DES MOINES, Iowa — A sanitation contractor has been fined nearly $172,000 after federal authorities discovered that the company employed 11 children to do “dangerous work” at a pork processing facility in Iowa.
The children, who were employed by sanitation company Qvest LLC, worked at the Seaboard Triumph Foods pork factory in Sioux City, Iowa, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The department said in a news release that it was the second time a sanitation contractor was found employing children at the same facility.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa approved a consent order and judgment on Nov. 27 with Qvest, according to the Department of Labor. Under the terms of the agreement, Qvest must pay $171,919 in child labor civil money penalties, hire a third party to review and implement company policies to prevent the employment of children, and establish a process for reporting concerns about the illegal employment of children.
In an emailed statement to the Des Moines Register, part of the USA TODAY Network, Seaboard Triumph Foods said none of the Department of Labor filings included their company. The company said it has not contracted with Qvest, “who had express contractual requirements to follow all labor laws,” for more than a year.
“(Seaboard Triumph Foods) did not employ any of the alleged individuals and has no evidence that any underage individuals accessed the plant,” the statement said.
The statement, which quotes former head of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division and current Seaboard Triumph Foods counsel Paul DeCamp, also pointed out that employers across the country are struggling with the problem of people, including minors, being able to obtain jobs through fraudulent identification documents sophisticated enough to fool even the federal government’s E-Verify system.
Qvest did not respond to emails seeking comment.
In fiscal year 2024, the Department of Labor concluded 736 investigations uncovering child labor violations that affected 4,030 children, and assessed employers more than $15.1 million in penalties for violating federal child labor laws, an 89 percent increase since 2023.
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Children were working overnight shifts at Sioux City facility
Federal law forbids children under the age 18 from being employed in dangerous jobs common in meat and poultry slaughtering, processing, rendering, and packing operations.
A Department of Labor investigation determined that 11 children had been employed during the night shift and were using corrosive cleaners to clean head splitters, jaw pullers, bandsaws, neck clippers, and other equipment within the Sioux City facility. The department did not provide the ages of the child workers.
Earlier this year, the federal court levied nearly $650,000 in civil penalties against Tennessee-based cleaning company Fayette Janitorial Services. The Department of Labor said the company employed at least 24 children at two slaughtering and meatpacking facilities, including Seaboard Triumph Foods, to clean dangerous equipment.
In a federal complaint, the Department of Labor said the company employed 15 children in Virginia and at least nine children in Iowa on its overnight sanitation shifts — in which some were as young as 13 years old.
The department said investigators witnessed children hiding their faces and carrying “glittered school backpacks” before starting their shifts at the Iowa facility. The children used “corrosive” cleaners to clean kill floor equipment.
Seaboard Triumph Foods announced in February it was canceling its contracts with Fayette after the Department of Labor investigation found the children working in the plant and sought a court injunction to stop it. Fayette had taken over the sanitation duties from Qvest in September 2023 and rehired some of the children that Qvest previously employed, according to the Department of Labor.
Seaboard Triumph Foods contracted with Qvest for cleaning services from 2019 until September 2023, when it hired Fayette, the department said in the news release.
Recent child labor violations in the U.S.
In recent years, federal authorities have cracked down on child labor violations across the country, promising to hold employers accountable.
“The U.S. Department of Labor is determined to end the illegal employment of children in our nation’s workplaces,” Department of Labor regional solicitor Christine Heri said in a statement. “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 April 2023, meatpacker JBS USA announced that it would start its sanitation service at its facilities, cutting ties with Packers Sanitation Services, Inc., after it admitted to employing about 100 children at several JBS plants throughout the Midwest and was fined $1.5 million. Packers Sanitation Services admitted having workers ages 13 to 17 clean 13 slaughterhouses.
A Southern California poultry processor and several related poultry companies, which supplied grocers including Aldi and Ralphs, agreed to pay $3.8 million last December for violations including illegally employing children as young as 14 to debone poultry with sharp knives and operate power-driven lifts to move pallets.
In March, a Tennessee parts supplier was fined for illegally employing children as young as 14 in dangerous jobs and subjecting them to “oppressive child labor.”
Federal investigators said in January that inadequate safety standards at a poultry processing plant in Mississippi led to the death of a 16-year-old sanitation worker. The teen died on July 14, 2023, after he was pulled into dangerous machinery while cleaning equipment. It was the second fatality at the facility in just over two years.
Contributing: Keenan Thomas, Knoxville News Sentinel
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Contractor hired 11 children at Iowa pork processing plant: Probe
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