A Tennessee-based sanitation company will be fined more than $500,000 after a federal investigation found it illegally employed at least 20 children to clean hazardous meat processing facilities in Iowa and Virginia. agreed to pay.
The U.S. Department of Labor announced Monday that Fayette Janitorial Services LLC entered into a consent decree agreeing to a civil penalty of approximately $650,000 and a court-ordered order that the company no longer employ minors. A February filing indicated that federal investigators believe at least four children were still working at the Iowa slaughterhouse as of Dec. 12.
U.S. law prohibits companies from hiring anyone under 18 to work in meat processing plants because of the dangers.
Company accused of hiring children to clean meat processing plant
The Department of Labor alleges Fayette used 15 underage workers at its Perdue Farms plant in Accomack, Virginia, and at least nine underage workers at Seaboard Triumph Foods in Sioux City, Iowa. did. This work included disinfecting dangerous equipment such as head splitters, jaw pullers, and meat band saws in dangerous conditions where animals are killed and butchered.
A Tennessee-based company has been fined $650,000 for illegally hiring children to clean meat processing plants.
A 14-year-old boy was seriously injured while cleaning a belt on a drumstick packing line at a Virginia factory, according to an investigation.
Perdue Farms & Seaboard Triumph Foods announced in February that it had terminated its contract with Fayette.
The agreement provides that Fayette will hire a third-party consultant to monitor the company’s compliance with child labor laws for at least three years and facilitate training. Companies must also set up a hotline where individuals can report concerns about child labor abuse.
A Fayette spokesperson told The Associated Press in February that the company is cooperating with the investigation and has a “zero tolerance policy for underage labor.”
The Department of Labor is calling attention to a growing list of child labor violations across the country, including the strangulation of a 16-year-old boy working on a chicken farm in Mississippi and the death of a 16-year-old in a poultry farm accident. A report last year found that a Wisconsin sawmill and Packers Sanitation Services, Inc. (PSSI) illegally employed more than 100 children across 13 meatpacking plants. PSSI paid more than $1.5 million in civil penalties.
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The number of children illegally employed in the United States has increased by 88% since 2019, according to the latest statistics from the Department of Labor.
