DARK DAYS FOR PROFESSIONAL KILLERS

As demand for beef continues to fall (despite the industry's incessant claims to the contrary), workers at the Greeley slaughterhouse where the feces hit the fan last summer are now suffering through "dark days," forced days off that cut their wages.
As one worker puts it, "The company says, 'Look, we don’t have the business. We’re going to have to give you a dark day.'" Oddly, this is the plant that keeps making national news for stepping up all its safety procedures and slowing down the assembly line to avoid another PR catastrophe. So if they're still producing too much supply for demand, that should tell you something. And as much as I sympathize with the quasi-laid-off workers, well, nobody's holding a gun to their head and forcing them to slit throats for a living. Take this as a sign that you're in the wrong damned line of work.
UPDATE: A British perspective on the same supply/demand quandary: Some farmers are protesting that losing livestock subsidies will "make keeping livestock uneconomic." Sez one, "We've had several years of low return in beef. If the market isn't prepared to pay a figure that will give us back costs of production, people will stop producing beef." Oh no!