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A Department of Labor probe has uncovered ‘oppressive child labor’ practices at Nebraska and Minnesota slaughterhouses owned by JBS — the company behind Certified Angus Beef and other brands.
Investigators found 31 children aged 13 to 17 working for cleaning subcontractor Packers Sanitation Services (PSSI) at JBS plants in Grand Island, Nebraska, and Worthington, Minnesota, and at Turkey Valley Farms in Marshall, Minnesota.
The youths worked overnight shifts cleaning ‘dangerous powered equipment’, officials said, leading to one 13-year-old and other underage workers to suffer ‘caustic chemical burns’.
The Department of Labor has asked the District Court in Nebraska to impose a nationwide restraining order against PSSI to stop them ‘illegally employing dozens of minor-aged workers’ as the probe continues.
In court papers made available to DailyMail.com, the department says PSSI may also be working children in hazardous conditions ‘at its other 400 operations across the country’.
The cleaning firm said it has an ‘absolute company-wide prohibition’ against employing children, but that ‘rogue individuals’ with fake IDs may have slipped through their vetting system.
The Department of Labor’s court complaint features this image of a PSSI employee working in the ground beef room of the JBS plant in Grand Island, Nebraska
A PSSI employee using a hose to clean processing equipment at the JBS plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, from the Department of Labor’s legal complaint
The Department of Labor’s court complaint features this image of a PSSI employee cleaning with limited visibility at the JBS plant in Worthington, Minnesota
Christine Heri, the Regional Solicitor of Labor in Chicago, said the department will ‘hold to account those employers who mistakenly believe they can violate the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), obstruct federal investigations, and retaliate against workers who assert their rights.’
Investigators focussed on PSSI in August after receiving a tip that teens worked at the three slaughterhouses. They executed warrants to access the plants and the firm’s offices in Keiler, Wisconsin.
They identified violations of the FLSA, which prohibits children from working for more than three hours during school days, overnight, and from operating motor vehicles, forklifts and using other hazardous equipment, the department said.
The youths had to ‘perform hazardous work cleaning industrial power-driven slaughtering and meat processing equipment on the kill floors of meatpacking and slaughtering facilities in the middle of the night,’ court papers show.
They cleaned machines with such ominous names as the Heavy Duty Head Splitter, the Dehorner, and the Dominator Mixer/Grinder, described in court papers as a ‘125 horsepower behemoth that can grind 36,000 pounds of meat per hour’.
Several young workers, including a 13-year-old, got ‘serious chemical burns’ from using PSSI’s powerful cleaning chemicals, often in conditions with poor visibility and with fat and meat strewn across the floors.
The subcontractor also intimidated its young employees into not cooperating with government inspectors and ‘allegedly deleted and manipulated employment files’, investigators said.
During a tour of the Grand Island slaughterhouse, one PSSI manager allegedly told inspectors: ‘I have nothing to hide, whatever happened before I started working with the company, I do not know.’
Labor protection laws were established decades ago to ‘prevent employers from profiting by putting children in harm’s way’, said Michael Lazzeri, a Chicago-based labor department official.
‘Taking advantage of children, exposing them to workplace dangers — and interfering with a federal investigation — demonstrates Packers Sanitation Services’ flagrant disregard for the law and for the well-being of young workers,’ said Lazzeri.
JBS is behind such supermarket brands as Certified Angus Beef, Pilgrim’s, Swift, 1855, Country Pride, Clear River Farms, Moyer and Savoro and many others
JBS is behind such supermarket brands as Swift. The world’s largest meat-processing company slaughters some 13 million animals a day
A PSSI spokeswoman told DailyMail.com that the company has a ‘zero tolerance … company-wide prohibition’ against hiring youths and uses biometrics and ‘industry-leading’ government-backed systems to verify the ages of new hires.
‘While rogue individuals could of course seek to engage in fraud or identity theft, we are confident in our company’s strict compliance policies and will defend ourselves vigorously against these claims,’ added the spokeswoman.
The spokesman said she was ‘surprised’ the department had gone to court as the company was ‘cooperating with their inquiry’ through an audit and by providing documents.
The company provides sanitation, chemical cleaning and pest control at some 700 slaughterhouses and food processing plants across the US and employs about 17,000 workers.
JBS, the world’s largest meat-processing company, which slaughters more than 13 million animals a day and makes some $50 billion a year, did not immediately answer DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
A PSSI promotional image of staff at meal time. A spokeswoman told DailyMail.com that the firm has a ‘zero tolerance … company-wide prohibition’ against hiring youths
A JBS plant in Worthington, Minnesota, where labor officials say children were illegally employed to clean equipment overnight
Pigs were culled en masse because JBS was forced to shutter its plant in Worthington, Minnesota, after more than 500 cases of Covid-19 were discovered among workers there
It is behind such supermarket brands as Certified Angus Beef, Pilgrim’s, Swift, 1855, Country Pride, Clear River Farms, Moyer and Savoro and many others. On its website, the company says it has ‘sound corporate governance and strong ethics’.
The firm, owned by Brazilian billionaire brothers Wesley and Joesley Batista, was in 2020 forced to shutter its plant in Greeley, Colorado, and in Souderton, Pennsylvania, after four employees died of coronavirus and more than 100 tested positive.
Turkey Valley Farms declined to comment.
Korea’s top automaker Hyundai last month said it was investigating child labor violations in its US supply chain and planned to cut ties with suppliers in Alabama found by Alabama’s state Department of Labor and federal agencies to have relied on underage workers.
Hyundai’s global chief operating officer Jose Munoz told Reuters the carmaker intended to ‘sever relations’ with SMART Alabama and the Korean-operated SL Alabama, which supply Hyundai’s massive vehicle assembly plant in Montgomery, Alabama.
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