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A cleaning company based in Tennessee has agreed to pay nearly $650,000 in civil penalties after federal investigators discovered that it had employed at least 24 children at two slaughtering and meat packing facilities. The U.S. Department of Labor announced the settlement on Monday, stating that Fayette Janitorial Service LLC had violated child labor laws.
The settlement, which was approved by a federal court in Iowa, requires Fayette Janitorial to pay $649,304 in civil penalties. Additionally, the company must hire a third-party to implement company policies to prevent the illegal employment of children and create a program for reporting concerns about child labor violations.
The Labor Department's investigation found that Fayette Janitorial had employed at least 24 children, some as young as 13 years old, for overnight sanitation shifts at facilities in Sioux City, Iowa, and Accomac, Virginia. Under U.S. law, individuals under the age of 18 are prohibited from working in hazardous occupations such as meat and poultry slaughtering, processing, rendering, and packing operations.
Despite these laws, Fayette Janitorial had minors cleaning dangerous equipment such as head splitters, jaw pullers, meat bandsaws, and neck clippers. Christine Heri, Regional Solicitor, stated, "The Department of Labor is determined to stop our nation’s children from being exploited and endangered in jobs they should never have been near. Children in hazardous occupations drove the Fair Labor Standards Act’s passage in 1938. Yet in 2024, we still find U.S. companies employing children in risky jobs, jeopardizing their safety for profit."
Fayette Janitorial, headquartered in Somerville, Tennessee, employed numerous children at Seaboard Triumph Foods LLC in Sioux City, Iowa, and Perdue Farms in Accomac, Virginia, according to the Labor Department.
The department's investigation found that Fayette Janitorial employed minors under the age of 18 whose job was to clean the killing floor. The company employed 15 children in Virginia and at least nine in Iowa for overnight sanitation shifts.
The department witnessed children hiding their faces and carrying glittered school backpacks before starting their shifts at the Iowa facility. These children used corrosive cleaners to clean kill floor equipment, including head splitters, jaw pullers, bandsaws, and neck clippers.
At the Virginia facility, at least one child, identified as a 14-year-old, suffered severe injuries while trying to remove debris from machinery.
On Feb. 27, the department obtained a preliminary injunction against Fayette Janitorial to halt the company's illegal employment of children. The company provides contract sanitation and cleaning services for meat and poultry processing facilities in over 30 states and employs more than 600 workers.
Fayette Janitorial agreed to nationwide compliance six days after the department filed its temporary restraining order and injunction. Both the Iowa and Virginia facilities terminated their contracts with Fayette Janitorial in February.
In recent years, federal authorities have increased efforts to crack down on child labor violations nationwide, pledging to hold employers accountable.
In March, a Tennessee parts supplier was fined for illegally employing children as young as 14 in dangerous roles, subjecting them to oppressive child labor. The same month, a Baskin-Robbins franchisee in Utah was fined for allowing 64 employees, between ages 14 and 15, to work late hours and too many hours a week while school was in session at eight locations.
In January, federal investigators found 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 being pulled into dangerous machinery while cleaning equipment. It was the second fatality at the facility in just over two years.
A Southern California poultry processor and related companies 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 May 2023, three McDonald's franchisees with a combined 62 restaurants in Kentucky, Indiana, Maryland, and Ohio paid fines totaling over $212,000 after the Labor Department charged them with violating the labor rights of 305 minors, including two 10-year-olds who were not paid.