24th January, 2021
When COVID-19 swept through Smithfield and Tyson's meatpacking factories last year, the world finally reckoned with the fact that there was a human dimension to meat's ethical issues. Or at least it seemed so — for half a month. By the end of March, the conversation was buried and Tyson stocks began to recover. Yet, the relentless labour exploitation never stopped.
Meat production has historically relied on minorities and especially undocumented immigrant workers for cheap and hard labour. In the US, for example, meatpacking workers are 44% Hispanic and 51.5% immigrants. With limited English speaking abilities, they are mostly employed "at will" (can be fired anytime), and thus afraid and unable to speak up on their brutal treatment.
Truth is, meat production isn't a very high margin business. In order to push down costs and raise market volume, workers' safety is jeopardised for production speed. In pig slaughterhouses, a stunning 1300 animals are killed each hour on each production line. There is not enough time for the workers to even sharpen their knifes.
In their desperation to keep up with the production line's pace throughout their daunting 8-hour shifts, these workers often get injured. In fact, according to the Food Chain Workers Alliance, 65% of meat processing workers have been injured on the job. Some get permanent hearing damages due to the long exposure to loud machinery, while others get head concussions from being hit by carcasses along the production line. Most workers also suffer from musculoskeletal disorders due to the repetitive movements. These are sweatshops on steroids.
Beyond the physical damage, killing thousands of animals each day also takes a huge psychological toll on workers. From PTSD and PITS to deep social problems like domestic violence and alcohol abuse, this kind of brutality not only destroys their health, but also perpetuates intergenerational inequality and rips apart the social fabric.
All of that...because we want cheap meat.
Since 1961, global per capita meat consumption has increased by nearly 90%. For a lot of us, meat has become a cheap everyday "essential" on the dinner table. But behind our absurdly cheap meats, are dire hidden costs — not only in the form of carbon emissions, but also in the form of worker exploitation and human suffering. The cognitive dissonance we hold when it comes to the ethics of meat — even just the human dimension of it — is deafening.
Veganism has raised significant awareness on the environmental impact and animal cruelty of meat, yet slaughterhouse and meatpacking workers are often left out of the conversation. It is a part of our common consciousness to denounce fast fashion for poor labour treatment, but where is the same outrage for animal agriculture?
Is this another instance of humanity being too "hooked on meat" to care?
