This chapter traces the history and legacies of scientific management in food processing and examines the consequences of the assembly line on worker skill, health, and well-being, with a focus on the meat and poultry industry. We argue that scientific management principles and Fordist models of production have enabled the purposeful deskilling of workers, the process by which employers reduce the necessary skilled or technical work within an industry. This pattern has produced a vulnerable workforce in food processing. Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, found inspiration for his assembly line in the “disassembly lines” of midwestern meat processing facilities and then replicated that system for the purpose of automobile manufacturing. In an assembly line, each worker has a specific and monotonous production task that is performed as components of the final product move along a mechanized conveyor belt. These tasks are simplified and easy to learn, but the workers completing them are often viewed as both replaceable and disposable. Yet without their labor our food system comes to a grinding halt.