Investigators find 11 children working 'dangerous' overnight

A cleaning company has been fined $171,000 after federal investigators found 11 children working a “dangerous” overnight shift at a meat processing plant in Iowa.

The U.S. Labor Department sa id in a statement that it found the children working for sanitation company Qvest LLC at the Seaboard Triumph Foods pork factory in Sioux City, Iowa.

The children were employed 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,” the statement said.

It is illegal under U.S. law for anyone younger than 18 to work in meat processing. Qvest must pay the fine and not engage in “oppressive child labor,” as per a court filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa.

Qvest, which is based in Oklahoma, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Seaboard Triumph Foods said in a written statement to NBC News that it was not accused of any wrongdoing, did not tolerate any vendor’s use of underage labor and “had no evidence that under individuals accessed the plant.” It added it has not used Qvest’s services for more than a year.

Qvest must also hire a third-party company to review its policies on underage employment within 90 days and establish a process for whistleblowers to report illegal employment of children, including a toll-free hotline.

It is the second time a contractor has been caught employing children at the same facility: In May, Fayette Janitorial Services LLC agreed to pay nearly $650,000 for using almost two dozen children at the Sioux City plant and at a Perdue Farms facility in Virginia.

Fayette said in May that it no longer employs minors; both Seaboard and Perdue Farms terminated their contracts with Fayette following the May investigation.

Image of an adult Fayette Janitorial worker scooping up animal parts at a processing plant taken by the US Department of Labor during the course of its investigation of Fayette Janitorial Service. (U.S. Department of Labor) — Image of an adult Fayette Janitorial worker scooping up animal parts at a processing plant taken by the U.S. Labor Department during the course of its investigation of Fayette Janitorial Service.

“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 Michael Lazzeri, wage and hour Midwest regional administrator.

The department said that in the 2024 financial year, the Wage and Hour Division found labor violations involving more than 4,000 children, uncovered in 736 investigations and resulting in more than $15 million in fines — an 89% increase on the previous year.

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Paul DeCamp, former head of the Wage and Hour Division and now counsel for Seaboard Triumph, said in a statement that businesses were being “victimized” by fraudulent workers obtaining jobs with forged documents.

“This situation underscores the problems facing employers throughout the country: individuals, including minors, obtaining jobs through their use of fraudulent identification documents, which are sophisticated enough to fool even the federal government’s E-Verify system,” he said.

A yearlong NBC News investigation into underage workers in slaughterhouses highlighted how children have been hired in slaughterhouses and meat processing facilities. The series included the story of 16-year-old Duvan Pérez, who died after getting stuck in machinery after getting the job using the ID of a 32-year-old man.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

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