Department of Labor has announced penalties for 13 companies found violating child labor laws so far this year
Over a dozen companies have been fined for child labor violations, including multiple incidents that ended in the tragic death of a minor. Which companies were involved?
In November, the Department of Labor (DoL) announced its intention to investigate a major slaughterhouse cleaning contractor, Packers Sanitation Services Inc. (PSSI), after a series of child labor violations were uncovered.
On 17 February, officials said that their investigation had found that 102 children were involved in federal labor law violations in thirteen factories across eight states.
PSSI had been contracted by major companies like Tyson Foods and Cargill, who together had more than thirty children between the ages of thirteen and seventeen working for them illegally. The investigation found that the children employed had been working with “hazardous chemicals” and had been tasked with “cleaning meat processing equipment including back saws, brisket saws and head splitters.” Chemical burns, and other injuries were documented, with some of the victims reaching only thirteen years of age.
Children employed with PSSI were unaccompanied minors
NBC News reported that most children employed by PSSI were undocumented and had entered the United States as unaccompanied minors. The immigration status of the children was left out of the DoL’s report and had initially been made public by Andrew R. Arthur with the Center for Immigration Studies. Arthur noted that the government’s brief on the case stated that all interviews with the children had been conducted in Spanish.
When child labor violations are uncovered, immigrant children are often overrepresented in these cases. Since the government might not have records of the child’s entry into the United States, or if they do, they may not actively track and keep tabs on the child, employers may feel emboldened to employ them under egregiously illegal conditions.
The case of PSSI ended with the company being fined $1.5 million, $15,138 for each child employed.
Child labor violations are growing under the tight labor market
Those who believe what happened at these facilities was an isolated incident should be aware that this case was one of many child labor violation announcements published by the DoL last week.
On the same day the DoL reported on the investigation into PSSI, the agency also announced fines for a trampoline park in Jacksonville, Florida, that had employed fourteen-and-fifteen-year-olds to work after 7 p.m. on school nights, a violation of federal law.
On 15 February, the DoL announced penalties for restaurant chain Slim Chicken, which “on more than 330 occasions [...] allowed minors to work later than 7 p.m. during the school year or after 9 p.m. between June 1st and Labor Day.” Federal law restricts the hours children can work when school is in and out of session. Slim Chicken had consistently violated federal regulations by assigning “minors to work more than 8 hours on a day when school was not in session and more than 18 hours total during a school week.” The company was required to pay $15,504 in civil money penalties.
A day earlier, on 14 February, another press release detailing child labor violations at Marksbury Farm Foods LLC, a retail and wholesale meat processor, was published. This company had employed at least fifteen minors, seven of which were hired to assist in “slaughterhouse operations,” and the remaining eight formed part of cleaning teams. The Fair Labor Standards Act contains specific child protection provisions that “forbids workers under 18 from doing most jobs in meat and poultry slaughtering, processing and packing establishments.” Marksbury Farm Foods LLC was required to pay $8,893 in civil penalties.
Child labor and its fatal consequences
And, on 13 February, the DoL announced that Lehigh Valley Tree Service would be cited and fined after a seventeen-year-old was killed in a workplace accident at the Pennsylvania company. The teen, one of three minors employed by the firm owned by Adam Atiyeh, died due to injuries sustained “after being pulled into a woodchipper at a work site near Allentown.” Investigators said that this tragic case, which took place in August 2022, could have been avoided if the company had followed federal labor law prohibiting minors from operating woodchippers.
The company and Atiyeh received ten citations and were fined $136,000. In response to the DoL’s findings, OSHA Area Office Director Jean Kulp described the choice to employ minors to use this equipment as “unconscionable.”
On the same day, another report related to a similar incident involving another seventeen-year-old was published. The DoL found that a landscape company in Austin, Texas, had employed a minor who suffered “serious injuries in a forklift incident.” Again, the use of this equipment by minors is forbidden under federal labor law, and thankfully, in this case, the child survived the accident.
However, in early January, the DoL reported that an investigation had been opened into the death of a fifteen-year-old who had died while installing fencing in Texas. The company, Sheppard Farm and Ranch Services LLC, owned by Robert Lee, was found to have “illegally modified a Caterpillar loader,” in addition to failing “to provide adequate training or personal protective equipment, such as a hard hat, gloves, and safety glasses.” The company was fined a meager sum of $20,512 for their negligence, and according to the company’s Facebook, they are still in business.
In many cases, these fines represent a small cost when considering the profits child labor allows firms to generate. Minors, particularly those who are undocumented, are in an extremely vulnerable position when entering the workforce. Often unaware of the regulation that governs their participation in the labor force, companies can take advantage of and exploit children much more easily than adult workers. The fact that more than thirteen cases of heinous child labor violations have been published this year should be sending off alarm bells in Washington DC and capitols around the country. All workers must be protected by their government, and if children are allowed to form part of the workforce, their safety must be a top priority for any lawmaker.