Damn, This Iowa Slaughterhouse Just Can't Get Enough Child Labor!
And also keeping children overnight to clean their machines.
For the second time in one year, the US Labor Department has fined a janitorial service contracted by Seaboard Triumph Foods in Sioux City, Iowa, for employing children to do dangerous work in overnight shifts at their pork processing plant.
Investigators found that Qvest Sanitation “employed 11 children to use corrosive cleaners to clean head splitters, jaw pullers, bandsaws, neck clippers and other equipment at the Seaboard Triumph Foods facility from at least September 2019 through September 2023.”
I do not know what most of those things are, but context clues lead me to believe that they are not things children should be around — ostensibly sleepy children in particular. And I’m not alone! Federal law, in fact, prohibits anyone under the age of 18 from doing such dangerous work.
This judgment follows a $649,000 judgment in May against Fayette Janitorial Service LLC, the sanitation service that Seaboard Triumph Foods contracted after Qvest, over the exact same issue. Fayette was found to have employed at least two dozen children, some as young as 13, to work at the Sioux City plant and a Perdue plant in Virginia. Nine of the children they employed worked for Seaboard Triumph Foods, several of whom were rehired by Fayette after taking over for Qvest.
“These findings illustrate Seaboard Triumph Foods’ history of children working illegally in their Sioux City facility since at least September 2019. Despite changing sanitation contractors, children continued to work in dangerous occupations at this facility,” said Wage and Hour Midwest Regional Administrator Michael Lazzeri.
The slaughterhouse itself has not been fined, though they certainly seem to bear some culpability. It seems doubtful that five whole years went by and not one person stayed late enough at work to notice that there were tweens bleaching the head splitters.
“The U.S. Department of Labor is determined to end the illegal employment of children in our nation’s workplaces,” Regional Solicitor Christine Z. Heri said in a press release from the Department of Labor. “We are committed to using all strategies to stop and prevent unlawful child labor and holding all employers legally responsible for their actions. Children should never be hired to perform dangerous and prohibited tasks.”
In addition to the fine, Qvest will also be required to do the following
Hire a third-party consultant or compliance specialist with knowledge and experience in complying with the FLSA’s child labor provisions within 90 days.
Direct the compliance monitor to review company policies immediately, provide annual training at all facilities the company operates and monitor and audit Qvest’s compliance for at least three years.
Provide training and materials on child labor compliance in languages understood by employees.
Maintain accurate records of all employees, including date of birth and work tasks assigned.
Establish a toll-free hotline for guidance and/or to report child labor compliance concerns anonymously.
Take measures within 60 days to ensure the company is not employing any workers under the age of 18 in jobs prohibited by the FLSA.
Submit an initial compliance report and annual reports thereafter for three years to the department verifying compliance with child labor laws.
Qvest itself maintains that it does not actually even know what the Department of Labor is on about. Adam Greer, the company’s vice president of operations, says he can’t even say if they really used child labor or not because the DOL “has declined to provide us with any names or specific information related to the alleged violations.”
“In spite of this,” he said, Qvest has not only fully cooperated with the Department of Labor “but is and has been committed to strengthening our onboarding process.”
Sure they are!
Seaboard’s lawyer says that the real problem isn’t that these companies are hiring children, but that they are being victimized by high-quality identification documents.
Paul DeCamp, a former head of the Labor Department’s wage and hour division who is now a lawyer for Seaboard, said in a statement that the situation with Qvest “underscores the problems facing employers throughout the country: individuals, including minors, obtaining jobs through their use of fraudulent identification documents.”
Those documents, he said, are “sophisticated enough to fool even the federal government’s E-Verify system,” adding that “businesses are victimized by this fraud.”
DeCamp, we must note, worked for the DOL under George W. Bush, which is of course very different from working for the DOL under a president who gives a damn about workers.
Speaking as someone who was a fairly tall 13-year-old, I’m going to need to point out that even fairly tall 13-year-olds do not generally look anything like 18-year-olds and that if high quality identification documents are a problem, people might want to utilize their own eyeballs as well, if only as a stopgap to accidentally hiring children to do anything with anything called a “jaw clipper.”
I am not a big believer in incarceration to begin with, in large part because I think it’s not very effective — but it’s just a little bit galling that people guilty of something as heinous as employing children to clean a slaughterhouse simply get fined, while people found guilty of far less serious crimes spend years in prison. Personally, I’m a lot more concerned by people who can look at middle schoolers slaving away all night in a pork processing plant and go “Well, this all seems fine!” than I am by someone who does or deals drugs or shoplifts. Frankly, given the choice between being locked in a room with the Artful Dodger or Mr. Bumble, I’m going with the Artful Dodger every time.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
This is why we need plant inspections.
This is why it's worth it to pay a little more.
Kids should not work in places like this.
Plants should be made safer for adults as well.
On a lighter note - Seaboard Triumph, in Iowa?! Who names these fucking things?