US Labor Department Finds 11 Minors Working Hazardous Shifts At Iowa Pork Processing Plant

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) revealed that federal investigators found 11 children working in unsafe, overnight jobs at the Seaboard Triumph Foods pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, Iowa.

Michael Lazzeri, the midwest regional administrator with the DOL's Wage and Hour division, said Friday in a statement, "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."

The children, employed by the sanitation contractor Qvest based in Guymon, Oklahoma, were reportedly tasked with using harsh cleaning chemicals to sanitize dangerous equipment like head splitters, jaw pullers, bandsaws and neck clippers, CBS News reported.

Qvest has been fined $171,919 in penalties for violating child labor laws and must take measures to ensure it doesn't hire minors illegally in the future.

The children were employed between September 2019 and September 2023, the statement revealed. Federal law bans minors from working in meat processing plants due to the high risk of injuries in such environments.

The issue of minors working in hazardous jobs in meat and poultry processing is not new to the industry or the Seaboard Foods plant in Sioux Falls.

In September last year, Seaboard had hired Fayette Janitorial Services to handle sanitation at the plant. According to the Labor Department, Fayette rehired some of the minors who had previously worked for Qvest. Earlier this year, Fayette was found to have employed nine minors at the same facility.

Fayette was also accused of hiring 15 children, some as young as 13, at a Perdue Farms processing plant in Accomac, Virginia. One of these minors, a 14-year-old, suffered a serious injury.

Perdue ended its contract with Fayette before the Department of Labor filed a case, according to the company. This incident was part of a larger investigation into the employment of migrant children in U.S. slaughterhouses.

It followed a case less than a year ago when another sanitation company was fined $1.5 million for illegally hiring over 100 children, aged 13 to 17, to work at 13 meat processing plants across eight states.

Recently, the Department of Labor discovered that a window cleaning company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, illegally hired three children to clean windows and gutters and install Christmas lights.

One of the children was seriously injured after falling from a roof and needed surgery. In another case resolved last month, children were found operating and cleaning a meat grinder and driving vehicles to deliver pizza orders at a restaurant in Iron River, Wisconsin.

The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division conducted 736 investigations in fiscal year 2024, uncovering child labor violations affecting 4,030 children.