Since late last year, federal fines totaling $1.5 million were imposed on 13 meat plants that contracted with Packers Sanitation Services Inc. in eight states. for employing children in critical food safety jobs, the story has not gone away. The food industry’s tendency towards child labor still needs to be broken, and another year is coming to an end in which the sector continues to pile up violations.
Child labor violations continue to occur in the food industry, even as the influential group The Meat Institute has promoted “best practices” designed to help prevent child labor, given the record influx of undocumented minors that comes with its increasing prevalence and sophistication of identity theft. and fraud.
Many of the children who work in meat plants are tasked with performing food safety work, such as cleaning hazardous equipment.
The latest violations involve 11 children who work at a pork processing plant in Sioux City. Qvest LLC must pay $171,000 in federally imposed fines. A second contractor at Seaboard Triumph Foods LLC in Sioux City is the second to employ children to do dangerous work in Iowa City.
The U.S. Department of Labor has found the second sanitation contractor at the Seaboard Triumph Foods LLC facility who employed children to perform hazardous work during overnight shifts at the Sioux City pork processing plant.
Under a consent order and judgment approved by the US District Court for the Northern District of Iowa on November 27, 2024, Qvest LLC must pay $171,919 in civil penalties for child labor, hire a third party to review and implement company policies to prevent the employment of children in violation of the law to prevent. the Fair Labor Standards Act and establishing a process for reporting concerns about the illegal employment of children.
The verdict follows an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division, which found that the Guymon, OK-based plumbing contractor employed 11 children to use caustic cleaning agents to clean head splitters, jaw pullers, band saws, neck cutters and other equipment in the Seaboard Triumph to clean. Food facility from at least September 2019 to September 2023.
Seaboard Triumph Foods contracted Fayette Janitorial Service LLC in September 2023 for sanitation work at its facility. In May 2024the department entered into a consent order and judgment with Fayette after division investigators discovered that the Somerville, TN, contractor illegally employed nine children at the Sioux City pork processing plant. After taking over the factory’s sanitation contract, Fayette rehired some of the children who previously worked at Qvest.
Federal law prohibits children under the age of 18 from working in hazardous jobs common in the slaughter, processing, rendering and packaging of meat and poultry.
“The U.S. Department of Labor is committed to ending the illegal employment of children in our nation’s workplaces,” said Regional Attorney Christine Z. Heri. “We are committed to using all strategies to stop and prevent unlawful child labor and to hold all employers legally responsible for their actions. Children should never be hired to perform dangerous and prohibited tasks.”
In addition to the payment of fines for the child labor violations, the consent order and judgment require Qvest to:
- Hire an outside consultant or compliance specialist with knowledge and experience in complying with the child labor provisions of the FLSA within 90 days.
- Direct the compliance monitor to promptly review company policies, provide annual training at all company facilities, and monitor and monitor Qvest compliance for at least three years.
- Provide child labor compliance training and materials in languages that workers understand.
- Keep accurate records of all employees, including dates of birth and assigned work duties.
- Set up a toll-free hotline for guidance and to anonymously report child labor compliance issues.
- Within 60 days, ensure that the company does not employ any workers under the age of 18 in jobs prohibited by the FLSA.
- Submit an initial compliance report and annual reports for three years to the department that monitors compliance with child labor laws.
“These findings illustrate Seaboard Triumph Foods’ history with children working illegally at their Sioux City facility since at least September 2019. Despite inconsistent sanitation, children at this facility continued to work in hazardous occupations,” said Michael Lazzeri, regional administrator of Wage and Hour Midwest. .
In fiscal year 2024, the division completed 736 investigations uncovering child labor violations affecting 4,030 children. It assessed employers more than $15.1 million in fines for violations federal child labor lawsan increase of 89 percent since 2023.
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