall to kick off the season's Drue Heinz Lectures. This lecture series, which this year enjoys its 15 anniversary, can name several very prominent speakers in the past, including political satirist P.J. O'Rourke (Give War A Chance), writer/poet Margaret Atwood (Oryx and Crake), and writer Alexander McCall Smith (The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency). 

In the past decade, Schlosser has done extensive research on the fast food obsession in America and how it contributes to the obesity epidemic, and also on the underground drug sales in our country and their economic and social significance.

"I guess I'm the guy you don't want to be sitting next to at the dinner party," said Schlosser by way of introduction. "When I write, I tend to write about stuff that people don't generally want to hear. And tonight, I'm going to be talking to you about some stuff that, once again, you probably don't particularly want to hear about."

Schlosser spent the majority of his time discussing the current state of the rights of meatpacking workers and their dire situation. He spent much of the evening discussing one of his idols, Upton Sinclair, and the light that was shed on the injustices of the meatpacking industry after Sinclair's expose The Jungle came out in 1905. The problem, said Schlosser, is that after the problems discussed in The Jungle were fixed – there were actually waiting lists to work at many meatpacking factories in the United States at one point in the mid-1900s – the industry has once again collapsed, rendering the meatpacking business the most hazardous line of work in the country. The meatpacking industry has about 40,000 "industrial accidents" per year, including dismemberment, lacerations, and decapitation.

"Accidents? A bruise on your arm could be considered an accident," Schlosser said. "Losing a limb? Not so much."

According to Schlosser, the government is not taking these deaths and near-deaths in the meatpacking industry nearly as seriously as they should be. Perhaps, Schlosser commented, the root of the problem regarding government interaction with the meatpacking industry is that its penalties for employee neglect are about as low as they can be.

"I am currently writing a book about prisons," Schlosser said.  "I am speaking to people who are in jail for life because they got caught with a small – small – amount of marijuana on them. Meanwhile, if by some teeny-tiny chance an employer in the meatpacking industry happens to go to trial for employee neglect – which they don't, they don't ever go to trial – their absolute maximum sentence is a small fine and a possible, and highly improbable, six months in jail. The government is spending way more money putting away AIDS patients who are smoking pot than employers who are standing by and watching their workers get hurt."

There is something undeniably alluring about watching a man speak of a subject he is passionate about. Schlosser, who is clearly no stranger to public speaking, has a refined, dignified air about him, making him very easy to watch. When discussing these problems, the 45-year-old writer seems to morph into an overexcited youth again, which made him a joy to listen to. 

The Drue Heinz Lecture Series at Carnegie Music Hall lasts from September until April.  For more information about the series and upcoming lectures, visit http://www.pittsburghlectures.org/dhlecture.html.

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