7 ms·
Cleanup at the slaughterhouse
- SQL2219 9y ago“It’s sad to say, but it’s the gospel truth: Seven out of 10 Americans in the Deep South, whether black or white, will fail the drug test”
- JonnyNova 9y agoNot needing to subject yourself to drug testing for work definitely a perk of certain industries.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jessaustin 9y agoTPTB have so perverted the Law that few of their subjects can bear it anymore. Now they must import new subjects, who will suffer all the depredations of a lifetime in the few years they manage to survive here.
- jpollock 9y agoNOTE: DEFINITELY NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH. I went looking for example videos of cleanup: USA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUJ4vI-JA88 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUJ4vI-JA88 Poland(?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enTQhNx_jpg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enTQhNx_jpg Why you clean the plant daily: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Canada_listeriosis_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Canada_listeriosis_outbre...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jansanchez 9y agoThe second link is indeed in Poland, noticed the signs in Polish (https://youtu.be/enTQhNx_jpg?t=109 https://youtu.be/enTQhNx_jpg?t=109).
- anonymous5133 9y agoYou don't necessarily need to clean the plant daily. Bigger ag producers (especially poultry) are protected from certain food-borne illness lawsuits because it is impossible to remove those pathogens from the food supply, even with cleaning. Salmonella is one of them and there is a new antibiotic resistance strain that is spreading.
- cageface 9y agoOne more reason to stop supporting the horrific animal agriculture industry in this country. You don’t need anything they produce and their business is morally and environmentally toxic.
- M1ntos123 9y agoOr maybe improve it rather than discard an entire industry. S
- anonymous5133 9y agoCouldn't agree more.
- xexers 9y agoWhen talking about the ethics of eating meat, we often focus on the ethics of killing animals... but it's also worth talking about the ethics towards out fellow human beings. In bullet form, it's worth thinking about: * Swine flu killed an estimated 1 million people (and made many other sick for a whole week). Swine flu was directly a result of factory farming * many of our antibiotics arent working any more and people are dying in hospitals because of it * We are overfishing the entire ocean. Some communities are poor and rely on those fish to survive. Us rich people are taking food from the poor * Slash/burn deforestation of rainforests has largely been from farmers who want to either raise beer or grow soy (to feed to animals). Those forests are often home to aboriginal people. * (the contents of this article)
- cageface 9y agoNot to mention massive greenhouse gas emissions and toxic runoff of animal sewage into rivers, lakes and oceans that makes people that live near them sick.
- drdeadringer 9y agoWhat do you think about "lab-grown" meat, if such would ever reach market to speak of?
- jessaustin 9y agoOK, this job is objectively worse than the one we were worrying about earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16033895 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16033895
- kiwicopple 9y agoThis reply might not be a popular (judging by the comments in this thread), but I worked in an abattoirs for 4 years and I want to point out that the article has a bit of an agenda: > The only slaughterhouse job worse than eviscerating animals is cleaning up afterward. The third-shift workers, as the cleaners are often called, wade through blood and grease and chunks of bone and flesh, racing all night to hose down the plant with disinfectants and scalding water. The stench is unbearable. Many workers retch. I should mention that I worked in New Zealand so YMMV, but this was never my experience. There was cleanup with high pressure hoses throughout the day, most of the time cold water to save power. No animals were eviscerated, they want as little wastage as possible; if it isn't consumable by humans it can be sold as animal food. The animals were knocked out (like a strong taser) before they were killed. Nobody was retching; it smelled bad (particularly pigs) but you get used to in the same way you adjust to any bad smell. I agree with the comments here that we need to move quickly to lab-grown meat or a vegetarian diet. But I have to acknowledge that the abattoirs I worked at acted as responsibly and humanely as possible
- spraak 9y ago> in New Zealand so YMMV Very different than the US
- cageface 9y agoConditions in US slaughterhouses are considerably worse than a lot of other first world countries. And instead of cleaning up its act the industry is doing what it can to make exposing its practices illegal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ag-gag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ag-gag
- jessaustin 9y agoI would agree, TFA says much more about USA industrial organization than it does about butchering animals. After all, humans have butchered animals for many millennia. We recently had a cow slaughtered by local Mennonites. I can report that none of these awful things were going on there. There might be some "child labor", if one's definition of "child" is more expansive than that of the Mennonites. Still, they have none of these nightmare machines and anyway not even a Mennonite would make his own kids try to clean one while it was still running.
- whyenot 9y agoThe woman at the beginning of the article made $202 a week doing this work. Based on the danger, the potential impact on human health and the US food system, the limited job pool, it sure feels like this is the type of job that should pay more.
- ams6110 9y agoIf the employer can find enough people willing to do it for $202 a week, then that is what the job will pay.
