Interview with 16-Year-Old Slaughterhouse Worker Turned Vegan
Vegan Girl sits down with a now-vegan, anonymous Irish young man who spent his 16th summer working in a ‘packing plant.’
Nothing humane happens inside of a slaughterhouse. Everyone inside a slaughterhouse is a victim in some way, whether they walk out alive or not. Working in a slaughterhouse is one of the most difficult and most dangerous jobs in the world.
Ronan* (alias) agreed to an interview with XOXO Vegan Girl earlier this month to discuss the difficulties and dangers he faced working in ‘meat-packing’ at just 16 years old. He has decided to remain anonymous for his own safety, and I don’t blame him.
I kept my interview with Ronan as quick but also as thorough as possible to ensure I had what I needed without forcing him to relive those terrible memories. In the summer of 2022, Ronan was 16 years old when he worked for a slaughterhouse in Northern Ireland. He accompanied an adult relative who had worked there for quite some time before Ronan started. Ronan never intended to work for the slaughterhouse for very long, just until he had gotten to a place where he felt comfortable financially.
Ronan worked from Monday to Friday, from 7:00 AM until 3:00 PM or 4:00 PM. As a 16-year-old, I can’t imagine working for eight to nine hours a day. Ronan was only paid £7 per hour, equivalent to just $9.07 an hour here in the United States. The minimum wage in Northern Ireland is £6.40 for children ages 16-17. Although he was paid more than legally required, it certainly wasn’t enough for what he went through. Ronan also expressed that after some time of his being there, the lower-level workers, like himself, received a pay increase of a few pounds per hour. There weren’t any outside benefits like health insurance, but he informed me that was fairly common.
Ronan did not work on the kill floor. Instead, he worked in the packing division that placed the chunks of flesh into bags. Although he did not kill the animals himself, he would see and hear the victims awaiting their demise. He says the plant he worked at slaughtered hundreds of cows every day.
He and his coworkers in the bagging department did not receive any formal training.
“There wasn’t really any formal training since the tasks were very simple, you’d only need to be shown what it was, and you’d get it.”
I understand where Ronan is coming from, but even monotonous, ‘easy’ jobs require proper training, especially in environments with heavy chemicals, sharp weapons, and slippery, blood-soaked floors.
Even though the job wasn’t difficult itself, the tedious tasks he performed for hours upon hours every day eventually got to him. Ronan suffers from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, which became worse while he worked at the plant. As his tasks didn’t require much effort, he was left alone with his thoughts to ruminate for hours. That, mixed with the screaming of cows just down the hall, Ronan’s mental health deteriorated.
“It was generally quite monotonous. Hours were spent doing the same basic task on repeat, which led to a lot of people walking out their first few days, usually never coming back. I also, on my second or third day, did walk out, not being able to handle the monotony, but I came back the next day and ended up sticking it out and getting used to it.”
Ronan’s coworkers consisted of local people in desperate need of work, and a vast majority, potentially half, were Polish migrants. However, closer to the end of summer, the factory brought in South East Asian workers who were there on contract. They were promised a set amount of hours and proper accommodations in order to perform their work for less pay. Unfortunately for the local workers, the contract workers were promised more work than what was available. In order to fulfill the obligations of the contract, local workers either had their hours cut or were terminated. These layoffs were how Ronan lost his job with the plant.
A while after Ronan had left, he heard about a man who had killed himself after working in the plant. On another occasion, a coworker had a seizure at his workstation. The man convulsed on the floor as the supervising manager stepped over his body and began finishing the sick man’s work. Ronan also heard talk of a supervisor being inappropriate with a young girl who worked beneath him, and there was a lot of talk surrounding cocaine usage within the factory. Eventually, someone was fired after the plant found alcohol and cocaine in his system.
Working in a slaughterhouse desensitized him.
“I often walked through cow carcasses hung like they were nothing.”
From the parking lot, Ronan could hear the screams and remembers having a ‘weird feeling.’ He didn’t allow himself to focus on the odd sentiment for very long or in a meaningful way. Personally, I think his subconscious was attempting to protect him.
Working in a slaughterhouse at such a young age would almost certainly have an impact on a growing boy’s brain. It certainly did for Ronan. Rather than furthering the desensitization, Ronan allowed himself to think about his time in the meat-packing plant and explore those feelings his subconscious hid from him. He could no longer find a reason to exploit animals. After almost 18 years of his life and a summer spent with dead bodies, Ronan became vegan.
“I ended up going vegan because I couldn’t really justify consuming animal products anymore. I first started thinking about it when I was feeling guilty about my former job, even while I still ate meat. I discussed it with an online friend of mine, and as a result, we both ended up going vegan together. I have been vegan since around February of this year [2024].”
Ronan is now furthering his education and hopes to study film when he attends University. He loves to read, watch movies, and write to take his mind off of things. He is very passionate about veganism, and I was thrilled to meet him for this interview.
In the end, I wanted to know how he ultimately felt about everything. Overall, he says he feels guilt, a lot of it. XOXO Vegan Girl cares deeply about the human animals affected by the horrors of the animal agriculture industry. I view the people who are forced to work in these institutions as victims in their own right. Ronan disagreed with me.
“I ultimately feel guilty for having worked there; I don’t see myself as a victim when I was working in a place where cows were getting killed by the hundreds per day. All I can really do now is try to be better.”
I understand Ronan’s guilt. I understand why he doesn’t cut himself any slack and holds so much pain when it comes to this time in his life. Yet he made the right choice. He chose peace. He chose veganism. Ronan may not view himself in the best light, but I believe that his efforts to right his wrongs make him better than the vast majority of the population.
Ronan experienced something that could have turned him evil, something that could have influenced him to believe animals don’t feel pain, don’t want to live, or are born to die. Instead, Ronan used what he saw, heard, and felt to choose a life of nonviolence.
It was a wonderful opportunity to speak with someone who experienced life inside of a slaughterhouse. Ronan’s testimony was extremely enlightening and showed the negative impacts and effects on the humans in slaughterhouses who aren’t even working the kill floor. Thank you to Ronan for this interview; I hope my readers take this perspective with them and either start or continue to make more compassionate choices for all.
No one wakes up every day and wants to kill animals. No one wants to be inside or even near these kill factories, yet the choices we make dictate whether these slaughterhouses stay open.
To learn more about the evil directed at human animals inside slaughterhouses, read my other articles regarding sexual abuse against women and the mistreatment of people of color inside meat-packing facilities.