I have argued that consumer pressure for better treatment of animals in agriculture is a good thing, but that pressuring for better treatment of workers might lead to worse outcomes. Obviously, there are a lot of consequential differences between workers and animals, but I will try to explain which differences specifically matter and why. Note that in both cases I am ignoring the welfare of consumers here.
The first and fundamental difference is that animals cannot bargain and do not have choices. Humans usually have other alternatives to a given employer, and even under a local monopsony they can move. So when you observe a workers current employment situation it likely reflects the best choice among all of their alternatives. When prevent a worker from making a particular choice, say by pressuring a corporation to stop employing those workers, then you are pushing them into their next best choices which is a good indicator that you are making them worse off.
In contrast, Animals are owned outright and have no alternatives, which means that if you push corporations from using them as they currently do, their next highest use may make them better off even if it is a less profitable arrangement overall. Since they do not share in their marginal product, this need not make them worse off .
Another fundamental difference in a similar vein is that the supply of animals is much more elastic than the supply of people who might wish to work. If a given industry were to fire it’s lowest level of workers because the jobs were seen as too dangerous, or if costs are raised due to higher job perks or safety, then those workers pushed out of that job and industry will be excess labor supply in another industry. On top of the next-worst-choice problem highlighted above, this means that workers currently employed in the next worst industry will face lower wages from higher labor supply.
In contrast, when a factory farm producing pigs is pressured into ceasing operations or increasing standards so the profit maximizing quantity decreases, the supply of pigs produced can be reduced quickly in a way that is not true of workers. Since agriculture is very competitive, it’s likely that pigs across industries are being produced near long-run average cost, so that any extra supply of pigs will only decrease prices for alternative uses of pigs in the short run, and in the medium and long run less pigs will simply be raise. This is also why the next-worse-choice problem that workers face isn’t as significant for animals: for most their next worse choice is probably never being born, which very often is an improvement.
This post was inspired by an old Tyler Cowen post that I think about often but can’t seem to find. What aspects of this issue am I missing?
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Sunday ~ February 26th, 2012 at 9:03 pm
Patrick (@SpringaldJack)
While this isn’t the case with Foxconn, but what happens when convincing consumers to demand better treatment is part of the employee’s strategy to affect the negotiation of labor conditions?
Sunday ~ February 26th, 2012 at 11:03 pm
Mike
It is a huge claim to say that an animal would be better off never having been born. Given the miserable existence they have in a factory farm it may be true, but it is not something to be taken lightly. In fact, I don’t think it is the kind of claim that has a “true or false” answer.
Sunday ~ February 26th, 2012 at 11:33 pm
Animal rights vs. worker’s rights « Blunt Object
[...] Pressuring businesses for better treatment of animals versus workers (Modeled Behavior) [...]
Sunday ~ February 26th, 2012 at 11:47 pm
BSEconomist
What did you miss? I think you miss a lot.
Workplace regulations affect the bargaining power of workers, generally raising bargaining power. I can’t stress it enough, but you keep ignoring the point. Wages determine the profit maximizing level of employment, not the other way around. This is especially important because most safety regulations in particular do not affect the marginal cost, but only the average cost, and therefore the equilibrium level of employment by each firm is unchanged. What happens, of course, is that the marginal firms, I.e. the least efficient firms, will shut down, marginally increasing the price and bringing more workers into the more efficient firms. In other words, the firms that are most efficient produce a larger share of output in the industry, fewer workers may be employed in the industry but they are paid better (where i model safety imporvements as a form of insurance against accidents which the firm gives workers as part of their benefits package) and produce more per worker, consumers are marginally worse off bcs prices are higher. To put simply, there are offsetting effects and workers are almost strictly better off–so from a welfare perspective it’s a wash; good for workers, bad for consumers.
This kind of offsetting effect doesn’t exist for pigs. And I haven’t even pointed out that it is perfectly reasonable to place high value on the lives which may have been saved by stressing safety.
Now, I do have to say also that to the extent that you are referring back to the Foxconn controversy, that I’m on your side. The difference there, however–which separates it from the broader point about safety regulations–is outside option. The outside option of workers in china is really really bad. A slightly elevated risk of death is no big deal by comparison and who are we to stand in someone’s way if he or she wishes to make that jump.
Sunday ~ February 26th, 2012 at 11:48 pm
Mike
Interesting post. I spent the first half of my career in the packing house business (in management), and about a third of that time was in a pork plant. My insider perspective on this -
First, the company does actually have an incentive to humanely treat animals, and that’s because poorly treated animals generate horrible yields. There is a major push in any livestock business to generate lean product (higher yields of high priced meat), and if you don’t properly / humanely move livestock around the facility pre slaughter, you get degraded meat quality. In particular, stress can lead to a condition termed PSE, where muscles are stressed and post mortem you get meat which is of very poor quality that cannot be used in primal products. (in other words, hot dog material).
