The Labor Department discovered 13 children illegally working graveyard shifts at JBS meat processing facilities in Minnesota and Nebraska, with one 13-year-old being left with caustic chemical burns.
This week, the US Department of Labor requested a federal court to issue a nationwide restraining order against the world's largest meat processing company's plant clean-up provider, Packers Sanitation Services (PSSI). This would prevent the company from employing dozens of workers who are under the age of 18 years.
Wisconsin Factory Hires Minor Workers
On Thursday, a US district judge from Lincoln, Nebraska, granted the temporary request, a department spokesperson said in an email. In August, an investigation was launched that later found that PSSI hired at least 31 children, ranging from ages 13 to 17, in an attempt to fulfill the company's sanitation contracts at JBS plants that are located in Grand Island, Nebraska, and Worthington, Minnesota, and in Marshall, Minnesota at Turkey Valley Farms.
The work that the children performed for the company included cleaning dangerous powered equipment with corrosive cleaners in graveyard shifts and cleaning floors where animals were slaughtered, as per CBS News.
The agency said in a court filing that initial evidence showed that Packers was able to employ minor children under similar conditions at any of its other 400 operations that were located across the country. The company is also accused of trying to intimidate minor workers to stop them from cooperating with investigators and of deleting and manipulating employment files.
PSSI, which has its headquarters in Kieler, Wisconsin, offers cleaning and sanitation services and employs roughly 17,000 people as contract workers at 700 different processing plants.
Packers, in response to the case, dismissed the allegations, saying that it has an companywide prohibition that prohibited the employment of any individual under the age of 18 and noted that it had zero tolerance for any violation of the said policy.
Multiple Injuries Reported
According to the New York Times, other injuries include that of a 14-year-old who was working from 11 in the evening until five in the morning up to six days a week. The child was found to have suffered injuries due to chemical burns from cleaning machines that were used to cut meat.
Also, school records showed that the student fell asleep multiple times in class or even missed them entirely because of their job at the company.
Turkey Valley Farms released a statement saying that it was taking the allegations "very seriously" and noted that it was "reviewing the matter internally." The company said that it expected all contractors to share its commitment to the health and safety of any individual working in its facilities.
The regional administrator of the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division in Chicago, Michael Lazzeri, released a statement saying that federal laws were established decades ago to prevent employers from putting children in harm's way just for profit.
The identities of the children working for the plan were not revealed, but the complaint added that all of the involved minors were Spanish speakers. Furthermore, the children were put at risk as many of the minors were tasked with cleaning machines used to cut meat, which was equipped with electric knives and grasselli skinners, the Daily Beast reported.
