The Invisibles Of The Meat Industry

As the gate creaks open, a pair of focused eyes darts towards Albert, gripping the tail end of a tug rope. He doesn’t acknowledge him first but the cuteness overload makes him give in. The dog gains possession after intense back and forth, and sprints inside. He follow the dog in.

He sees his kids sitting around on a dining, and gets called for help with homework. He runs the maths in his brain, and successfully predicts the wrong answer! The wife reminds him of paying the bills, “Ah! I’ll do those later” he replies with a sighing voice and lays down on the sofa.

He spends some time with his daughter, reflecting over his day.

Before long it’s dinner. Someone shares their day. few listen, most doesn’t. All the while the dog keeps pulling on hands to get a bite.

He takes the dog out for a walk, and by the time he returns, the house is a lot quieter.¹

As the door creaks open, the dog darts across the yard towards Bob, he barely acknowledges him and makes way inside.

He sees nothing but the sofa and lays down to seek some relief from the back-ache. Minutes turn into hours but the gaze still remains at the ceiling.

He notices his wife handling the kids, but his attempts at getting up remain unfruitful.

Later on, her wife says “I had to fill out what you do at the school, I don’t like this..... I don’t like it at all.“

He recoils back “Someone has to pay for the form you filled out!”

Her wife take a restless walk, slams the door shut.

Sighing and dragging himself across the hallway to the Kitchen, he turns the tap on, and wakes up to the sensation of overflowing water.

While turning around, he notices a tub full of dirty dishes, and goes through them one by one, slow and steady.

Letting out a big sigh, he hauls himself to the bed and finally catches some sleep.He wakes up in cold sweat and the cycle repeats.²

At this point, we may have an judgment on the character of each man.

Would we be too quick to judge?

Is their social life a manifestation of their individual characters, or is there something else at play?

As C. Wright Mills put it best, “Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.”³

We’ve shared the same footing as them, let’s now see what the ground beneath them is made of.

But before we do that, I must provide clarification.Albert and Bob aren’t literal individuals, but characters crafted to represent the events each “group” goes through based on their reported incidents. ⁴

Albert represents interviewees from Germany who primarily come from a background of slaughter work, voluntarily chose to work in the industry, and were cherry-picked by their supervisors to take the interview.⁵

Bob, on the other hand, represents interviewees from South Africa who butcher due to economic constraints, limited occupational alternatives among other factors.⁶

The difference isn’t about where they come from — rather the degree of freedom they possess to choose otherwise.

With that out of the way, let’s concern ourselves with the question at hand.

Why is Albert able to come home from work and lead an normal life while Bob seemingly isn’t capable of doing so?

One can argue that, because Albert has been exposed to the practice of slaughter growing up, that by the time he starts working in a slaughterhouse, he has already begun developing the emotional management skills his workplace demands.⁷ On the other hand, Bob has basic education and training. Since he is comparatively less prepared for the environment butchering exposes him to, he undergoes some emotional difficulty as he begins to adapt to the job.⁸The answer may lie in pre-exposure. But perhaps we are also observing a group for whom slaughter was tolerable enough for it to become their profession meanwhile ones who couldn’t tolerate it simply never entered/stayed.⁹

A underwent professional training and entered the job primarily due to intrinsic interest rather than the extrinsic factor of money.¹⁰

A possesses far more freedom in deciding whether butchering is for him.¹¹

One might think, Albert slaughters because he wants to. Bob slaughters because he has to.¹²

Reality resists such a line. Albert may have had more options than Bob, but we do not know with certainty how many face this economic uncertainty.¹³

While we have gained some insight, our question still remains unanswered.

Albert’s sample generally believes that the act of slaughtering dogs is highly immoral, same as many of us do.¹⁴

Roland recalls the death of his beloved dog, and how losing him equaled the mourning of a family member. Angsar, comments on his cat’s euthanasia : “was of course a deep blow to the heart”¹⁵

But at the same time Roland and Angsar slaughter hundreds of cattle animals each day.

How can both coexist?

Andrew grabs a stick and draws a line.

To the left are cattle animals, which are supposed to be food.

To the right, are pets. These are meant for relationships, bonds as deep as one’s family member.

