https://www.reddit.com/r/allvegan/comments/kg0ogb/environmental_racism_and_workers_rights/
created by justanediblefriend on 19/12/2020 at 03:54 UTC*
8 upvotes, 0 top-level comments (showing 0)
!"The worst thing, worse than the physical danger, is the emotional toll....Pigs down on the kill floor have come up and nuzzled me like a puppy. Two minutes later I had to kill them—beat them to death with a pipe. I can’t care."!< -Ed Van Winkle, hog-sticker at Morrell slaughterhouse plant, Sioux City, Iowa.
So, reddit keeps removing the old post, likely due to the amount of links making reddit detect it as spam. As such, I've moved it all onto a Google Doc, made it more readable, and have edited all of the links out of the original post.
There is overwhelming evidence that slaughterhouses **destroy the opportunities black and brown residents in low-income communities,** giving them **no choice** but to work in these slaughterhouses. Once there, **they are harassed, fired, and deported** if they try to form a union. They're also incentivized to avoid reporting injuries and disease, sometimes with rewards (e.g. a sign that says "0 Injuries Reported = End of Month BBQ."), but usually with punishments like deportation, harassment, and firing. This, combined with the untenable working conditions, not only leads to far more preventable *injuries,* but preventable ***deaths.***
The *extreme* psychological effect of slaughterhouse work, work such as--as described by one worker--beating pigs to death with a pipe after the pig was nuzzling against them, on the workers cannot be overstated. There is extreme **alienation, erosion of empathy, and doubling** (a coping mechanism that Holocaust doctors used to cope with their own actions), which leads workers to torture animals even beyond work requirements as well as an increase in rape and violent crime in the surrounding areas.
As well, **there is severe impact** on the **physical health** of these primarily black and brown low-income communities, such as **a severe increase in asthma and blue baby syndrome,** which **kills many infants**. There is more disease, such as **brain damage and premature birth,** and death due to ***animal feces*** and nitrate in the groundwater, and less breathable air.
There's nothing here!