Tennessee Firm Accused of Illegally Employing Minors in Slaughterhouse Cleanup
The U.S. Labor Department has filed a temporary restraining order against Tennessee-based Fayette Janitorial LLC for illegally employing children as young as 13 to clean dangerous equipment at Perdue Farms and Seaboard Triumph Foods facilities. The children cleaned equipment such as head splitters and meat bandsaws, which is prohibited by federal child labor laws due to the dangerous nature of the work. This is the second instance of a large slaughterhouse cleaner found to have employed children, with the Labor Department reporting a 152% increase in children illegally employed by companies since 2018, many of whom are Central American unaccompanied minors.