Today is Labor Day in the U.S., an annual federal holiday in which residents are supposed to celebrate the economic and social contributions of laborers of the United States. But humans being humans, are using this holiday as another excuse to fire up the grill, or to go to a flesh restaurant and devour some extra animal corpses.

This year, a new campaign called Meatless Labor Day was launched, encouraging humans to reduce their meat consumption during the holiday, to “alleviate the pressure for meatpacking labor workers on one of the busiest days of the year. When demand for meat is high, meatpacking workers must process more meat faster and work longer hours, significantly increasing their risk of injury.”

The combining of mistreatment of workers in the meat industry with other claims against the meat industry, and referring to the workers as another group of victims of the meat industry, is not new, and in fact is a very old cynical, sickening, and speciesist tactic used by many animal activists. But in this case the workers are not referred to as another group of victims, but as the victims of the meat industry. Continue reading →