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in Minnesota and seven other states has paid $1.5 million in federal fines for using child labor.

Packers Sanitation Services Inc., admitted to using more than 100 children ages 13 to 17 to clean slaughterhouses at 13 plants, including three in Minnesota: Turkey Valley Farms in Marshall, Buckhead Meat of Minnesota in St. Cloud and JBS Foods in Worthington. 

At the JBS plant alone, PSSI had 22 underage workers on the overnight shift, the U.S. Department of Labor noted in a 

statement Friday announcing the penalties

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The federal probe found teens cleaning items including saws and head splitters.

Packers Sanitation agreed late last year to 

. The fine was the maximum per violation allowed under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Federal regulators said Packers Sanitation’s hiring systems flagged some workers as underage but the company ignored the warnings and then tried to derail the investigation into its  employment practices.

“These children should never have been employed in meat packing plants,” Jessica Looman, a Labor Department official, said in a statement. “This can only happen when employers do not take responsibility to prevent child labor violations from occurring in the first place.”

Jon Collins

Author

Federal authorities fined Packers Sanitation Services Inc. $1.5 million for using more than 100 children ages 13 to 17 to clean slaughterhouses in eight states. At JBS Foods in Worthington, PSSI had 22 underage workers on the overnight shift.

Slaughterhouse cleaner admits child labor at 3 Minnesota plants, fined $1.5M

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