U.S. fines firm $1.5 million for hiring kids to clean meatpacking plants

[Huat Zai]

 

One of the country’s largest food sanitation service providers has paid $1.5 million in penalties for illegally employing at least 102 children to clean 13 meatpacking plants on overnight shifts, the Labor Department announced Friday.

 

The company, Packers Sanitation Services, allegedly employed minors as young as 13 to use dangerous chemicals to clean “razor-sharp saws,” head splitters and other high-risk equipment at meatpacking facilities in eight states, mostly in the Midwest and the South. The plants are operated by some of the country’s most powerful meat and poultry producers, including JBS Foods, Tyson and Cargill. Those companies were not charged or fined.

 

Investigators learned in recent months that at least three children suffered injuries, including a chemical burn to the face, while cleaning slaughterhouses in the middle of the night.

“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,” said Jessica Looman, principal deputy administrator of the Labor Department’s wage and hour division, in a statement. “These children should never have been employed in meat packing plants and this can only happen when employers do no take responsibility to prevent child labor violations from occurring in the first place.”

The Labor Department found that at least 27 children worked at night cleaning a JBS Beef Plant in Grand Island, Neb. Another 26 children cleaned a Cargill meat-processing facility in Dodge City, Kan.

Packers Sanitation Service’s payment of $1.5 million in civil penalties on Feb. 16 is the result of a federal investigation that began in August.

“We are pleased to have finalized this settlement figure as part of our previously announced December resolution with the Department of Labor that ends their inquiry,” said Gina Swenson, a Packers spokesperson. “We have been crystal clear from the start: Our company has a zero-tolerance policy against employing anyone under the age of 18 and fully shares the DOL’s objective of ensuring full compliance at all locations.”

Swenson added that as soon as Packers became aware of the Labor Department’s investigation, the company conducted several audits of its employee base and hired a third-party law firm to improve its policies. The firm’s audits confirmed that the minors identified by the government as under the age of 18 no longer work for the company. Swenson added that Packers uses the federal E-Verify system for new hires, as well as biometric data collection.

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 prohibits all minors from working in hazardous occupations, which regulators have defined to include sanitation in meatpacking facilities. It also prohibits children under the age of 14 from working, and children between the ages of 14 and 15 from working past 7 p.m. or for more than three hours on school days.

Court records allege that a 13-year-old working for Packers at a JBS Beef plant in Grand Island, Neb., suffered chemical burns. A 14-year-old worker who also suffered burns cleaned meat-cutting machines during 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. shifts, then went to school and fell asleep in classes or missed school completely, investigators said.

In November, the Labor Department filed a complaint in federal court in Nebraska, and a judge responded by issuing a temporary restraining order forbidding Packers from violating child labor laws.

Packers said in a court filing in December that when the Labor Department identified “two handfuls of alleged minors by name" working at their facilities, the sanitation firm quickly terminated “any such named individuals still working” at the company.

“Our investigation found Packers Sanitation Services’ systems flagged some young workers as minors, but the company ignored the flags," Michael Lazzeri, a Labor Department administrator in Chicago, said in a statement.

Lazzeri added that when the Labor Department brought search warrants to the facilities, the adults who had hired and supervised the minors “tried to derail our efforts to investigate their employment practices.”

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/02/17/child-labor-meatpacking-department-of-labor/