Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight (Yale Agrarian Studies Series) [Hardcover]

Timothy Pachirat (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 18, 2011 | Series: Yale Agrarian Studies Series

This is an account of industrialized killing from a participant’s point of view. The author, political scientist Timothy Pachirat, was employed undercover for five months in a Great Plains slaughterhouse where 2,500 cattle were killed per day—one every twelve seconds. Working in the cooler as a liver hanger, in the chutes as a cattle driver, and on the kill floor as a food-safety quality-control worker, Pachirat experienced firsthand the realities of the work of killing in modern society. He uses those experiences to explore not only the slaughter industry but also how, as a society, we facilitate violent labor and hide away that which is too repugnant to contemplate.

Through his vivid narrative and ethnographic approach, Pachirat brings to life massive, routine killing from the perspective of those who take part in it. He shows how surveillance and sequestration operate within the slaughterhouse and in its interactions with the community at large. He also considers how society is organized to distance and hide uncomfortable realities from view. With much to say about issues ranging from the sociology of violence and modern food production to animal rights and welfare, Every Twelve Seconds is an important and disturbing work.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Pachirat’s extraordinary narrative tells us about much more than abused animals and degraded workers. It opens our eyes to the kind of society in which we live."—Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation

(Peter Singer 20110707)

“A lucid writer, Pachirat excels in explaining how a slaughterhouse works.”—Ted Conover, The Nation

(Ted Conover The Nation )

“The book is superbly written, especially given the grimness of the subject.”—Mark Bittman, The New York Times, Opinionator column

(Mark Bittman The New York Times )

"A fascinating, gut-wrenching study—but absolutely not for the weak of stomach."—Kirkus Reviews

(Kirkus Reviews )

"A truly stunning achievement.  Every Twelve Seconds takes us into the slaughterhouse and asks: Why do we work so hard to conceal the daily routine of industrialized killing?  The result is a masterpiece that is as sophisticated as it is hard to put down."—Steve Striffler, author of Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America's Favorite Food

(Steve Striffler 20110613)

"By far the most thorough and immersive accounting of slaughterhouse operations in contemporary agribusiness."—Erik Marcus, author of Meat Market: Animals, Ethics, & Money

(Erik Marcus 20110628)

"Pachirat’s prose and tone are readable, horrific, and compelling.  The documentary spell it casts recalls the steady, unflinching eye of Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier. Astonishing."—John Bowe, author of Nobodies: Slave Labor in Modern America and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy

(John Bowe 20110613)

"Timothy Pachirat's courageous study of kill floor work exposes the fiction of "humane" slaughter.  This book is required reading for people who care about animals and for those interested in how distance and concealment operate in our society."—Gene Baur, President of Farm Sanctuary and author of Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food

(Gene Baur 20110614)

"…a detailed and brilliantly executed ethnography of an industrialized slaughterhouse in Omaha…its clear, jargon-free prose will make it accessible to both graduate and undergraduate students across disciplines."—Clarissa Rile Hayward, author of De-facing Power

(Clarissa Rile Hayward 20110523)

“A profoundly sobering exploration of the interplay between the imperatives of the modern meatpacking industry and the dehumanizing slaughter of cattle.”—Ian Shapiro, author of The Real World of Democratic Theory

(Ian Shapiro 20110613)

“[I]t would take an exceptionally visceral, in-depth account to make a meaningful contribution to the literature of animals suffering for our nourishment. That’s exactly what Timothy Pachirat provides in Every Twelve Seconds.”—Tom Bartlett, Chronicle of Higher Education

(Chronicle of Higher Education )

“This is a masterful expose, written in crystalline prose. In tying the cruelty and dehumanization of industrialized slaughter to the politics of sight, the book adds to a growing canon of recent work . . . by extending people's understanding of and exacerbating human repugnance to one of the great moral failings of current times. Summing Up: Highly recommended.”—CHOICE

(Choice )

“This book is important. Very important. [. . .]  buy it, read it, and share it with anyone who thinks they’re at peace with eating animals. After all, what Pachirat shows without telling, is that every time we eat animals we promote suffering that, should we confront it directly, we’d deem entirely unacceptable."—James McWilliams, Eating Plants blog

(James McWilliams Eating Plants )

“A firsthand account of various kinds of slaughterhouse work [in which] Timothy Pachirat did it all. . . . We can count ourselves lucky that Every Twelve Seconds is a very good book if not a flawless one. . . . It forces upon us an unacademic yet profound question: How can something be right, if it feels so horribly wrong?”—B. R. Myers, The Atlantic

(B.R. Myers The Atlantic )

“The Jungle for the 21st century.”—Portland Press Herald 

(Portland Press Herald )

About the Author

Timothy Pachirat is assistant professor, Department of Politics, The New School. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (November 18, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300152671
• ISBN-13: 978-0300152678
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.1 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #597,500 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Abattoir Up Close and Very Personal . . . and Very Disturbing February 5, 2012

By vegantrav

Format:Hardcover

Every Twelve Seconds will be of interest to anyone concerned about food safety, the exploitation of workers in modern industrialized society, and the abuse and mistreatment of animals.

