DES MOINES, Iowa — A Tennessee-based sanitation company has agreed to pay more than half a million dollars after a federal investigation found it illegally hired at least two dozen children to clean dangerous meat processing facilities in Iowa and Virginia.
The Labor Department alleged that Fayette used 15 underage workers at a Perdue Farms plant in Accomac, Virginia, and at least nine at Seaboard Triumph Foods in Sioux City, Iowa. The work included sanitizing dangerous equipment like head splitters, jaw pullers and meat bandsaws in hazardous conditions where animals are killed and rendered.One 14-year-old was severely injured while cleaning the drumstick packing line belt at the plant in Virginia, the investigation alleged.
A spokesperson for Fayette told The Associated Press in February that the company was cooperating with the investigation and has a “zero-tolerance policy for minor labor.”The Labor Department’s latest statistics indicate the number of children being employed illegally in the U.S. has increased 88% since 2019.
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