Though the morality of this classification isn’t the issue of this article, it may act as a coping mechanism which allows Albert to foster healthy relationships with pets while remaining emotionally neutral to the slaughter of cattle animals.¹⁶

Regardless, this explanation tells us far more on how Albert overcomes this dilemma, but doesn’t give so much as a hint as to what Bob brings home.

Despite professional training, Fritz recalls “ I had to force myself.” as an apprentice in butchering pigs, which he overcame over time.¹⁷

Gerard (RP13) says “I have never been in an environment of blood” and describes his first month as “very difficult”. He adds “today I’m very used to it.” but still struggles to look at accidents and injured people, signaling that his emotional neutrality is highly context-specific.¹⁸

Even so, does eventual adaptation justify the distress experienced by the individual and their family during the transition period?

Paul shares a story about his colleague who developed a special bond with a particular pig. He played ball with him, the pig ran up to him like a dog. When the time arrived, he said “I cannot kill the pig.”. Someone else had to do the job.¹⁹

Does this suggest that the “line” isn’t set it stone, rather it can get blurry at times?Moreover, we have assumed that habituation results in the disappearance of distress. Is that so?

Even though the RP9 describes his first kill very difficult, he adds “I feel nothing anymore.” At the same time, he reports recurring work-related nightmares, waking up in a sweat, having an lower patience ceiling and confesses “Lately I want to go after work to drink something, it feels I must. As if I want it”²⁰

Similarly, RP10 describes animals making eye contact, and crying as he stunned them, which was difficult for him during his first week and made him shiver. He adds, he used to shake while holding the gun. He boasts “I am not afraid anymore. I’m killing thousands of cattle. You won’t tell me, I’m not scared of blood; I’m not afraid to slap you with my knife”.²¹

Despite that, he reports nightmares and recalls a specific one “I dream about the cattle, when you stun it, it just fall down, after falling down, when you open the door it will ask you : ‘Why are you killing me?’ “²²

He expresses “hey I kill 800 or 900 cattle, it’s nothing that’s gonna stop me to shoot only one person” describing his short temper.²³

RP8 suggests “You can divide yourself into two lives. Inside you are like this and outside you are different”. Separating work-life from his social life acts as a coping mechanism for him, despite that, he reports becoming more irritable at home, including towards pets, and describes aggression spilling over to relationships outside of his work life.²⁴

This shows habituation doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with the disappearance of distress.²⁵

Interviewees report symptoms which overlap with PTSD : nightmares, higher anger levels, increased irritability.²⁶

In this case however, workers aren’t purely on the receiving end of trauma.

Perhaps it’s being a witness to another someone else being traumatized. In this case, the animals they have to slaughter — that adds to traumatic stress.

But workers aren’t merely witnesses.

Being the source of violence and trauma that they deliver to another being, can in turn, traumatize them.²⁷

This is referred to an proposed form of PTSD, as PITS (Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress).²⁸

It suggests that the act of giving trauma to, or inflicting violence on someone can result in agent of trauma, the “traumatizer” experiencing traumatic-stress symptoms overlapping with the traumatized.

The P in PTSD stands for “post”. Treatment often presumes that the traumatic event is in the past, behind the patient. But what if returning to that traumatic event is the part of one’s job?²⁹

In the case of butchering, repeated exposure to the potentially traumatic event can potentially result in an compounding effect of traumatic stress, which can subsequently complicate recovery from the same, argues psychologist Rachel MacNair.³⁰

Think back to Bob’s day after work, has anything about it changed?

The dog still runs up to him. He still stares at the ceiling. The door slams shut regardless. The water still overflows. He still wakes up in a cold sweat.

Does Bob love his family?

Is Bob indifferent to his family?

Does Bob hate his family?

The answer to that is subjective, and will depend on your moral compass.

What is objective however, is the question of : How many workers carry home a burden like Bob’s — heavier, lighter, or somewhere in between?

We don’t know.³¹

Then, the necessary question becomes: What responsibilities do we owe to a worker who carries their burden home, yet doesn’t possess the luxury of simply switching their job?

Endnotes

¹ Sebastian (2025) Albert is not Werner or Paul copied onto the page. The source-grounded pieces are Werner (S5) coming home to a dog that is happy to see him, sleeps beside him, and helps him keep work and home separate; and Paul (S3) discussing his slaughter work with his daughter. The tug rope, maths homework, bills, dinner and evening walk are connective reconstruction - ordinary details added to turn those reported pieces into one evening.

