On August 3, the Washington Post published an op-ed by Human Rights Watch activists Lance Compa and Jamie Fellner. The article was about the often difficult conditions which people work in meat and poultry plants face. The article concluded by suggesting tighter regulation of such plants.
This did not sit will with animal rights activists Joan Dunayer and Jim Robertson, who both posted the op-ed to AR-NEWS complaining that the article contained, as Dunayer put it, “sympathy for killers, not their victims.”
Robertson complained that,
The article below says nothing of the non-human toll or the living conditions of the target animals of meat-packing plants, asside [sic] from an idle mention of bloody “kill floors” and live hang” areas. While justifiably concerned for the rights of the workers, this article’s authors can’t be bothered with addressing the plight of the ultimate victims of the meat-plant industry.
This is the same Jim Robertson, of course, who has said of the comparison between the Holocaust and animal agriculture that,
. . .the only minor difference being the victims’ species.
Sources:
Op-ed, sympathy for killers, not their victims. Joan Dunayer, AR-NEWS post, August 3, 2005.
Meatpacking’s human toll. AR-NEWS post, August 3, 2005.