The meat industry isn’t only guilty of humane washing when it comes to its treatment of non-human animals, but as Claire Hamlett explains, the truth about what's happening to workers is also being glossed over.

Last week, Surge launched a new video explaining the concept of “humane washing” and how it is rife in the meat, egg, and dairy industries. Humane washing, like its more well-known counterpart “greenwashing”, embodies a range of marketing tactics used by these industries to portray themselves as being kinder to animals than they really are. 

Labels on animal products like “local”, “family farm”, “high welfare”, and “responsibly sourced”; made-up farm names; and imagery of farmed animals roaming around grassy fields. All these contribute to the impression that the products are ethically produced, even though most of the time the reality is quite horrifying.

Another unethical aspect of these industries is in the spotlight right now after a Guardian investigation revealed the extent of exploitative labour practices used in slaughterhouses throughout Europe and the UK. Slaughterhouses were already under scrutiny for their unsafe working conditions when they became hotspots for deadly Covid outbreaks last year.

While the evidence is clear that “the whole system is really rotten,” as Nora Labo, a union official in Ireland, told the Guardian, the image that the meat industry works hard to create is that of the hard-working family-oriented farmer. Because the industry does not willingly let the public see inside slaughterhouses, these idealised portrayals of farmers serve as the face of the whole industry. Is this just another kind of humane washing?

Precarious employment and poor conditions

The Guardian investigation found that thousands of workers in Europe’s multibillion-pound meat industry are “precariously employed through subcontractors and agencies”. This means they often have zero-hours contracts, undefined working hours, no overtime, and no statutory sick pay. As they are not employed directly by the company that owns the slaughterhouse, that company can avoid responsibility for workers’ well-being. 

Many subcontracted workers are migrants looking for better employment opportunities, but they are often treated and paid much worse than people employed directly by meat companies. Accommodation provided for migrant workers by agencies is often overcrowded and unsanitary. In the UK, about 62 per cent of the 97,000 meat workers are from the EU, many of which will be subcontracted given that the British Meat Processors Association says most British slaughterhouses source workers from agencies.

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Not only is the employment precarious, the work itself can be punishing, and liable to cause post-traumatic stress disorder due to its violent nature. One former worker described the slaughterhouse he worked in as “a brutal, dangerous place to work” and “disassociation” from what he and the other workers were doing as “necessary for survival”. Even if the work were more stable and well-paid, many of the elements that make it so traumatic - the death, the devaluing of life - would remain.

The acceptable face of animal agriculture

The National Farmers Union (NFU) marked “Back British Farming Day” on September 15 with a compilation video of farmers talking about how they “care for animals”, produce “eggs you can trust” and “the best quality beef and lamb”. They are all smiling, friendly-looking people. These are the people who we are told are at the heart of animal agriculture in Britain, a narrative that is pushed at every opportunity. 

With labour and carbon dioxide shortages in the UK resulting in 100,000 pigs not being sent for slaughter, the chief executive of the National Pig Association, Zoe Davies, chose to focus on the feelings of the pig farmers rather than the pigs or the workers who would normally have to do the killing. “I was talking to a farmer earlier who was almost in tears at the thought of having to kill animals that they had lovingly raised,” she told the Guardian. “The last thing they want to see is animals being killed on farms.”

Television shows like Countryfile and Clarkson’s Farm help to further embed the association between meat and likeable farmers while obscuring the connection between farmers and slaughterhouse workers. They are all part of the same industry, but only one group is deemed acceptable for the public to get to know.

There would be no way to spin the lives of most of the UK and Europe’s slaughterhouse workers to make them fit with the narrative of British meat production as a bucolic and noble endeavour, so they are simply kept from view. 

“In Dutch stores you can see what kind of life an animal has had – we have a star system for animal welfare,” Martijn Huysmans, a Dutch economics professor, told the Guardian in response to its new investigation. “But ironically, you can’t see what conditions people in the slaughterhouse were working under.”

The suffering of animals is hidden by welfare rating systems and other marketing ploys, while the hardship of those exploited to kill them is hidden behind images of smiling farmers wearing tweed. Both are part of the humane washing strategy of the meat industry.

VIDEO: Greenwashing? It’s time to talk about humane washing

Claire Hamlett is a freelance journalist, writer and regular contributor at Surge. Based in Oxford, UK, Claire tells stories that challenge systemic exploitation of and disregard for animals and the environment and that point to a better way of doing things.

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