Regulatory governance in the meat sector: a transnational look at delegated authority and self-regulation as models of governance

Abstract

Slaughterhouses and meat processing facilities are highly regulated industries. From food safety governance, to occupational health and safety, to animal welfare and environmental protection to name a few, modern slaughterhouses are singular spaces to consider the overarching conference question: Is regulatory governance still relevant in the contemporary age? Although we tend to hide the activities surrounding the killing of animals from the public sphere, COVID-19 outbreaks in slaughterhouses across the world brought global awareness to the risks facing both workers and animals. The negative externalities associated with the meat processing sector are well documented, and include issues such as water pollution, animal cruelty, exploitative labour practices, anti-competitive industry consolidation, redundant international trade and a questionable trend towards increased industry self-regulation to name a few. This section will examine how recent regulatory developments in Germany, Belgium and Canada impact worker safety and animal welfare in slaughterhouses. Adopting a comparative perspective, the papers will respectively evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the contemporary shift towards outcome-based regulations, how governments are attempting to address the problem of precarious and unprotected wage labour in the industry, the extent to which migrant workers are included in the scope of existing occupational health and safety legislation, and how the normalization of harm in the meat processing sector presents barriers to the implementation of harm reduction strategies in regulatory practices. Together, the papers provide a deep exploration of the opportunities and challenges for effective regulatory governance in one of the most dangerous industries in most high-income countries, while also addressing broader questions about the ability of regulatory decision makers more generally to respond to complex and multi-sectoral problems where industry acts both as a partner in governance as well as a subject of regulation.

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Crisis in the meatpacking sector: the impact of increasing line speeds on worker safety and animal welfare	View Paper Details
Relations of production in transition? Corporate strategies, labour and migration in the German meat industry	View Paper Details
Sound and safe? The ambiguous role of harm reduction in regulatory practices in slaughterhouses	View Paper Details