A Slaughterhouse Nightmare: Psychological Harm Suffered by Slaughterhouse Employees and the Possibility of Redress through Legal Reform
Source: Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy, Forthcoming (via SSRN)

What’s the true cost of a hamburger? To the consumer, it’s anywhere from under a dollar to, say, ten bucks in a fancy burger joint. But to the slaughterhouse workers, the cost of a hamburger includes the financial and physical hardships of the slaughterhouse work itself.

However, even less publicly discussed or understood is the psychological trauma inflicted on slaughterhouse workers. Not only do the employees face serious physical health hazards, but they also view, on a daily basis, large-scale violence and death that most of the American population will never have to encounter. This Note will discuss the psychological harm caused by slaughterhouse work and will propose several methods, including OSHA reforms, workers’ compensation, and expansion of tort doctrine, by which the legal regime can prevent the harm from occurring and can compensate the employees for their psychological injuries.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, December 2nd, 2007 at 1:22 pm and is filed under Business and economics, Food and agriculture, Government and politics, Labor, Legal and law enforcement, Mental health and substance abuse. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.