Slaughterhouses in Virginia and Iowa hired kids to clean head splitters, meat bandsaws, and other deadly gear in overnight shifts, leading to a 14-year-old getting mangled in a machine, federal investigators say.
The Department of Labor found nine children working at Seaboard Triumph Foods LLC in Sioux City, Iowa, and 15 others at a Perdue Farms plant in Accomac, Virginia — where the teen’s arm was badly injured.
They asked a federal court to issue a restraining order against Fayette Janitorial Service, the Tennessee-based subcontractor that sourced the cleaners.
It would direct the firm to stop employing kids while an investigation continues.
Inspectors found underage cleaners working at Seaboard Triumph Foods LLC in Sioux City, Iowa.
Child labor violations soared in the US in the 2022-2023 fiscal year to their highest level in nearly two decades, with 5,792 minors found to be working illegally — an 88 percent increase since 2019.
Dale Burns owns and runs Fayette Janitorial Service
Unscrupulous bosses frequently hire migrant kids with poor English who need a paycheck and don’t ask questions about safety.
Jessica Looman, an administrator from the department, said the violations in Iowa and Virginia had ‘real consequences on children’s lives.’
‘Our actions to stop these violations will help ensure that more children are not hurt in the future.’
In a statement to DailyMail.com, officials said the children worked in ‘overnight sanitation shifts,’ which is prohibited because it interferes with schooling.
‘Minors were used to clean dangerous kill floor equipment such as head splitters, jaw pullers, meat bandsaws, and neck clippers,’ said the statement.
Children under the age of 18 are not allowed to work in slaughterhouses under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The request for an injunction was filed on Wednesday in the US District Court for the Northern District of Iowa.
These pictures show the working conditions at Seaboard Triumph Foods, and not necessarily underage workers
Animal waste on the wet floor of Seaboard Triumph Foods in Sioux City, Iowa
The Accomac, Virginia, poultry processing plant of Perdue Farms, a well-known brand
Fayette Janitorial Service, of Somerville, is owned and run by husband-and-wife team Dale and Michelle Burns.
It employs more than 600 staff, who help clean meat and poultry-processing plants across 30 states.
A spokesman said the company has a ‘zero-tolerance policy for minor labor’ and was working to ensure that it wouldn’t hire any more youngsters in the future.
Michelle Burns also owns and runs the cleaning
Meat and poultry products from Perdue Farms and Seaboard Triumph Foods are widely available in grocery stores.
Perdue and Seaboard told DailyMail.com they had terminated their contracts with Fayette.
‘Underage labor has no place in our business or our industry,’ said Perdue’s statement.
‘Perdue has strong safeguards in place to ensure that all associates are legally eligible to work in our facilities — and we expect the same of our vendors.’
Experts say employers are hiring more kids in lower-paying service-sector jobs because the labor market is tight.
There are also plenty of young jobseekers, thanks to inflation hitting household budgets and thousands of unaccompanied minors crossing the US-Mexico border in the hope of finding work and a wage.
The Fayette investigation is not the first case of child labor violations at a food plant.
Last February, Packers Sanitation Services, a contractor for cleaning meat-packing plants, agreed to pay $1.5 million and reform its hiring practices in a settlement.
Underage cleaners were exposed to hazardous machines at the plant in Sioux City, Iowa
The owners and managers of Tennessee-based Fayette Janitorial Service did not answer our request for comment
Investigators found 102 children working for Packers at 13 hazardous plants across eight states, some toiling through the night and getting chemical burns from cleaning products used on dangerous machines.
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, suffered ‘serious chemical burns’ from using Packers’ powerful cleaning chemicals, often in conditions with poor visibility and with fat and meat strewn across the floors.
Still, insiders say the fines are just the ‘cost of doing business’ for dodgy bosses.
Reid Maki, coordinator of the Child Labor Coalition at the National Consumers League, told DailyMail.com that the penalty imposed on Wisconsin-based Packers was too small to deter future abusers.
‘You have to put fear into the employers that there are repercussions for hiring children illegally,’ Maki said.
‘We have to send a powerful message to companies that employ children illegally in dangerous settings must stop, and the way to do that is with really significant fines that actually hurt the company’s bottom line.’
Lawmakers in several states have pushed in recent years to let children work in more risky jobs and for longer hours. The proposals from mostly Republican politicians are intended to address worker shortages.
