Scott Craft knew right away that something was wrong. In all his time at Cargill Meat Solutions, a beef-processing plant just north of Plainview, Texas, he had never seen so many security guards as were on duty that day in January 2013. During Craft’s six years at the plant, he had been promoted from the kill floor to the butchering line (known as “fabrication” or just “fab”) to a warehouse manager, so he happened to be outside on the loading dock when the line of cars pulled through security.

The plant sat on a lonely stretch of Interstate 27, roughly halfway between Amarillo and Lubbock. It was bordered to the west by the highway and the freight railway but was otherwise isolated—well outside the Plainview city limits, surrounded by expanses of cotton fields, and accessible only by a lone farm-to-market road, unused except for the steady flow of cattle trailers in and out of the loading area. By nine-thirty that morning, as the line of cars parked in the employee lot, the sun was high and so bright that the concrete plant seemed to glow white under the glare. Men with briefcases, flanked by additional security guards, exited the cars and disappeared through the main entrance.

Minutes later, supervisors swept through the plant and out to the loading docks. “Everybody go to the cafeteria!” they shouted. As Craft shuffled into line for the lunchroom, he noticed that the chain conveyors that carry beef carcasses along the cutline had been halted. On a typical day, the plant processed 4,500 cattle, more than 1.1 million head per year—nearly 4 percent of all cattle slaughtered in the United States. To meet that kind of demand, Cargill ran two shifts and never halted production during work hours. “When you see fab and the kill floor break at the same time,” Craft told me later, “there’s something going on.” Once the cafeteria was filled with hundreds of employees and hundreds more spilling out into the hallways, one of the briefcase men, John Keating, president of Cargill Beef, stepped up onto a lunch table. He switched on a loudspeaker and started delivering from a script.

The plant was to be shut down. They were told that those who wished to be considered for entry-level positions at the Friona plant, some 75 miles away, or wanted to apply for jobs in Kansas and Nebraska, where Cargill would shift its operations, would be allowed to do so. Those who did not want to move would be issued severance payments, according to seniority, and would qualify for career retraining. For now, they should all get their things and leave.

Craft estimated that half the gathered employees didn’t speak enough English to understand what was being said. Still others were too far away to hear. A ripple moved through the crowd as everyone tried to figure out what was happening. Finally, Craft yelled out, “Hey, the plant’s closing, man. That’s what they’re saying. Everybody go home!” Keating stepped down from the lunch table and was whisked away by security.