[Animals] Animal Agriculture Is Dangerous Work. The People Who Do It Have Few Protections.

[FazzNoth]

On a rainy morning in September 2013, Lazaro Alvarez Andrade greeted the cows at the small dairy where he worked in rural New York. He was preparing to lead them six at a time into the milking parlor when he heard the thunder of hooves behind him. Before he could run, a young bull which had been brought to the farm without his knowledge rammed into him from behind, slamming him to the ground. As he fell, his face struck a metal rail separating two cow stalls. He felt intense pain, and he could not see out of his right eye. Blood gushed from his face, soaking his short-sleeved shirt and denim pants and running over his oilcloth boots.

The owner of the farm, an older white man, pulled the bull off. He led Andrade to a chair outside the milking parlor and told him to sit; he’d take him to the hospital once he had milked the cows around 80 total he said. For at least two hours, Andrade sat bleeding outside the milking parlor while the farmer finished the morning’s chores.

 

Even more present than the intense pain, Andrade said later in Spanish, was his worry that he would lose his eye. “It’s not like losing a foot or a hand—vision is the most important thing,” he said. “I would have been totally useless.”

Originally from Mexico City, Andrade had been in the United States for only five months. Prior to his arrival, he had worked in transportation logistics for the pharmaceutical industry for 40 years before his employer automated operations and laid him off. In search of work to put his son and daughter through college and support his wife and elderly parents, he emigrated to the U.S. at 55 years old. In his new country, he did not have family, he did not speak English, and he had no oneexcept his employer to turn to for support.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/civileats.com/2022/11/14/injured-and-invisible-1-few-protections-animal-agriculture-workers-cafos-dairy-migrants-injuries/amp/