- gerdesj 9y agoOSHA = "Occupational Safety and Health Administration". The article says that OSHA fines are rarely above $20,000. Is that really true? In the UK, I think the equivalent agency is HSE - Health and Safety Executive. These is the first things I found to demonstrate a possible difference: "Martin McColl Limited and JMS Retail Concepts Limited have both been sentenced today after two members of the public tripped and fell over construction work outside a convenience store in Dinas Powys, Vale of Glamorgan. ... Martin McColl Limited of Ashwells Road, Brentwood, Essex pleaded guilty on the first day of a two day trial after initially pleading not guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health & Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and have been fined £600,000 and ordered to pay costs of £11,520. JMS Retail Concepts Limited of Stump Lane, Chorley, Lancashire pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health & Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and have been fined £40,000 and ordered to pay costs of £3,038." http://press.hse.gov.uk/2017/retail-company-and-construction-contractor-fined-over-safety-failings/ http://press.hse.gov.uk/2017/retail-company-and-construction... Contrast that with this: "The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited Tampa Electric Co. and Gaffin Industrial Services Inc. after five employees were fatally injured, and one other suffered serious burns. ... Proposed penalties for both companies totaled $160,972." https://www.osha.gov/news/newsreleases/region4/12282017 https://www.osha.gov/news/newsreleases/region4/12282017
- Pfhreak 9y agoAfter reading the above and an article by Glenn Greenwald [1] on ag-gag laws and the mistreatment of industrial animals, I've stopped eating meat unless I've met the farmer and (ideally) seen the farm. I'm vegetarian outside the house, and our family ordered a half a cow from a farmer who lives ~30 minutes away. It was butchered by a small shop. I received something like 200+lbs of meat from a single animal, raised well, grass fed at a cost of around $8/lb. The lifestyle change has been far easier than I expected, and it feels like a decision that actually has a local impact. (As opposed to, say, tweeting outrage.) There's a whole bunch of support for making this change that I wasn't aware of. If you are in the NW, Seattle Tilth puts out a guide to all the regional farms [2], and most of them have websites and email contact info. [1] https://theintercept.com/2017/10/05/factory-farms-fbi-missing-piglets-animal-rights-glenn-greenwald/ https://theintercept.com/2017/10/05/factory-farms-fbi-missin... [2] http://www.pugetsoundfresh.org/ http://www.pugetsoundfresh.org/
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago> I received something like 200+lbs of meat from a single animal, raised well, grass fed at a cost of around $8/lb. The lifestyle change has been far easier than I expected I think this illustrates why it's so hard to make any large-scale progress on industrial animal welfare. I'm glad that this works for you and you're able to make a difference in your own life, but spending $1600 on meat, even 200lbs of meat, is not an option that most people have.
- cageface 9y agoGiving up meat entirely is an option everybody has. Plant based diets are not only cheaper but healthier. I switched to a plant based diet in 2017 and it's the best decision I've made in a long time. I feel better physically and mentally and feel better about the role I play on the planet too.
- PostOnce 9y agoEveryone who just switched to a new thing, vegetarianism, p90x, atkins, paleo, crossfit, standing desk, node.js, whatever, will tell you it's the greatest thing ever. You "switched in 2017", it's 2017 now. It would be more impactful if you said this 5 years on, and a lot of other people who'd been doing it for 5 years said the same. There's a lot more to not-plants than a steak, though. Fish and milk and eggs and cheese and shellfish and who knows. That is a huge variety of food, of flavors, of sources and methods for farming, giving it all up is arguably as-healthy, not healthier, and certainly much, much more boring. Also, harder to sustain, it's easy to find food with meat in it, plenty of places have few vegan/vegetarian options.
- Overtonwindow 9y agoFrom a policy standpoint, a major issue is that meatpacking and the use of immigrant labor, can be compared to the rise of prisons, especially private prisons. These become entrenched in small town America, making huge profits for the local governments, and providing employment to a lot of people, especially union. Anything that might jeopardize that is going to face a lot of pressure from the congressional representatives for that area.
- tremendulo 9y agoHonestly I think I'd get used to the smell and the sight of animal flesh within a few weeks. But I guess the hard part, aside from the normal stresses and strains of low-paid work, would be wearing rubber gloves, plastic overalls, etc, in a humid environment.
- blfr 9y agoHow can a large company openly hire illegal immigrants, who even take part in court proceedings, without any consequences?
- barry-cotter 9y agoThere’s no political consensus in the US on enforcing immigration laws. The only position that won’t get anybody condemning you in the Democratic Party is Open Borders and there are plenty of Republicans willing to support any local business. Sanctuary cities exist. Large swathes of the US populace regard restricting immigration as immoral and plenty of the rest have no particular desire to do so. Why would there be consequences in those circumstances?
- Chris2048 9y agoLarger swathes, but not the majority. I can't see how the law can just be flaunted like this, for all the crying about Trump...
- anonymous5133 9y agoIt is all about risk vs reward. Illegals are willing to work and do stuff that other workers won't do. So the owners end up saving money. If immigration busts them then they get fined and then they replace the workers. The amount saved vs the payment of the fine still nets them savings. Immigration does not enforce the law thoroughly.
- Chris2048 9y agoIt should initiate an investigation into the company though...