Meatpacking Companies to Pay $8 Million for U.S. Child Labor Violations

Perdue Farms and JBS, two of the nation’s largest meatpackers, will pay a combined $8 million after the Labor Department found the companies relied for years on migrant children to work in their slaughterhouses.

The agreements, announced this week, are part of a wave of agreements on child labor in the final days of the Biden administration, which has cracked down on the practice.

It’s rare for major brands to be subject to federal oversight due to child labor. Many food processing and manufacturing companies outsource cleaning and other tasks to third-party staffing companies, which technically employ the workers and protect the companies from violations.

Federal investigators discovered that children were working at a Perdue factory on Virginia’s Eastern Shore as early as 2020. The children, who were hired by a staffing company, were working late hours and performing dangerous tasks with electric knives and heat sealing tools.

Perdue agreed to pay $4 million in restitution to children and organizations including Kids in Need of Defense, a national nonprofit that provides lawyers to young migrants arriving in the country alone. Perdue, one of the nation’s largest poultry processors, will also have to pay a $150,000 civil penalty.

In a statement, Perdue said she strongly disagreed with the idea of ​​being held accountable for child labor violations, but wanted to avoid a prolonged conflict with the Department of Labor.