The Slaughterhouse Worker: Friend or Foe?
The vegan and animal rights movement is unique in its advocacy for all sentient beings. Our ethical understanding and circle of compassion do not discriminate; human or not, everyone is entitled to a reasonably good life. Creating a world of harmonious co-living and co-existence with nonhuman animals requires us to craft a world based on respect, equality, and justice for all, including humans. It would be difficult to imagine a world in which the exploitation of humans is rampant, whereas nonhumans have been fully liberated. The structures of domination that oppress humans are also in place to oppress nonhumans; the very industry we are fighting against, namely the animal industrial complex, harms, exploits, and literally kills human animals too. Workplace fatalities, slave labor, dietary diseases, environmental destruction, our potential extinction, you name it.
But there is something particular about the individuals who work and thus suffer within the animal industrial complex: they are both victims and perpetrators of the systemic exploitation and abuse we are advocating against.
Slaughterhouse workers are often migrant workers with very little or no other option but to submit themselves to the demand of the food system: kill as many animals as quickly as possible. The kill line kills both humans and nonhumans; it's an abhorrent industry. The true cost of a meat burger is an animal's entire life, serious environmental pollution, and severe mental, emotional and physical problems among its makers. Jennifer Dillard reports that: "Some cutters are forced to make five cuts every fifteen seconds. This high speed has led to an increase in the meatpacking industry's already high level of injuries; approximately 25% of meatpacking employees are struck ill or injured every year. Common meatpacking injuries range from musculoskeletal injuries, such as tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, and white finger, caused by rapid repetitive motions, to life-threatening injuries, often caused by the deadly combination of long hours, tiring work, and sharp knives designed to easily slice through bone. Despite the seriousness of the common physical injuries and illnesses suffered by meatpacking employees, these safety issues continue to be ignored by decision-makers and society at large."
When did we get so used to the idea that profit matters more than morals? Numerous studies clearly show that slaughterhouse workers report severe mental health problems and changes in their personalities; they express feelings of fear, shame, guilt, and eventually, desensitization and paralyzing depression. Of course, alcoholism, suicide, PTSD, burnout, depression, recurrent nightmares, concentration loss, sleep disturbances, anxiety and paranoia, limited autonomy, high psychological and physical demands, extended working hours, job insecurity, workplace violence, injury and discrimination, sexual harassment and assault, substance abuse, intimate partner violence, health hazards, and physical strain are devastatingly rampant.
"The first time when I killed it was not easy for me. I feel pity for it. I felt I just wanted to close my eyes, turn around, and run away. It was really sad but the more you do it the easier it gets. Like yesterday I had to shoot cows in the kraal. I climbed over the fence, walked to the cow, and just shot it. I feel nothing anymore."
When quitting your job is not an option, the only thing left to do is to develop coping mechanisms: emotional detachment, social detachment, and isolation. Needless to say, an industry that abuses animals for profit couldn't possibly care less about their human victims. This year, 6 workers died, and 11 were hospitalized at a chicken slaughterhouse due to a liquid nitrogen leak in Georgia. Slaughterhouse workers were - and probably still are - very likely to be exposed to and die from Covid-19.
There is nothing wrong with having compassion for the human beings exploited and abused by the animal industrial complex. Indeed, vegans and animal rights advocates should be the first to save humans and nonhumans from such a diabolical industry. Many activists attend and organize protests outside of slaughterhouses, witnessing animals enter the facility alive and exit as mutilated pieces of flesh. During these protests, often referred to as vigils, activists film and photograph the animals that arrive in transport trucks in hopes that this industry will cease to exist one day. Naturally, it is not uncommon for the animal rights activist and the abattoir worker to coincide and interact at these protests: some are agitated at the demonstrations, feeling vilified, and others give us a thumbs-up and sympathize with our cause. In fact, investigators often report that it is the slaughterhouse workers themselves who demand intervention by becoming whistleblowers. Some of them even aid in placing cameras at the right spots; true story.
"The worst thing, worse than the physical danger, is the emotional toll. Pigs down on the kill floor have come up and nuzzled me like a puppy. Two minutes later I had to kill them—beat them to death with a pipe. I can't care."
Being empathic and understanding that slaughterhouse workers are victims of the very system that oppresses animals does not negate our concern for animals. Some people will argue that they would never work at a slaughterhouse and ask why the slaughterhouse worker doesn't just get another job. It's easy to demonize and point our fingers at them, but we should know better and realize that the human servants of this industry are victims of exploitation themselves. Slaughterhouse workers are among the least privileged, socio-economically most disadvantaged, and marginalized folks, while the powers that force both humans and nonhumans into that hell hole are one and the same.
Of course, there is also the uncomfortable reality that most of us were complicit at some stage in our lives. Being a client of a business that abuses and kills animals is perpetration, is it not? We conveniently ignored animals' right to live and funded their misery for pleasure, unlike the slaughterhouse worker, who basically does it for food and shelter. The vilification of workers is nothing but a refusal to acknowledge that human rights and animal rights are closely interlinked. When we fail to truly comprehend the ways in which systems of oppression impact nonhuman and human animals, we limit the growth of our movement. Those most likely to commit themselves to revolutionary action are those whom the system fails the most. As a movement that advocates for the rights of all sentient beings, it should be our duty to liberate all beings from such complexes, regardless of their species.
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