Animal activism is great. Why can't we get as loud on (human) workers' rights?
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Version 0 of 1. Thomas Quinn, an immigrant from Ireland, has been a horse carriage driver in New York City for 20 years. He will sometimes work seven days a week and – by the time he's gotten his animals to and from their stable, fed and groomed – for up to 10 hours a day. Quinn's two horses, Mickey and Murphy, have an easier schedule than their owner. They switch off days, never work for longer than nine hours at a time and get at least one 15-minute break after every two-hour working period. The horses get a mandatory five-week vacation each year, when they're sent out to pasture, plus plenty of days off when the weather is bad. "We haven't worked half the winter," Quinn told me yesterday morning in Central Park, "because it's been so cold." From the perspective of many workers in this country, the working life of these horses must seem positively enviable – five weeks' vacation is something most Americans can only dream about. The mandated furlough and working-hour restrictions were part of a 2010 law passed by the New York City Council to regulate the carriage horse industry. The law also contains strict housing provisions and stipulates two physical examinations per year. Despite these regulations, there has been so much outrage about the working and living conditions of the Central Park carriage horses that pretty soon, Mickey and Murphy may be forced into early retirement, and their owner may have to find a whole new livelihood. The new mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, has pledged to eradicate the horse carriage business within the year – indeed, some think he won last year's national bellwether election in no small part because of that promise – and he has plans to replace horses with electric cars, on the grounds that the industry is inhumane. The mayor's plan is facing considerable resistance this week from industry supporters and editorial pages, including the actor Liam Neeson, all of who would rather see regulations strengthened and enforced rather than an outright ban. Indeed, the horses I visited in and around Central Park yesterday looked healthy and well nourished, no matter what a group of activists with the mayors' ear has to say. While I can't help but admire the zeal of animal rights campaigners, whose ardent activism has drawn international attention to the horse carriage issue, I find the bigger picture disturbing: there seems to be more concern for the rights of working horses than there is for the everyday exploitation and abuse endured by working people. On my way to the park, I stopped to chat with a young man named Kamruzzaman Shakil, who was holding a large wooden sign advertising a sandwich chain. You see people like Shakil all the time in New York City, standing for hours, in all weather, handing out leaflets or holding these cumbersome signs, breathing in the same toxic exhaust fumes that animal rights activists say are harming the carriage horses. Shakil told me that he typically works two shifts – back-to-back, four hours each, with one half-hour break in between. His employers don't like it if he leans against anything while he's on duty. He is paid $6 an hour, which is $2 less than the state's minimum wage and nowhere near enough to cover basics like rent and food. When I asked him if he gets any paid sick days, or any vacation days, or if he gets any health benefits, Shakil laughed politely, as though my questions were jokes. As I walked away, I couldn't help thinking: if this human sign-holder were a horse, he'd have his own protest movement by now. I don't mean for a second to diminish the very legitimate concerns that animal rights campaigners have for the wellbeing and safety of New York's carriage horses. On the contrary, I'm grateful for their relentless activism – whatever happens with this industry in the future, these horses are almost certainly treated better now than they might otherwise have been. That's a victory in itself. But for some reason, people just seem to have a much easier time working up a fury about the plight of animals than they do for their fellow humans. Over the past decade or so, homelessness in New York has risen to its highest levels since the Great Depression. In addition to the packed shelters around the city, many families have resorted to doubling or even tripling up in small apartments because they just aren't earning enough to pay market rents. New York is now second only to Los Angeles in overcrowding. I won't say there's been no outcry about these abysmal situations: there have been calls for more affordable housing programs, and some progress from the de Blasio administration; there have been aggressive White House pushes on multiple fronts for an increase in the minimum wage – none loud enough to force lawmakers to take aggressive action, of course. Congress has stalled on taking any action at all to increase the federal minimum wage to the $10.10 an hour rate proposed by President Obama earlier this year. Some states are enacting their own increases, but even these don't go far enough. By 2016, New York state's minimum wage is set to be increased to a pitiful $9 an hour, which will still fall far short a living wage and will mean that many working New Yorkers still won't be able to afford basics like rent and food. Imagine the outcry if we learned that the Central Park horses were being forced to double up in their stables, where the conditions are reported to be exemplary, by the way. What if the horses were denied adequate food or access to healthcare? I have little doubt that we would be deafened by the protests that would ensue, that lawmakers would take swift action to rectify such injustice. Safety issues for working horses are of paramount concern to animal rights activists – and with good reason. Over the past 30 years, four horses have been killed in traffic accidents in New York City. In 2012 alone, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 775 (human) workers across America were killed in the private construction sector, 677 workers were killed in transportation and warehousing industries, and 475 were killed in agriculture and fishing. I know of no sustained campaign by outside groups to fight for better protections for vulnerable workers in any of these high-fatality sectors. And I doubt if anyone with a truly public voice, other than friends and relatives, could name a single worker who died in any of these workplace accidents. Can we talk about the worker safety issues of human beings already? Of course, when a horse collapsed and died on the streets of New York in 2011, from underlying medical causes, his sad and possibly preventable death drew international attention. HIS NAME WAS CHARLIE, blared the signs. Remember the sign-holders. |