More than 100 children as young as 13 years old cleaned dangerous meat processing equipment using hazardous chemicals for a sanitation company contracted by major meat and poultry producers, the U.S. Department of Labor announced Friday.
\nPackers Sanitation Services Inc. LTD, of Kieler, Wisconsin, paid a $1.5 million\u2002fine assessed by the labor department after the agency found it employed 102 minors ages 13 to 17 in \u201chazardous occupations\u201d at 13 meat processing facilities in eight states, the department said.
\nSome underage employees also worked overnight shifts, and at least three sustained injuries on the job, the labor department said.
\nMinors were employed in the largest numbers at two JBS Foods facilities in Nebraska (27) and Minnesota (22), and at a Cargill Inc. facility in Kansas (26), according to the investigation.
\nThe $1.5 million fine, paid by the company on Feb. 16, concludes an investigation that began in August and led to two court orders from a federal judge late last year.
\nA judge issued in November a restraining order prohibiting Packers Sanitation Services from committing child labor violations, and then in December, the company agreed to a court order requiring it to take significant steps to ensure it was in compliance with federal child labor laws at its operations nationwide, according to the labor department.
\nPackers Sanitation Services\u2002previously suggested underage workers could have misrepresented their age\u2002to bypass the company\u2019s identity verification measures.
\nLA bishop found dead:Los Angeles Catholic auxiliary bishop found fatally shot; homicide investigation underway
\nIt said in a statement that it has an “absolute company-wide prohibition against the employment of anyone under the age of 18 and zero tolerance for any violation of that policy \u2013 period.,\u201d adding that it conducted multiple audits when it became aware of the labor department\u2019s allegations.
\nLabor department officials claimed in last week\u2019s news release that Packers Sanitation Services ignored \u201cflags\u201d in its systems that some young workers were underage.
\n‘Zombie ant fungus’ in humans?:Climate change sparks fungi fears \u2014 some serious and some silly
\nMany of the underage workers identified in the investigation had not worked for the company in years, according to Packers Sanitation Services spokesperson Gina Swenson, who added that the company employs no one under the age of 18 today.<\/p>\n
Usatoday<\/p>\n
Tags\uff1achildren<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More than 100 children as young as 13 years old cleaned dangerous meat processing equipment using hazardous chemicals for a sanitation company contracted by major meat and poultry producers, the U.S. Department of Labor announced Friday. Packers Sanitation Services Inc. LTD, of Kieler, Wisconsin, paid a $1.5 million\u2002fine assessed by the labor department after the agency found it employed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6213,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[2552,2551],"class_list":["post-6212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-company","tag-meat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6212"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6214,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6212\/revisions\/6214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}