The cleaning firm has paid a $1.5 million fine for the violations. The fine amount is dictated by the Fair Labor Standards Act, which allows a penalty of $15,138 for each minor who was employed in violation of the law, according to the Labor Department.
The Labor Department said Friday it found 102 children as young as 13 working hazardous overnight jobs cleaning slaughterhouses in eight states in what it called a “corporate-wide failure” by one of the largest food sanitation companies in the country,In a statement, the company said,"We are pleased to have finalized this settlement figure as part of our previously announced December resolution with the Department of Labor that ends their inquiry.
"We are fully committed to working with DOL to make additional improvements to enforce our prohibition of employing anyone under the age of 18." The Labor Department says the children who were working overnight shifts used “caustic chemicals to clean razor-sharp saws.” The company employs 17,000 workers at 700 sites nationwide.
Advocates and lawyers for the children say some of the child workers for PSSI were unaccompanied minors who recently came across the southern border. Unaccompanied minors are processed by the Border Patrol and then turned over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services. The children are then matched with sponsors who usually have some link to their families.
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