Labor Dept. accuses big meatpacking sanitation firm of illegally employing children as overnight workers

Worker using a high-powered hose to clean
meatpacking equipment. (Labor Department photo)

A Labor Department investigation found that “One of the largest food safety companies in the United States illegally employed more than two dozen children in at least three meatpacking plants, several of whom suffered chemical burns from the corrosive cleaners they were required to use,” reports Remy Tumin of The New York Times.

The department said at least 31 children aged 13 to 17 were employed as overnight meatpacking cleaning staff by Packers Sanitation Services “in hazardous occupations. The jobs performed by children included cleaning dangerous powered equipment during overnight shifts."

Tumin reports, "Their jobs included cleaning kill floors, meat- and bone-cutting saws, grinding machines and electric knives, according to court documents. The mix of boys and girls were not fluent English speakers and were interviewed mostly in Spanish."

Packers Sanitation Services is based in Kieler, Wis., and contracts with at least 700 facilities and employee over 17,000 people nationwide, its website says.

The department got an injunction from a federal judge in Nebraska requiring the company to stop “employing oppressive child labor” and to comply with the Labor Department investigation.

The company says it has cooperated, and denies any child-labor violations. It “has an absolute company-wide prohibition against the employment of anyone under the age of 18 and zero tolerance for any violation of that policy — period,” it said in a statement.