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Not eating meat, a human rights issue
#1
I came across a very interesting article. The writer is not an animal rights activist or even someone who cares about animals all that much. He cares about human rights and the rights of workers. In particular he cares about the right of workers to have a "mentally healthy workplace".
He quit eating meat because of the effect working in a slaughterhouse had on workers.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/transforma...man-rights

It is an interesting perspective on the issue of killing animals for food. Many of us are not happy with how animals are treated.
That is reason enough to stop eating meat.

When you bring in the issue of the workers who kill the animals it opens up a whole new area.
We have all seen videos of workers abusing animals. It is a scary thought that these people might have been normal healthy people before they took their jobs. Killing meat for the rest of us has turned them into something frightening and dangerous.

The work has made them sick. Is this different that exposing workers to asbestos and making them sick.

If the work makes them sick then it violates work place safety laws. No one should have to work in a place like a slaughterhouse. To change the conditions for the workers would require a lot of changes in the industry.
I don't know what kind of changes, but they would have to be substantial.
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Catherine

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#2
I could never understand how anyone could take a job working in a slaughterhouse, or how they could stay after only one day. When I was living in Newfoundland, many there kill moose, & rabbits, not to mention seals, for meat, from what I saw they had no ill feelings in what they were doing. I really think it's a stretch to say the job made them sick. Just my thoughts.
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#3
I think it is one thing to hunt and kill one animal, but the conditions in slaughterhouses are brutal. They are ugly for the workers.
It is built into the system that they must kill many animals in a short time so proper procedures are not followed. So workers know that they are causing unnecessary pain and suffering. The animals are distressed when they arrive. The workplace is very high stress.
It is also a dangerous place to work and there are many injuries to the workers. They work under pressure to go fast and they are using sharp knives and there is scalding water and moving machinery. People get hurt under those conditions.

Where they handle big animal carcases there will be muscle strain and back injuries.

Many jobs are hazardous and changes are being made to protect workers.
The workplace safety training course I was required to take described what is needed for a safe work environment. It would completely reject the conditions of a slaughterhouse as being unsafe for many reasons.

This issue may be key to changing how animals are treated. If it can be shown that the deplorable conditions the animals endure are also dangerous to the people who work with them, there may be laws in place already that will force changes.

The point is, there are already laws to protect humans. If we can use those laws for the good of  animals then we are closer to protecting animals.
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Catherine

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#4
Yes, I can see how those conditions that are so deplorable for animals would be bad for workers, too. I bet they get post traumatic Stress Syndrome. I can't understand how anyone can do that job of slaughtering animals. I could never do that in a million years. I hadn't thought about the animal killers as getting sick from their job but it makes sense. It is not a normal thing to do, to kill any being.
  
                    
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#5
I think some of them take the work because they are desperate. Very few people would want to do the job.

We are used to seeing callous humans abusing animals in slaughterhouses and dairies and hatcheries  and so on. What were those people like before they took the job. Some of them ended up the way they did because of the work.

Those that are bullies and naturally cruel are made worse by the jobs they do. 
The system of food production we have now takes a high toll on humans, animals and the environment.
On all levels and for so many reasons we need to change things.
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Catherine

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#6
I would imagine that most people who work in an abattoir went there because they wanted a job desperately. But there can be doubt that the killling, killing, killing all day every day is bound to desensitise the workers to pain and suffering. It becomes "normal".

When I was a young man I had a work colleague who described to me how he had worked in a chicken farm as a temporary job. He described how, at first, he was horrified how the chickens were grabbed out of the cages and prepared for slaughter (that was his job). The workers would grab and push the chickens at a frantic rate, whilst the poor, terrified chickens tried to peck to defend themselves. Initially he felt compassion for the chickens, understanding how they felt. But after a few days at work, with productivity bonuses at stake, he began to view the struggling chickens as a nuisance, delaying his work. He began to handle them very roughly, like the others. It became "normal". He said that the work had been "dehumanising" and he regretted having done it.

Let us hope that the "non-kill, cell multiplication" meat you described in another thread will replace the horrendous and cruel conditions which exist in abattoirs.
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#7
That is a terribly sad story, LPC, not only concerning the chickens (poor Souls) but the man himself, and presumably all the other workers.
Children often know instinctively when something is 'wrong' from a compassionate point of view. I remember seeing a little Chinese girl weeping bitterly because her dog, whom she loved, had been butchered for meat.
But sadly as some people become adult, in order to 'fit in' with others, or a working commitment, they become de-sensitised.

I was offered a well paid job at the chicken farm down my lane a year or so ago. I could not do it. I had to refuse.
The young manager pleaded with me to work there! I said I couldn't because I knew the chickens feel things and deserve a better life. I said I feel deeply sorry for them, and that it would break my heart to do it, but understood he had to support his family,  (2 children and a young wife) and I was not judging him in any way.
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#8
This is all part of a bigger picture of how humans treat each other and animals and the planet.

Your friend, a nice person became something different when he worked with animals under certain conditions.

How often in history have human behaved badly towards other humans. (genocides, residential schools in Canada)

How often do humans do terrible things to the planet. (environmental disasters like the tar sands)

Tobi, you were wise to turn down the job. It put you at risk. You would either have been at odds with the job or you would have had to conform. It wouldn't have worked.

The workers in slaughterhouses conform and it damages them as people.

We need to fix the whole system. No one should be required to do a job that involves abusing others.
No system should be set up so that there is abuse.

 The whole factory farming system treats the animals as objects to be used. The workers are expected to use them and ultimately abuse them. The system drains the environment and the waste material causes serious pollution of the environment. Everything about the system is wrong.

At this point it doesn't matter how it happened. We just need to stop it. Rejecting the products of factory farming takes us out of the destructive loop.

If the cell multiplication meat can help more people walk away from factory farmed products then it is a good idea.

Is there a healthier farm system we can use? I don't know. What would that healthier system look like?
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Catherine

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#9
I don't think there is any healthy way of killing animals so it should be outlawed. It will be in the future, I am sure.
  
                    
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#10
It may be possible to produce milk and eggs ethically. The system we have now doesn't work.

Raising animals to kill as food is not working for us or the animals. I think we need to find completely different alternatives.
The times they are a changing.

WE will look back upon the factory farming era as a dark time in human history.
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Catherine

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