A cleaning company has been fined $171,000 after federal investigators found 11 children working “dangerous” night shifts at an Iowa meat processing plant.
The U.S. Department of Labor said in a statement that the children were found working for hygiene company Quest LLC at the Seaboard Triumph Foods pork plant in Sioux City, Iowa.
According to the statement, children “used corrosive cleaners to clean head splitters, jaw pullers, bandsaws, neck clippers, and other equipment at Seaboard Triumph Foods facilities from at least September 2019 until September 2023. He was said to have been employed to “clean the area.”
Under U.S. law, it is illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to work in meat processing. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, says Quest must pay a fine and not engage in “oppressive child labor.”
Oklahoma-based Quest did not respond to a request for comment.
Seaboard Triumph Foods said in a written statement to NBC News that the company has not been accused of any wrongdoing, does not condone the use of underage workers by any vendor, and that “minors are not allowed in our factories.” There is no evidence that it was accessed.” He added that he has not used Qvest’s services for over a year.
Quest also hired a third-party company to review its policies regarding the employment of minors within 90 days and established a process (including a toll-free hotline) for whistleblowers to report illegal employment of children. need to.
This is the second time a contractor has been caught employing children at the same facility. In May, Fayette Janitorial Services LLC agreed to pay nearly $650,000 for employing nearly 20 children at its Sioux City plant and facility in Perdue Farms, Virginia.
Fayette said in May that it no longer employs minors. Both Seaboard Farms and Perdue Farms terminated their contracts with Fayette following the investigation in May.
“These findings demonstrate that Seaboard Triumph Foods has a history of illegally working children at its Sioux City facility since at least September 2019, despite changing sanitary contractors. , children continued to work in dangerous occupations at this facility,” said Michael Lazzeri, Midwest Region Wage and Hour Director. Administrator.
The department said its Wage and Hour Division found more than 4,000 labor law violations involving children in fiscal year 2024, resulting in 736 investigations resulting in more than $15 million in fines, an 89% increase from the previous year. It was announced that he had been punished.
Paul DeCamp, a former head of wage and hour and current general counsel for Seaboard Triumph, said in a statement that companies are being “victimized” by fraudulent workers who obtain jobs with forged documents. Ta.
“This situation highlights the problem facing employers across the country,” he said. “Individuals, including minors, are creating fraudulent identification documents that are so sophisticated that they can fool even the federal government’s E-Verify system. They use it to get jobs.”
A yearlong NBC News investigation into underage slaughterhouse workers sheds light on how children have been employed in slaughterhouses and meat processing facilities. The series also included the story of Duvan Perez, a 16-year-old who got stuck in a machine and died after using a 32-year-old man’s ID to get a job.