Every Twelve Seconds is a first-hand account of the gruesome operations of an Omaha slaughterhouse. The author, Timothy Pachirat, is a professor in the Department of Politics at The New School University, and he obtained an entry level position at the slaughterhouse in order to see and document exactly how cattle are killed and processed. He worked in several different areas and was able to see the entire scope of the operation in the five and a half months that he worked at the abattoir.

As a vegan, I am predisposed to be sympathetic to Pachirat's project, but were I someone who eats meat, I have no doubt that I would still be horrified by what is revealed in the pages of Every Twelve Seconds.

First, if you eat meat, you should definitely cook it at as a high a temperature as possible to kill the bacteria that are present. There is no question that most of the meat that is eaten is tainted with fecal matter and other contaminants, which explains why we often see outbreaks of E. coli-based food poisoning.

Additionally, your meat comes at a high cost to the workers who produce it. As the title of the book indicates, the slaughterhouse where Pachirat works kills a cow every twelve seconds. Speed, rather than quality, is the primary driving force in the slaughterhouse: the longer it takes to process a cow, the more hours that the company must pay the workers, and the more hours that the workers work, the less profit the company makes.

With speed being of primary importance, USDA inspectors are viewed as the enemy. The management and all the workers, whose jobs depend upon pleasing their managers, do whatever they can to deceive the inspectors and to skirt, as much as possible, the food safety regulations, which invariably slow the production line, that the USDA inspectors are trying to enforce.

The workers themselves are almost exclusively immigrants or the very poor and uneducated. They work grueling hours, often 10 or more hours a day, six days a week, and their pay is usually barely above minimum wage. Their jobs are highly dangerous because they are working with knives, implements, and machines for deconstructing the bodies of cows into meat: cuts (including loss of fingers) and crushing wounds and repetitive motion injuries are a constant hazard. The slaughterhouse itself assaults the senses with a stench that even soaks into the workers themselves to the extent that they can't even wash it off. The workers are constantly scrutinized by supervisors and managers and can be fired on a whim for minor infractions or for being too slow or even for taking unapproved bathroom breaks. It is extraordinarily stressful work, both physically and psychologically. Due to these working conditions, the turnover rate is astronomical, nearing 100% per year for most slaughterhouses.

At one point in the book, Pachirat describes the plight of the knocker: the knocker uses a captive-bolt stun gun to render the cows unconscious; he places the gun against the forehead of a cow, which is often thrashing its head wildly in terror, and shoots the bolt into the cow's forehead to knock it out. Often, it takes more than one shot to knock out the cow because it won't hold still. Most of the workers in the slaughterhouse believe that the knocker's job is the worst possible job. The knockers often suffer nightmares and need psychiatric help due to the effects of their job. One of Pachirat's co-workers succinctly describes the problem with the knocker's job when Pachirat inquires what's wrong with the job: "Because, man, that's killing; that s--- will f--- you up for real."

Of course, there is also the problem of animal abuse: cows often are not properly stunned and so can move down the production line while still conscious: in this conscious condition, they will have their carotid arteries and jugular veins slashed, but before they bleed out and die and while still conscious, they will have their tails and rear right leg cut off. Now, this isn't the norm: most cows are stunned before the processing begins, but there are still a number of cows who do slip through to the production line without being knocked out. There is also a problem when a cow falls in the chutes that lead to the kill area: many times, the workers will not try to help the cow up but will instead let it be trampled by the other cows that are being forced through the chutes with electrical prods. When the workers do try to help a downed cow, they can be unbelievably cruel: Pachirat relates one instance in which a nose clamp is put into a cow's nostrils, and the workers pull so hard that they rip through the cow's nose. For the animals, their deaths are fraught with terror and horrific abuse: death in an abattoir is anything but a good death.

