Cleaning Company Fined Nearly $650,000 After Hiring Kids To Clean Slaughterhouses

A Tennessee-based cleaning company has been fined $649,304 after it was found to be employing at least 24 children, some as young as 13, to clean slaughterhouses and meatpacking facilities during overnight shifts, the U.S. Department of Labor has announced.

Fayette Janitorial Service, which operates as Fayette Industrial, agreed to pay Mondays court-ordered penalties and hire a third-party watchdog following a federal investigation into its use of child labor, according to the signed court order.

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, children younger than 18 are barred from working in dangerous occupations. These include most jobs in facilities that slaughter, process and render meat and poultry.

Children in hazardous occupations drove the Fair Labor Standards Acts passage in 1938. Yet in 2024, we still find U.S. companies employing children in risky jobs, jeopardizing their safety for profit, Christine Heri, the Labor Departments regional solicitor in Chicago, said in a statement.

The children were found to be working shifts at two slaughtering and meatpacking facilities, Seaboard Triumph Foods in Sioux City, Iowa, and Perdue Farms in Accomac, Virginia, the Labor Department said.

At the Iowa facility, federal investigators reported seeing children carrying glittered school backpacks as they arrived for their overnight shifts. They allegedly were responsible for cleaning kill equipment, including head splitters, jaw pullers, bandsaws and neck clippers, using corrosive cleaners. 

At least one child suffered severe injuries while attempting to remove debris from machinery at the Perdue Farms plant, the Labor Department said.

Both meat companies said in February that they no longer do business with Fayette Industrial, whose headquarters is in Somerville, Tennessee, The Associated Press reported.  The Labor Department obtained a preliminary injunction that month against the cleaning and sanitizing company to stop the unlawful employment of children at its workplaces amid the federal investigation.

In addition to the monetary penalties, the company must hire a third-party consultant or compliance specialist who will monitor and audit the companys compliance for at least three years.

It must also establish a toll-free hotline for people to anonymously report child labor concerns.

Every employer has a legal and moral obligation to make certain they are not employing children in dangerous jobs, Wage and Hour Midwest Regional Administrator Michael Lazzeri said in a statement. With this agreement, we are ensuring Fayette Janitorial Service takes immediate and significant steps to ensure they never put children in harms way again.

During the last fiscal year, more than 5,800 children were found to have been employed nationwide in violation of federal laws, the Labor Department said.

A representative of Fayette Industrial did not immediately respond to HuffPosts request for comment on Tuesday.