If you live in the Western world, chances are you hear a lot about animal rights being violated in animal agriculture—which makes sense, because the abuse and murder of the voiceless are clearly not consensual or humane. But one thing society hasn’t really started to talk about is how Big Agriculture, especially animal agriculture, violates human rights, too. Workers in the animal farming industry are being exploited and mistreated every second of every day.
As largely unseen victims of Big Agriculture, factory farm and slaughterhouse workers—who tend to be immigrants and people of color—are subjected to poor working conditions, physical injuries, emotional trauma, low wages, and even slave labor.
Poor working conditions
Most of us have seen photos of filthy factory farms filled with sickly-looking animals. These photos accurately reflect the lack of hygiene in farms. Factory farm workers develop serious medical conditions as a direct result of working in these environments every day. This is because factory farms are filled with dust, toxic gases, bacteria, and other potential sources of disease and illness. According to Iowa State University, “dust and gas concentrations in swine confinement buildings can be high enough to affect anyone who enters, but persons with long-term occupational exposures are in greatest danger of developing chronic problems and possibly irreversible lung damage.” In fact, 58% of people who work in industrial farms with pigs have chronic health effects, especially chronic bronchitis.
In addition to abundant toxins, factory farms are also filled with dangerous equipment. Physical injuries, especially amputations, are very common among slaughterhouse and factory farm workers. Research shows that the main reason slaughterhouse workers take time off work is to recover from physical injuries. Further, one study found that slaughterhouse workers are afraid of being physically harmed at work.
Psychological trauma
Part of the reason why factory farm workers are injured so often at work is because they dissociate to get away from the emotional trauma. People who work in factory farms and slaughterhouses are especially prone to PITS, a form of PTSD in which the patient was involved in causing past traumatic events rather than being a victim of them. (Of course, while these workers are directly causing harm to animals, they are undeniably also victims of animal farming industries.)
Research shows that slaughterhouse workers tend to experience feelings of shame, guilt, trauma, fear, and stress. They also often have recurring nightmares and lower senses of purpose and self-esteem. Studies have found that up to half of slaughterhouse workers have depression, and that depression is at least four times more common in slaughterhouse workers than the general population.
Many people who work in slaughterhouses who report intense feelings of guilt, shame, and sadness after their first kill, say that it gets easier over time. Experts argue that the slaughtering “gets easier” because workers learn to repress their emotions and dissociate from their work. We know from research on trauma and dissociation that this can lead to long-term mental health issues.
Exploiting the poor
The median income of agricultural workers in the US is $35,000 per year, which breaks down to less than $17 per hour. Their pay is 44% lower than the national average for manufacturing workers. Because of the nature of the work and the low wages it reaps, factory farm and slaughterhouse workers are disproportionately immigrants and people of color. In fact, 34.9% of animal slaughtering and processing workers in the US are Latinx, and 21.9% are Black. 37.5% are born outside of the US, as opposed to the 17.1% of the general population.
Besides immigrants, many of the foreign-born slaughter workers are refugees. According to New American Economy, “more than 46,000 refugee workers work in food processing, including more than 9,300 butchers and meat processing workers.”
Slave labor
Modern slave labor is rampant in the United States, especially in the agricultural industry. One avenue for slave labor in agriculture is through the hire and abuse of immigrant laborers. Labor brokers are often responsible for handling workers’ visas, travel, and housing, and they sometimes serve as on-site supervisors once workers arrive at their job sites. Workers have to pay labor brokers large sums of money for this. Usually, workers don’t have enough money to pay them before coming to the US, so they promise to pay after their work period is finished.
This places immigrant workers in a vulnerable position because they owe money to the person who is responsible for arranging their travel back home. Paying the loans back in full is not always possible because wages sometimes turn out to be lower than what workers were actually promised, interest rates are too high, or a number of other reasons. There are many cases of brokers holding passports and not allowing workers to leave until they fully pay back their loans. If wages are too low for workers to be able to pay back their loans, they are stuck in the States with no way to contact home. This is known as debt bondage.
The legal way for immigrant workers to come to the US is through the H-2 program, but this also presents its own issues. H-2 workers don’t have the legal protections that US citizens do, which makes them vulnerable to exploitation.
Another major source of slave labor is through prisons. People in prisons can legally be forced to work in 30 US states. In five states, they don’t even have to be paid. In the states where they do have to be paid, incarcerated people can be paid as little as two cents per hour for their labor.
Of course, much of this is true of all agricultural workers, not just those in animal agriculture. However, it’s important to consider that animal agriculture tends to be much more detrimental to the physical and mental health of workers, so factory farm and slaughter jobs are likely more often left to poor people and other vulnerable populations. Also, the raising of animals for food requires far more crop production than a world where we only eat plants would require. Because of this, an unnecessary number of workers are exploited in plant agriculture as well.
What we can do about it
When we buy products that come from animals—whether they’re food, clothing, or anything else—we’re paying corporations to exploit humans and non-human animals. By going vegan, we’re choosing not to support these companies, and we’re casting a vote in favor of a more equitable and compassionate future.
We can also take a stand against forced labor by volunteering our time and skills to the Fair Food Program, or help raise awareness of these issues by telling friends and family.
Have thoughts or questions about human rights in animal agriculture? I’d love to hear them in the comments! Click the Subscribe button below for regular updates on veganism-related research, current events, and more.
Featured photo from We Animals Media.
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