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  • Animal People, Inc. posted an update 7 years, 11 months ago

    The video suggests that people care more about the welfare of chickens than the welfare of the workers hired to kill and process them under slave-labor conditions. Probably the same percentage of people–many of them the same people–care about both the birds and the workers. But just as there has been little improvement in the working conditions of poultry slaughterhouse workers in decades, in spite of expressions of concern and minimally improved regulations, there has been virtually no significant decrease in the systematic cruelty with which chickens, turkeys, and other birds are treated from the moment of hatching up until they are transported in cages stacked on trucks going at high speeds along Interstates, exposed to extremes of weather, to slaughterhouses where they are ripped from cages and shackled upside down on the conveyor belts that move them from shock tank to scald tank to the knives of the abused workers. The only actual welfare improvement has been to the minuscule percentage of birds raised under certified humane standards, sold at high prices. Promises of cage-free eggs by restaurant chains are only pledges, as there are not enough cage-free eggs being produced to meet demand. Pledges to end crating of pigs is only an adjustment to the tip of a very large iceberg of mistreatment, and no single reform is going to lead to “happy meat.” But one big way in which abuse of workers and birds might be jointly mitigated would be in mandating a slowing of the conveyor belts, which would de-stress the workers both mentally and physically as well as allow them to handle the living birds with greater care. The culture of exploitation and, yes, violence in slaughterhouses calls for vigilance in protecting the most vulnerable from the worst abuses. Raising human and animal welfare will also require an increase in the price of meat, reducing demand–which might as well be in advance of the shortages of water and feed crops that will soon enough reduce supply.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/11/i-had-to-wear-pampers-many-poultry-industry-workers-allegedly-cant-even-take-bathroom-breaks/?postshare=1721463122745679&tid=ss_fb