² Victor & Barnard (2016) Bob is built the same way. RP4 describes coming home physically exhausted, not wanting to do anything or help his wife, and family strain spilling out of the job. RP1 describes his wife being scared by the nature of his work, while RP4 also describes hiding where he works because of shame. RP9 reports recurring work-related nightmares that leave him waking in sweat. The dog, school-form argument, overflowing tap, dishes and exact order of the evening are connective reconstruction; they are not one participant's literal night.

³ C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (1959) This is the line I use to switch the camera from what A and B look like at home to the structures underneath their lives.

⁴ These are the two pools Albert and Bob are drawn from. Sebastian (2025) interviewed 13 German slaughterhouse workers across six slaughterhouses. Victor & Barnard (2016) studied slaughter-floor employees in one South African commercial abattoir. Neither study gives us a nationally representative 'A group' or 'B group'; the characters are composites built from reported experiences in these samples.

⁵ Sebastian (2025) All 13 interviewees had formal vocational training, and the paper says this segment was not primarily in slaughterhouse work because of economic precarity but largely through intrinsic interest in the field. The workers were chosen by their supervisors after access was negotiated with companies; Sebastian explicitly warns that supervisors may have selected workers who fit the slaughterhouse's feeling rules especially well. 'Handpicked by the corporations' is my compressed wording for that recruitment process.

⁶ Victor & Barnard (2016) The South African participants had Grade 10-12 schooling and were described by the researchers as coming from lower socioeconomic spheres. Later, the researchers say the workers perceived limited resources and minimal alternatives and mostly felt forced to remain in slaughter work because it was their means of providing.

⁷ Sebastian (2025) Almost all interviewees came from families connected to slaughter, farming or butchery; all had witnessed or participated in slaughter as children or teenagers. Sebastian argues that these early experiences helped lay the groundwork for later emotional distance. My sentence turns that finding into the possibility that Albert's emotional management began before employment.

⁸ Victor & Barnard (2016) All participants had Grade 10-12 schooling, and the study describes the first phase of slaughter work as involving shock, fear, sadness, shame, shaking and recurring dreams for different workers. This supports Bob being comparatively less prepared and struggling early on; it does not tell us that every participant had no earlier exposure to slaughter.

⁹ Sebastian (2025) Sebastian notes that long-term work in the killing section would likely be untenable for someone experiencing strong, lasting disruptive emotions. That is why I raise the possibility that the sample partly shows us the people who could tolerate the work well enough to stay. The study does not tell us how many people left or never entered.

¹⁰ Sebastian (2025) All interviewees had formal vocational training. The paper characterizes this particular sample as professionals who were not primarily working there because of economic precarity, but from intrinsic interest in the field.

¹¹ This is a comparison I am drawing between the two studies, not an autonomy score either study measured. Sebastian (2025) gives us trained professionals in a comparatively non-precarious sample; Victor & Barnard (2016) describes limited resources, minimal alternatives and workers feeling unable to escape the role.

¹² 'Albert wants to; Bob has to' is deliberately compressed. Sebastian (2025) gives us a sample leaning toward professional training and intrinsic interest; Victor & Barnard (2016) gives us workers who often describe slaughter as a necessary means of earning a living with few alternatives. The next sentence is there because neither study supports turning that contrast into a universal rule.

¹³ Neither study can tell us how common either situation is. Victor & Barnard (2016) is one small abattoir sample; Sebastian (2025) is 13 selected German professionals and the author explicitly limits the study's explanatory reach.

¹⁴ Sebastian (2025) Eleven interviewees currently had or previously had pets, and their pet stories were marked by affection. With one exception who did not reject the hypothetical, workers strongly opposed slaughtering dogs, while maintaining a sharp pet/livestock distinction.

¹⁵ Sebastian (2025) Roland (S4) compared mourning his dog with losing a human companion. Ansgar (S2) described his cat's euthanasia as a 'deep blow to the heart.'

¹⁶ Sebastian (2025) Sebastian calls this an ontological separation: pets are framed as relationship-bearing companions while slaughter animals are framed as livestock, resources or food. The paper treats that reframing as part of the emotion work that supports professional emotional neutrality. I call it a coping mechanism here in plain language.

