Extend Your Love and Compassion to Slaughterhouse Workers
Slaughterhouse workers are also victims of the animal-industrial complex’s killing machines
The ongoing quest to liberate animals from the horrors of the slaughterhouse has seen activists and academics focus on the technocratic organizational structure of slaughterhouses. This work has revealed how animals become objectified within the Fordist production line of modern slaughterhouses. As Melanie Joy argues in Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism, the slaughterhouse “is designed to obliterate the presence of both animals and killing.” And it is through this process of “obliteration” that animals become objects, before ultimately becoming commodities to be consumed. So it is that cows become beef, pigs become pork, etc.
This hideous objectification of animals within slaughterhouses is, however, not the only example of systematic objectification that takes place there. Workers within slaughterhouses are also subject to processes that objectify them, reducing them into mere parts within the slaughtering machine.
The division of labor and distancing devices employed within slaughterhouses are designed to make the “ends” of the slaughterhouse, the killing of animals, sanitized and less visible to those who work within them. It is characterized by monotonous, fragmented work undertaken at a rapid pace. British academics, Lindsay Hamilton and Darren McCabe, argue that these “socio-technocratic” processes are designed to encourage workers to become “detached from animals” resulting in what they describe as “de-animalization.” This “de-animalization” is supposed to create conditions whereby slaughterhouse workers can normalize the constant killing and mutilation of animals.
There is, however, growing evidence to show that these processes do not work and slaughterhouse employees suffer from a host of physical and psychological problems, many of which manifest themselves within their families and communities.
At this point, you may be wondering why we should care about workers who kill more than 10 billion animals a year in the United States alone? Well, if we are genuinely interested in ending the state-sanctioned violence that takes place in slaughterhouses we need to engage in intersectional thinking which links all forms of subjugation, acts of violence, and displays of power.
As Stephanie Muller from Florida Atlantic University observes “to ignore the plight of slaughterhouse workers is to ignore a key corner of the intersectional labyrinth that is the pursuit of social justice.” This is because, as Muller notes, the plight of animals and workers within slaughterhouses are “mutually constitutive.”
Back problems, carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, arthritis and infections passed from animals to workers are all common complaints. It’s no wonder that between 25–30% of slaughterhouse workers are injured every year.
They are “mutually constitutive” because slaughterhouse workers are also victims of the systemic violence in the “animal-industrial complex” in several interrelated ways.
Exploitative Work — Slaughterhouse workers are among the most exploited workers in America. They typically earn approximately 30% less than other “manufacturing sector” workers, and generally work longer hours, with 12-hour shifts being the norm. During these shifts, evidence indicates that intense pressure is exerted on workers by managers to remain working at all times. Well-documented cases reveal that workers have resorted to wearing diapers, or denying themselves food and water, for fear of having to spend time away from their stations taking comfort breaks.
Dangerous Work — The work in slaughterhouses is dangerous for workers. It is both physically demanding and physically dangerous and results in numerous injuries every year. Sometimes these injuries are the result of events such as cuts or puncture wounds from blades, but more likely they are musculoskeletal disorders due to the demanding and repetitive nature of the work being undertaken. Back problems, carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, arthritis and infections passed from animals to workers are all common complaints. It’s no wonder that between 25–30% of slaughterhouse workers are injured every year.
Psychologically Damaging Work — The physical dangers of slaughterhouse work are only part of the problem. More and more research is revealing that there are serious negative psychological consequences for workers who routinely kill, gut and skin animals. This research shows that efforts to compartmentalize the work of killing do not work. Slaughterhouse workers exhibit, at rates far higher than the average American worker, a whole host of negative coping behaviors that signify psychological trauma. These behaviors include, but are not limited to, emotional detachment; depression; recurrent nightmares; deliberate injury to avoid work; states of denial, and alcohol and drug abuse. Slaughterhouse workers also find it difficult to rest on days off, have little pride in their work, and tend to suffer from existential problems relating to the meaning of their work.
While the physical and psychological concerns are serious by themselves, they do not just manifest as problems for workers, as they tend to “spillover” into society more generally. Evidence conclusively shows that those counties within the United States where slaughterhouses are located experience higher levels of crime, specifically sexual crimes, and crimes directed at family members.
Research undertaken in 2009 compared the arrest rates for slaughterhouse employees in 581 counties in the US compared to five other industries within the same counties. When controlling for variables generally associated with crime, it found that “slaughterhouse employment increases total arrest rates, arrests for violent crime, arrests for rape, and arrests for other sex offenses.” Crimes against the family featured highly.
The violent work of slaughterhouses and the mere presence of a slaughterhouse in a county had a significant impact on total arrests, arrests for rape, and arrests for offenses against the family.
More recent research undertaken in 2015 compared arrest rates in 55 counties in Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska that contained slaughterhouses to 193 counties in the same states that did not. The findings were equally revealing. When controlling for variables, the research found that there were 22% more arrests in the 55 counties with slaughterhouses, with an astonishing 166% increase in arrests for rape and a 90% increase in arrests for offenses against the family. This research concluded that “the violent work of slaughterhouses and the mere presence of a slaughterhouse in a county had a significant impact on total arrests, arrests for rape, and arrests for offenses against the family.”
There is very clearly a direct causal relationship between working in a slaughterhouse and a propensity to commit crimes. The explanation for this would seem to be located in the relationship between slaughterhouse workers and the violence they are compelled to commit daily.
It is now widely accepted that there is a clear link between violence committed against animals and other forms of interpersonal violence. Psychologist Rachel MacNair argues that people placed in positions where they are repeatedly compelled to perform acts of violence suffer from what she calls Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress (PITS), a form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Research indicates that slaughterhouse workers are especially vulnerable to PITS, exhibiting many of the negative coping behaviors associated with it, and the social harms that flow from them.
The most obvious solution for all of us interested in intersectional social justice is to support ongoing campaigns against all forms of cruelty, whether committed against humans or animals. Regarding slaughterhouses specifically, the ultimate goal is to see them closed down with workers being retrained for employment in other sectors.
These problems are compounded because meat processing companies have tended to relocate their slaughterhouses to states which have right-to-work laws that weaken unions, and hamper their attempts to support workers’ struggles.
While the closure of slaughterhouses may be the end goal, it’s obviously not going to happen overnight. Therefore, mechanisms need to be put in place to support slaughterhouse workers who are suffering from physical and psychological problems.
This, however, is a very difficult undertaking because most slaughterhouse workers lack social and economic capital. Because of the appalling nature of the work, many slaughterhouse employees tend to be economic migrants, largely drawn from immigrant communities, and often on short-term contracts. These problems are compounded because meat processing companies have tended to relocate their slaughterhouses to states which have right-to-work laws that weaken unions, and hamper their attempts to support workers’ struggles. In addition, slaughterhouse workers do not have health insurance.
As Stephanie Muller reminds us, most slaughterhouse workers exist within a state of “institutionalized marginality.” Therefore, in the shorter-term, we must push for better labor protection, public health insurance, more social workers and improved public mental health programs.
Muller observes that both workers and animals occupy vulnerable, liminal positions within the slaughterhouse, arguing that we must link the trauma that employees undergo to the trauma that they inflict on animals. It is clear that both slaughterhouse workers and the animals they kill deserve our love and compassion.
