The U.S. Department of Labor has fined a food sanitation contractor more than $1.5 million for illegally employing more than 100 children for dangerous jobs in meat processing facilities across eight states. Those facilities included some of the nation’s largest distributors, including Tyson Foods, JBS Foods and Cargill.
Packers Sanitation Services, one of the largest food safety sanitation services in the U.S., was fined $1.5 million after the Labor Department found that they employed at least 102 children, between 13 and 17 years of age.
Investigators found that the children were working with hazardous chemicals and cleaning meat processing equipment, including saws and blades. Through its investigation, labor learned that at least three children were injured while on the job.
“The child labor violations in this case were systemic and reached across eight states, and clearly indicate a corporate-wide failure by Packers Sanitation Services at all levels,” Principal Deputy Administrator Jessica Looman said in a statement. “These children should never have been employed in meat packing plants and this can only happen when employers do not take responsibility to prevent child labor violations from occurring in the first place.”
Labor began its investigation in August, filing a complaint in the U.S. District Court of Nebraska on evidence the company had hired at least 31 children to clean meatpacking equipment during overnight shifts at plants in Nebraska and Minnesota. All of those children spoke Spanish, and investigations were conducted in Spanish, the Washington Post reported in November.
Child laborers were also found working at plants in Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Tennessee and Texas.
A Packer Sanitation Services spokesperson said that the company has a “zero-tolerance policy against employing anyone under the age of 18,” and has conducted “multiple additional trainings for hiring managers, including on spotting identity theft.”
“Our investigation found Packers Sanitation Services’ systems flagged some young workers as minors, but the company ignored the flags. When the Wage and Hour Division arrived with warrants, the adults – who had recruited, hired and supervised these children – tried to derail our efforts to investigate their employment practices,” said Wage and Hour Regional Administrator Michael Lazzeri.
Because the department is a civil law enforcement agency, officials can’t comment on whether any of the plants might face criminal charges or whether any of the children were victims of labor trafficking, said Lazzeri told the Associated Press. He said any detected trafficking is referred to other agencies.
Looman said the Wage and Hour Division has seen around a 50% increase in child labor violations since 2018, including minors working more hours than permitted in otherwise legal jobs, using types of equipment they shouldn’t while doing legal jobs, and children working where they should never be employed in the first place.
“Nobody under 18 should be working in a meat processing plant,” she said.
According to the Washington Post, state legislators in Nebraska and Iowa are seeking to relax child labor laws to shore up the workforce in those states. Minnesota’s bill would allow 16 and 17 year olds to work construction, while Iowa’s would allow 14 and 15 year olds to work in meatpacking plants, in freezers and meat coolers. It would also shield businesses from civil liability if child workers are injured, sickened, or killed on the job.
NOTE: This story has been updated to reflect a comment from Packer Sanitation Services.