¹⁷ Sebastian (2025) Fritz (FW) says his first pig slaughter as an apprentice required him to force himself. Later he says slaughter gradually became a job he no longer thought about in the same way. This is one of the clearest examples in the German sample of discomfort followed by habituation.

¹⁸ Victor & Barnard (2016) RP13 - called 'Gerard' in this article - says he had never been in that kind of environment before, found his first month very difficult and later became very used to the slaughterfloor, while still being unable to look at injured people or road accidents outside work. Calling that neutrality 'context-specific' is my interpretation of that contrast.

¹⁹ Sebastian (2025) Paul (S3) describes a colleague who played ball with a pig. The pig came running to him like a dog; when the time came, the colleague said he could not kill that pig, so another worker did it. This is the source of the article's 'blurry line' question.

²⁰ Victor & Barnard (2016) RP9 describes his first kill as very difficult but says repeated killing became easier and that he later felt nothing. The same participant reports quick anger, recurring work dreams that wake him sweating, and a growing urge to drink after work. That combination is why I use him to separate habituation from the disappearance of distress.

²¹ Victor & Barnard (2016) RP10 describes his first week stunning animals as difficult, says he shook while holding the gun, and later says he is no longer afraid. The quoted language in the article is his own testimony.

²² Victor & Barnard (2016) RP10 also reports a work-related dream in which cattle he has stunned asks why he is killing it. I keep the nightmare beside his later lack of fear because both come from the same participant.

²³ Victor & Barnard (2016) In the section on work-home spillover, RP10 connects his short temper with the fact that he kills hundreds of cattle at work and speaks about what might stop him from shooting one person. The study presents this as part of anger and aggression spilling beyond work; it is testimony, not proof that slaughter causes violence in every worker.

²⁴ Victor & Barnard (2016) RP8 describes dividing himself into an inside-work life and an outside life as a way of coping. The same participant reports aggression spilling into personal life, including towards family and animals. The study interprets this under psychological defences and work-home spillover.

²⁵ Victor & Barnard (2016) This is a synthesis of RP8, RP9 and RP10. Each gives us some sign of adaptation, emotional detachment or reduced fear while also reporting difficulties outside the immediate act itself. It does not establish how common that pattern is across slaughterhouse workers.

²⁶ Victor & Barnard (2016) discusses recurring nightmares, irritability/anger, sleep disturbance and other psycho-social effects through a PTSD framework. Slade & Alleyne (2023) later reviewed the wider literature and found a small, uneven evidence base linking slaughterhouse employment with mental-health problems and maladaptive coping. 'Overlap' is intentional here: these interviews are not clinical PTSD diagnoses.

²⁷ MacNair (2023) The core idea I am drawing on here is that perpetrating violence can itself become a source of traumatic stress for the person carrying it out. MacNair says there is some evidence of post-traumatic symptoms after violence against nonhuman animals as well, while also stressing that proper large-scale slaughterhouse studies have not been done.

²⁸ MacNair (2023) MacNair says PITS can be used when perpetration itself is the stressor, while PTSD remains the official diagnosis. So PITS is being used here as a possible lens, not as a diagnosis given to RP8, RP9, RP10 or Bob.

²⁹ MacNair (2023) Her argument is that trauma treatment usually imagines the stressor as something that has stopped, while slaughterhouse work can repeatedly return a worker to the potential stressor. This is the basis of the question: what if returning to it is part of the job?

³⁰ MacNair (2023) MacNair describes slaughterhouse work as possible continual re-traumatization and argues that ongoing exposure makes treatment more complicated; she even raises the possibility that progress can be undone when the trauma recurs. This is an argument in a peer-reviewed clinical commentary, not an experiment showing a measured 'compounding effect' in slaughterhouse workers.

³¹ Slade & Alleyne (2023) found only 14 studies meeting the review's inclusion criteria and calls for more rigorous research. Victor & Barnard (2016) is one small South African abattoir sample; Sebastian (2025) is 13 selected German professionals. Put together, they can show us experiences and plausible patterns, but not tell us what share of the wider workforce looks like Albert, Bob, or somewhere between.