Workers as young as 13 hired by janitorial firm, federal labor investigation finds
By Josh Mitchell
Editor
River Mississippi News
IOWA — A Tennessee janitorial company must pay penalties totaling nearly $650,000 after a federal labor investigation found at least two dozen children worked overnight cleaning shifts at facilities designated for animal slaughtering and meatpacking, officials announced Monday.
A federal court in Iowa approved the “consent order and judgment” pertaining to Tennessee company Fayette Janitorial Service LLC of Somerville.
The court order follows a U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigation, which uncovered that some of the children who worked at the slaughterhouse and meatpacking locations were as young as 13, a labor department news release says.
In addition to the $649,000 penalty, Fayette Janitorial Service LLC must also hire a third-party firm to review its policies to prevent future child labor violations and start a program to report illegal youth employment, the release adds.
The facilities where the children were illegally employed were Seaboard Triumph Foods LLC in Sioux City, Iowa and Perdue Farms in Accomac, Va.
The labor department’s investigation resulted in a restraining order against the company in February to cease the company’s illegal child employment in more than 30 states. Fayette Janitorial complied within a week’s time.
U.S. labor law forbids children under 18 from working in “hazardous occupations common in meat and poultry slaughtering, processing, rendering and packing operations.”
Investigators at the Seaboard Triumph facility saw children covering their faces and carrying “glittered school backpacks” before they started their night shifts, which involved them using “corrosive cleaners to clean dangerous kill floor equipment, including head splitters, jaw pullers, bandsaws and neck clippers,” according to the press release.
One child was hurt at the Perdue Farms plant while trying to “remove debris from dangerous machinery,” it adds.
Despite the fact that the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed almost 90 years ago, some U.S. companies still unlawfully and dangerously use child labor to maximize profits, U.S. Department of Labor Regional Solicitor Christine Heri stated in the news release. Companies will be held legally accountable, Heri asserted.
Almost 6,000 children nationally were illegally employed last fiscal year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
