Tom Philpott: The Human Cost of Meatpacking

Species Unite

elizabeth novogratz

Society & Culture, Philosophy

5 • 911 Ratings

🗓️ 25 December 2024

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“People in the animal welfare world, I think, should broaden their purview to the human parts of it and sort of work in coalition. Like if you can really expose the labor conditions, you're weakening the industry, and if you can increase labor regulations, if you can make it to where workers don't routinely get repetitive stress injuries and they're not breathing in harsh chemicals, and if you slow the kill line down, that hits their profits and you are weakening the industry. And, also remember, this industry doesn't just slaughter billions of animals a year, it also makes life hell for the people who work in it. Expand your level of solidarity to those people.” – Tom Philpott

This is the third episode in a special for part series, where we go deep into the food system with some of the brightest minds at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. In this episode, we dive into one of the many hidden and hideous aspects of our food system: the exploitation of workers in industrial meat production.

Tom Philpott is a senior research associate at the Center. He joined in 2022 after a distinguished three-decade career in journalism, reporting on the injustices and ecological ramifications of the industrial food system. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Perilous Bounty.

I asked Tom to shed some light on the grueling conditions faced by meatpacking workers, from

dangerous line spades to repetitive injuries and the shocking lack of basic protections, and even though much of this was exposed during the covid 19 pandemic, to explain how it’s all still happening.

Tom also hosts the Center for a Livable Future’s podcast, it’s called Unconfined. It’s really good. Take a listen to learn a whole lot more about the impacts of food animal production.

Links

Center for a Livable Future: https://clf.jhsph.edu/

Tom Philpott: https://www.tomphilpott.net/

Perilous Bounty: https://bookshop.org/p/books/perilous-bounty-the-looming-collapse-of-american-farming-and-how-we-can-prevent-it-tom-philpott/8555300?ean=9781635578454&gclid=Cj0KCQjw48OaBhDWARIsAMd966DtJTjYQl6nh5J9Gk9ib9f3SXgKnCfTwujd-YMhRK-UC1X-ihdAiyIaAsm3EALw_wcB

Unconfined Podcast: https://clf.jhsph.edu/unconfined-podcast

Transcript

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0:00.0	Species.
0:02.0	Species.
0:10.0	Unite.
0:13.0	People in the animal welfare world, I think, should broaden their purview to the human parts of it and sort of work in coalition.
0:25.4	Like if you can really expose the labor conditions, you're weakening in the industry.
0:29.2	And if you can increase labor regulations, if you can make it to where workers don't, you know,
0:35.9	routinely get repetitive stress injuries. If they're not breathing
0:39.4	in harsh chemicals, if you slow the kill line down, that hits their profits, and you are
0:45.2	weakening in the industry. And also just, you know, remember that, you know, this industry
0:51.0	doesn't slaughter, I don't know how many billions of animals, it doesn't just slaughter billions of animals a year.
0:55.8	It also makes life hell for the people who work in it and expand your level of solidarity to those people.
1:13.5	Hi, I'm Elizabeth Novagrats.
1:15.5	This is Species Unite.
1:21.1	We have a favor to ask if you like today's episode and you have a spare minute.
1:30.9	Could you please rate and review Species Unite on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps people to find the show.
1:46.9	This is the third episode in a special four-part series where we go deep into the food system with some of the brightest minds at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. Today we dig into one of the many hidden
1:53.6	and hideous aspects of our food system, the exploitation of workers in industrial meat production.
2:03.7	This conversation is with Tom Philpott.
2:09.4	Tom is a journalist, an author, and a senior researcher at the Johns Hopkins Center for a livable Future. He has spent decades reporting on the injustices and ecological ramifications
2:15.4	of the industrial food system, most recently at Mother Jones,
2:20.2	and he is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Paralless Bounty. I asked Tom to come on to
2:26.7	shed some light on the grueling conditions faced by meatpacking workers, from dangerous line
	...

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