Pachirat argues that the problem with the slaughterhouse is that it is completely hidden from public view: the vast majority of the public has no idea what goes into the production of meat in terms of how unsafe it really is, in terms of how it exploits the workers, and in terms of how the animals are abused. Pachirat is hopeful that, if the true nature of the slaughterhouse were known, conditions could be improved, but he is also realistic enough to know that, even if the things he exposes in this book were to become common knowledge, the public might very well find some way to sequester this knowledge, to block it out, so that they could eat their meat in peace and with a clear conscience.

I do not see how anyone provided with the information that Pachirat documents in this book could continue to eat meat with a clear conscience. This is a book that should unsettle meat eaters; it should disturb them deeply; and if their consciences and sense of compassion--both for the workers and the animals--serve as their guides in any moral way, then what is revealed in this book should spur them to re-think whether their decision to eat meat is really ethical.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars How industrialized meat is actually produced February 8, 2012

By Matt Mitterko

Format:Hardcover

Every Twelve Seconds is divided up into two discrete pieces of non-fiction. It starts with a theoretical outline, in the first three chapters, where Pachirat sets out to detail how a cow becomes an industrialized food product, and how this is possible. The politics of sight at a large-scale slaughterhouse are evident in Pachirat's account, as he highlights the many ways in which such a facility maintains its operations by virtue of obscuring the costs and consequences from consumers and workers. He provides a detailed description of the disassembly line and the requirements of each unique but narrow job on the line. This account is supported by detailed maps showing the facility's workflow through all 121 jobs.

Pachirat is careful to describe the industrialized processessing of the slaughterhouse in morally-neutral terms, as he lays out how a cow is processed. The raw details, however, overcome this by providing a stark, sad visual of the nature of the facility. This section is punctuated with descriptions of the phenomenological details of disassembling a cow, and this is best appreciated when he presents us with workers' instinctual reactions to their part in the processing.

The remainder of the book is spent investigating this narrative first-hand, where Pachirat recounts his time as a slaughterhouse worker over the course of a number of months. This more anecdotal account provides contextual support to the thesis Pachirat advances in the first section. His experience as a worker in various positions within the institution gives you a sense of just how compartmentalized slaughterhouse processing is, and how difficult it is to appreciate the scope of what's being accomplished there, given the focus required for each individual position. Here Pachirat uses the politics of sight to show that the industrialized processing, as a whole, is kept hidden even from other parts of the facility (e.g. the clean side of processing, where organs and meat are broken down for shipment to retailers, and the dirty side, where the animal is killed and prepared for processing). It becomes clear that even line workers struggle to see how they are linked to the death of a cow, seeing only the knocker as the person responsible for killing the animal. Trust and communication are at a minimum in the facility, where what's hidden often preserves an individual's ability to continue in their role. His conversations with other workers were illuminating here.

The last chapter provides some valuable insight into the challenges of reforming such facilities. Pachirat ultimately warns against providing complete and open information about current slaughterhouse activity, to induce the reform of slaughterhouses (e.g. Michael Pollan's glass-enclosed abettoir as a means to shock people into rejecting this type of meat production). Exposing people to the production line and its problems may only force people to develop a tolerance for such activities, as well as develop other means to maintain the production line (e.g. slaughterhouse tourism to see how meat is really processed). Finding the right means to motivate people is crucial, and relying on some version of the offense principle to create change in slaughterhouse doesn't seem strong enough for the evidence that Pachirat produces.

I would also add that Pachirat's book is a good contribution to the literature on ethical issues involved in the production of food, as opposed to the standard arguments from animal rights. While his account clearly illustrates neglect for animal welfare in meat production, he demonstrates that the politics of sight requires a lack of interest in the consequences for the workers just as much as it does for the animals. Ultimately, Pachirat shows us that even humans have a lot to lose in maintaining the status quo in meat production.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Provocative scholarship and a gripping narrative - an incredible book November 30, 2011

By Kevin Morse

Format:Hardcover

The dust-jacket endorsements for this book are absolutely true: it's "a truly stunning achievement," as Steve Striffler puts it, a tremendously compelling combination of rigorous scholarship and insightful personal narrative with profound implications (practical, ideological, methodological) that reach far beyond the fields of agrarian or political studies. This is a book that everyone should - and can - read. The level of detail is mind-blowing and gut-wrenching, and Pachirat's readable (and very personal) narrative style easily bridges the gap between theoretical context and lived experience. As I read the acknowledgments and the first chapter I felt a little spike of adrenaline, as though excitedly anticipating the drop of a roller coaster, when I realized just how gritty and real the pages ahead were going to be. It did not disappoint.