The
following is an open letter to people who say, “I don’t care about factory farm
workers.
Dear Reader,
This might not be an easy thing to read if
you’ve seen undercover videos revealing how animals are abused at factory farms
but, trust me, it’s important. And it’s a topic we seriously need to discuss.
As a content manager at Mercy For Animals, I
see comments all the time about how factory farm and slaughterhouse workers
“have no soul or that the commenter would do anything but work in a factory
farm.
But
really, who grows up saying, “I want to work in a slaughterhouse?
Almost no one. Here on Long Island, where I
live, we have a slaughterhouse operated by the county jail. When I spoke to a
legislator a few years back about this, he shook his head and said: “It’s
horrible. None of the inmates want to have a shift in the slaughterhouse.
Now, not every factory farm has a connection
to a jail. But they are still horrible places to work for anyone unfortunate
enough to have no other option.
Think about this: A 2017 report on immigrant
labor at New York dairy farms showed that a whopping 93 percent of the workers
surveyed were undocumented immigrants, who are easily exploited. The report compiled
by the Workers’ Center of Central New York and Worker Justice Center of New
York revealed that dairy workers might not receive a five-minute break during a
12-hour shift. And like all agricultural workers in New York, they were
excluded from the right to a day off or compensation for overtime. Their pay
hovered just above minimum wage.
Also shocking is that two-thirds of dairy
workers in New York have experienced one or more injuries on the job, with 68
percent of those injuries being serious enough to require medical attention.
Similarly, Tyson Foods averages one human amputee per month. Per month!
More than 88 percent of the dairy workers
surveyed believed their employers cared more about the well-being of the cows
than the workers.
And
knowing how factory
farms treat their animals,
that’s horrifying.
Sadly, work at factory farms and
slaughterhouses is often the only option for undocumented workers. Even
worse, the National Human Trafficking Hotline reports that undocumented workers
are often lured to the U.S. by traffickers hired by the meat, dairy, and egg industries.
According to a Vice article, “The Department of Labor officially puts the number
of undocumented farmworkers at 46 percent, but
industry experts and labor advocates estimate that the number is much, much
higher—possibly closer to 70 percent.
And if that isn’t enough to make you think
about the conditions these workers endure, studies show that slaughterhouse
violence subjects countless people to PTSD. This trauma also makes its way into
families and communities.
I’ll leave you with this: Workers generally
have little power over how farmed animals are treated. Extreme confinement,
mutilations without painkillers, and ruthless slaughter are not the fault of
low-level workers. While animals pay the ultimate price, farmworkers are
oppressed by the same system that values profit over everything else. Many
workers have no voice for speaking out against the atrocities they are forced
to commit every day.
Take away your support of the industry that
systematically abuses workers and farmed animals by ditching animal products
for good. Get started by downloading our FREE Vegetarian
Starter Guide today.