The son of a slaughterhouse worker is releasing a film exploring the industry’s psychological impact.
Vegan advocate Jack Hancock-Fairs has created The Dying Trade. It aims to ‘raise awareness of the suffering experienced by slaughterhouse workers’ and help ‘humanize the workers’.
Hancock-Fairs says the documentary also ‘provides another reason for people to boycott animal products.
‘I want to be a slaughterhouse worker’
A new trailer for the film shows a group of children saying what they want to be when they’re older.
“I want to help animals,” one girl states. Another adds: “I want to be a scientist.” The last child says: “I want to be happy.”
The trailer then skips to the protagonist – an adult male – who appears to be having a PTSD-related nightmare. As he begins his morning, graphic memories of killing animals flash through his mind. Empty alcohol cans are scattered on the table. This depicts the link between abattoir workers and dependency issues such as alcoholism.
At the end of the trailer, he looks up and says: “When I grow up, I want to be a slaughterhouse worker.”
‘Poor worker treatment’
“The suffering experienced within slaughterhouses is huge in scale and clearly neglected,” Hancock-Fairs states.
“I really hope this film can open people’s eyes to the animal cruelty and poor worker treatment that exists within the walls of slaughterhouses all over the world. By raising awareness about these issues, we can help lay the groundwork for future progress.”
He then added: “You may be surprised to learn that my family goes back generations working in the meat industry. My father is a slaughterhouse worker, and his great-grandfather owned a shop called the ‘Hancock Family Butcher’. My great-grandfather’s brothers also owned butcher shops, so working in the meat industry became a bit of a family tradition.
“While the Hancock Family Butcher shops have been closed for many years, my father continues to work in slaughter. It’s never really been something he’s talked about. “
Hancock-Fairs then started thinking: “‘Who are the people confronting the very thing that most of us are so disconnected from? Who are the people witnessing animal slaughter every day as part of their day job? What is it like to work in slaughter and how does it affect you psychologically?’.”
‘Meat as a human rights issue’
Last year, PBN published a video exploring the ‘human victims’ of the meat industry.
Meat As A Human Rights Issue – The Truth explores how slaughterhouse work can lead to a slew of mental health issues. It also demonstrates how physically dangerous abattoirs can be.
The video explains: “Because of the pace slaughterhouse workers are required to work, there are a staggering two amputations per week.
“Statistically speaking, if you work in a meatpacking factory for five years, there’s a 50 percent chance you’ll suffer injury.”
Moreover, narrator Robbie Lockie adds: “Workers normalize their actions through repetition and routine; becoming desensitized to the acts of violence – causing psychological distress.”
The video then explains how that level of trauma can often ‘spill out as violence and addictive behaviors such as alcohol dependency.
You can learn more about The Dying Trade and support the documentary here
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We did a song about this very issue. It’s a huge problem and I’m glad this film has been produced to raise awareness.
https://youtu.be/B_if20jeMiU
see my comment above.
Vegan Author Angela Kaufman:
Collin Griffen has changed. His wife suspects infidelity. His mother notices that for the first time in his life, her 28 year old son suddenly has a temper. When things escalate out of control and Collin suffers a psychotic break leading to a violent crime, his small town is in shock. Incarcerated and facing death row, his attorney, Cam Burton, is now tasked with trying to explain his client’s sudden change in behavior and decompensation into violence. Cam soon discovers his client had a spotless past and the only link to violence is his employment at Monarch Industries Slaughterhouse.But will a jury buy this unprecedented case linking slaughter work to PTSD and violence?As Collin awaits his fate, Cam discovers that he bit off more than he can chew with this new case. His investigation leads him into the violent underbelly of one of America’s most loved industries and sheds light on the dehumanizing work his client once did. Quiet Man takes place in a small town in North Carolina in the summer of 2016 amidst an increasingly polarized and contentious presidential election and gives the reader a front row seat into the intersecting worlds of classism, institutionalized racism and exploitation of workers, animals and the environment. Quiet Man was a Finalist for the Siskiyou Prize for Environmental Literature.“In the vein of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael, Quiet Man is an intentional tale crafted to unsettle the intellect. Covid exposed the human toll of meat-processing plants on its lowest-rung workers, and Kaufman probes their pain and mental distress to anguishing effect. Not for the weak-stomached, Quiet Man insists on our witnessing the cost of eating meat while maintaining the horror of slaughter at arm’s length, and the terrible price somebody somewhere eventually has to pay.” Linda Lowen, NY Times Essayist, Writing Instructor, Publisher’s Weekly Reviewer“Angela Kaufman’s moving novel, Quiet Man, provides a devastating exposé of the meatpacking industry. The book, set in small town North Carolina, centers on the work of a giant corporation, Monarch Industries, that not only slaughters vast numbers of pigs with the utmost brutality, but routinely injures and dehumanizes its workers.Kaufman tells this story with great sensitivity, peppering it with believable characters and imaginative vignettes. Overall, Quiet Man provides an exceptionally well-written, powerful indictment of corporate greed and its devastating consequences. –Lawrence Wittner, author of Confronting the Bomb
https://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Man-Angela…/dp/0578788349
At least they get to finish their lives–unlike all the victims they kill.
I’m so glad this issue is finally being brought to the light!
oooooh, hes so cute!
VEGAN CHEESE BURGERS, NO CLOGGED ARTERIES (& everybody wins!).
I’m glad to see that another film is coming out to educate about the effects of animal ag/slaughter. I really need to see this film, as I cannot begin to imagine a human being even being able to view the horrors on video, let alone see it in person, or for God’s sake perpetrate the atrocities. Why not find a real job? Truly, I would rather be hungry, homeless and live in a cardboard box than to commit horrific terror, violence and murder against these myriad innocents.
The majority of slaughterhouse workers are underprivileged and desperate to feed their families, and the industry is more than happy to take advantage of that. Many of them are immigrants or refugees. Generally they just can’t find another job—almost nobody wants to work in a slaughterhouse. The point is that they’re victims of the industry too—though of course not nearly as much as the animals—and acknowledging that and hitting the issue from all angles will help the progression of the movement.
For future references: http://www.peta.org http://www.animalsaustralia.org http://www.horseracingkills.org
Thanks,