It is common to believe that child labor isn’t a problem here in the United States. Unfortunately, that simply isn’t the case. Earlier this week, the Department of Labor found serious labor violations at a Southern California poultry processor. After an investigation, DoL determined
“… that The Exclusive Poultry Inc. and related companies established by owner Tony Bran employed children as young as 14 years old to debone poultry using sharp knives and operate power-driven lifts to move pallets. The children also worked excessive hours in violation of federal child labor regulations. The company also retaliated against employees for cooperating with investigators by cutting their wages.”
Additionally, the company “willfully failed to pay required overtime wages to their employees, paying them either a piece rate or a straight time hourly rate even when they worked 50 or 60 hours per week.”
The enforcement action requires the company and its owner to
“… pay $3.5 million in back wages and damages to affected workers. Of that total, $300,000 in punitive damages and $100,614 in back wages will be paid to workers who faced retaliatory conduct. In addition, the employers must pay $201,104 in civil money penalties assessed by the division for the child labor and willful violations…
The judgment also requires Bran and The Exclusive Poultry to retain a monitor for three years to ensure future compliance and to show a hiring preference for those workers they fired following the department’s search of the poultry plants. Under that preference, Bran and The Exclusive Poultry must offer these workers employment first before hiring others. “
Just because a company or supplier operates in the US doesn’t mean that labor violations don’t exist, especially in industries where such practices are known to be prevalent such as poultry processing and agriculture. Companies should conduct the same human rights due diligence and monitoring for US suppliers as they do for those in other countries.
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Photo credit: JHVEPhoto – stock.adobe.com