One of the major contributions of Temple Grandin was that she not only identified what stressed out livestock, but identified handling methods that reduced the stress on the animals and also maintained good flow in the yards. I know someone will write back and say there’s nothing humane about animal slaughter, but if you accept that most folks love meat, then livestock slaughter is part of that process. And it’s far better to be able to walk livestock through to pens without using whips, shock sticks, and all the other lovely tools of the old business.
So really, at the processing plants, things are better than most may think. Where things get a little rougher is in the factory farms. With the push to obtain the highest possible feed conversion (pounds of food in to pounds of pig out), confinement farming has become more of a standard practice. It’s good from the sense that in these settings you can better maintain consistency and quality in the herd, but conversely, one wonders about the quality of the pig’s life in these settings. Some of the better operators use something of a hybrid approach, using confinement for younger pigs, but then allowing older pigs some freedom outdoors. Again, poor farm conditions and diet translates into soft, flavorless meat which generates poorer yields and less margin.
As for the humans involved in the slaughterhouse operations, things are far better than they were even a decade ago. It used to be common to be in meetings with a room full of shop people and find many who were missing fingers, struggled with joint damage, and the like. OSHA regulations regarding repetitive stress injuries, not to mention the cost of Worker’s comp to address disabled workers, has had a tremendous affect on work conditions. Any major line layout now involves ergonomic evaluation, and use of as much machinery as can reasonably be utilized for high stress positions. Where it can’t be addressed, regular job rotation and testing for injuries early out is done to minimize impact to workers.
This isn’t to say working in a packing plant is fun or easy (although, it can be fun with the right coworkers), but it is in many times a starting point for folks with less education, poor language skills, and the like. I’ve personally known a number of recent immigrants who worked the lines, who’s kid’s did well in school and went to college, and have made the step up to a better life. This pattern is pretty typical in the industry, as it seems to attract many recent immigrants. One thing the industry does good at is providing translators and bi-lingual training for new hires.
Monday ~ February 27th, 2012 at 4:10 pm
Andrew
“When prevent a worker from making a particular choice, say by pressuring a corporation to stop employing those workers, then you are pushing them into their next best choices which is a good indicator that you are making them worse off.”
The aspect that this argument glosses over is that the positives are global and the negatives are only at the margin.
If due to political pressure WalMart decided to pay a dollar more than minimum wage. They will employ fewer workers, and the marginal workers who are not employed become worse off, but WalMart will still employ thousands of people who will be better off.
Good or bad on balance… It depends…
Monday ~ February 27th, 2012 at 11:56 pm
Wexler
What happens if you apply your anti-natalist point to the humans (ie- the potential progeny of the workers)? Will creating a new group of unenployed folks lead to their reproducing more or less? If we accept that children are also better off never having been born (or, at least, are worse off being born to unemployed people than they have been being born to employed people in risky jobs) and poorer people reduce more, this would augment your argument.
Monday ~ February 27th, 2012 at 11:58 pm
Wexler
*and that poorer people reproduce more*
Tuesday ~ February 28th, 2012 at 12:32 am
Leonardo Falabella
Regarding your defense that people can bargain and have choices, you’re clearly underestimating the significance of the coercion under which many poor workers are.
“So when you observe a workers current employment situation it likely reflects the best choice among all of their alternatives.” Yes, but is it an ethical policy of a company when they take advantage of the fact that the workers’ alternatives are extremely narrow?
“When prevent a worker from making a particular choice, say by pressuring a corporation to stop employing those workers, then you are pushing them into their next best choices which is a good indicator that you are making them worse off.”
No, you’re pushing them into having a minimum of business ethics and pay a decent salary for those same workers, reducing their profit margin so that a considerable amount of people can have lives that correspond to their dignities.
As for that, you could argue “well, but the company won’t do that, as long as it’s more profitable for them to do something else that would leave the workers worse off.”
For which there are two counter-arguments:
1. The whole sense of a consumer pressuring firms against over-exploitative labor is demanding that other people get fairly treated. If the demands of a consumer reflect that they want to be sure that the employee who worked on one product has had a decent salary, a company could still benefit from the lower costs of living off shore, and pay workers lower salaries than those which would be paid in a developed country; but those salaries don’t need to be 30 dollars per month, they can still be decent yet lower than in US or Europe.
2. If you stretch that line of argumentation of yours you could start defending the use of child labor, stating that if consumers pressured companies not to employ it, the children would be worse off. You could say that the difference lies in the fact that children don’t have a considerable capacity of bargaining and so on, but they have their parents to look out for their interest. And in fact, in 18th century Britain parents from the the working class found themselves in the need of sending their infants to work, because that reflected “the best choice among all of their alternatives”. And in fact, many industrial capitalists defended themselves by saying that otherwise the poor families would have less revenue, and if children couldn’t go to work their families would actually suffer.
It was a claim for morality by the English society that pushed for the legislation that forbid child labor. And we’re seeing now a claim for morality in social relations by a few current consumers. Unless you’d be a defender of child labor, your argument doesn’t stand on its own.