Human Rights in the US Meat Industry

Celia Duncan

The Meat and Poultry IndustryIt’s the largest sector of US agricultureThe 4 biggest corporations:

$95.49 billion in annual sales (2012)

258,009 employees

The price of meat

“It has a lot to do with efficiencies—doing what we do better and more efficiently; squeezing costs out of the process”

-Patrick Boyle, CEO, American Meat Institute (pbs.org)

The WorkersMany meat industry workers are workers are immigrants, often undocumented.

Their immigration status makes them vulnerable to exploitation.

Fear of deportation and language barriers get in the way of pursuing their rights.

Physical Safety HazardsCommon Injuries and Illness:

-musculoskeletal injuries from fast, repetitive motion, working at close quarters with sharp tools

-dermatological and respiratory illnesses from inhaling airborne pathogens and fecal matter

Psychological Damage

Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress: psychological consequences of killing

“A lot of the slaughterhouse hog killers have problems with alcohol. They have to drink, they have no other way of dealing with killing live, kicking animals all day long. If you stop and think about it, you’re killing several thousand beings a day.”

“Doubling” in slaughterhouse workers:

“The worker’s natural self identifies with the pig and recognizes it as an animal worthy of affection and care, but the worker’s other self—the self developed to work in the slaughterhouse—kills the pig, literally unable to care about the animal”

More psychological issues

Substance abuse, anxiety, panic, depression, paranoia, increased domestic violence and crime

“after a while … you become emotionally dead… and you get just as sadistic as the company itself.”

Keeping the problem invisible

“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.”

-Paul McCartney

What is being done?

Growing support for human rights

Oxfam America, Midwest Coalition for Human Rights

Small-scale farming: small-scale slaughterhouses

A shift in thinking“Animals do not 'give' their lives to us, as the sugar-coated lie would have it. They struggle and fight to the last breath, just as we would do if we were in their place.” –John Robbins“Everything you do is a

political act.”

-Buy small: far more likely to be humane for humans and animals alike. Research ethical meat providers