United States | News & Politics

The work included sanitizing dangerous equipment like head splitters, jaw pullers and meat bandsaws in hazardous conditions where animals are killed and rendered.

One 14-year-old was severely injured while cleaning the drumstick packing line belt at the plant in Virginia, the investigation alleged.

This is not just bad hours, it is dangerous working conditions. Putting a group that is characterized as having extremely poor risk assessment skills , struggle to even really understand consequences of actions, and making them work with heavy machinery that is extremely dangerous to life and limb. THAT is egregious neglect of child labor laws.

The labor department has called attention to a growing list of child labor violations across the country, including the fatal mangling of a 16-year-old working at a Mississippi poultry plant, the death of a 16-year-old after an accident at a sawmill in Wisconsin, and last year’s report of more than 100 children illegally employed by Packers Sanitation Services Inc, or PSSI, across 13 meatpacking plants. PSSI paid over $1.5m in civil penalties.

The labor department’s latest statistics indicate the number of children being employed illegally in the US has increased 88% since 2019.

Wtf sorry what????? This is a growing problem in America HOW, WHY???