Labor Dept. says Tennessee firm employed minors to clean meat saws, head splitters at slaughterhouses
Fayette Janitorial employed children to clean dangerous equipment at a Perdue Farms poultry plant in Virginia and a Seaboard Triumph Foods pork plant in Iowa.
Another industrial slaughterhouse cleaner has been accused by the U.S. Labor Department of illegally employing children as young as 13 to clean dangerous equipment on overnight shifts, according to a temporary restraining order filed in federal court Wednesday.
The Labor Department said that Tennessee-based Fayette Janitorial LLC illegally employed 15 children to clean a Perdue Farms poultry plant in Virginia and nine to clean a Seaboard Triumph Foods pork processing plant in Iowa. They cleaned such equipment as head splitters and meat bandsaws.
Fayette has 600 employees in 30 states, according to the company’s website.
Image of an adult Fayette Janitorial worker scooping up animal parts at a processing plant. U.S. Department of LaborChildren under the age of 18 are not allowed to work in slaughterhouses because the work is considered by the federal government to be too dangerous.
Last summer, a 16-year-old migrant was killed at a Mississippi slaughterhouse when he was sucked into a machine that he was cleaning.
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