FEBRUARY 18, 2023:
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Division of Labor says one of many nation’s largest cleansing providers for meals processing corporations employed greater than 100 youngsters in harmful jobs at 13 meatpacking vegetation throughout the nation. The company mentioned Friday (Feb. 17, 2023) that Wisconsin-based Packer Sanitation Companies Inc. has paid over $1.5 million in civil penalties. At the least three of these minors had been injured on the job, burned by caustic cleansing chemical compounds on the JBS plant in Grand Island, Nebraska. The 13 vegetation had been in Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Tennessee and Texas. The company says it’s seen a couple of 50% improve in youngster labor violations since 2018.
DECEMBER 7, 2022:
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A federal decide ordered a Wisconsin firm that cleans a whole bunch of slaughterhouses nationwide to make sure it’s complying with youngster labor legal guidelines after investigators recognized not less than 50 minors scrubbing and sanitizing harmful tools at 5 completely different meatpacking vegetation in Nebraska, Minnesota and Arkansas. Packers Sanitation Companies Inc. additionally entered into an settlement with the Labor Division that was introduced Tuesday (Dec. 6, 2022). As a part of that, the corporate promised to rent an outdoor advisor to evaluation its hiring insurance policies and supply extra coaching for its managers. Investigators are nonetheless within the early phases of reviewing 1000’s of pages of information from different vegetation. The corporate employs some 17,000 individuals working at greater than 700 places nationwide.
NOVEMBER 22, 2022:
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A Wisconsin firm that cleans a whole bunch of meatpacking vegetation nationwide is defending itself towards allegations that it employed greater than two dozen minors working in a single day shifts cleansing large saws and different harmful tools. Labor Division officers mentioned in court docket paperwork that they imagine Packers Sanitation Companies Inc. is perhaps using underage staff at different vegetation however investigators have solely simply beginning reviewing 1000’s of pages of worker information at vegetation in addition to those in Nebraska and Minnesota the place they confirmed youngsters had been working. A decide already issued a brief order prohibiting the corporate from using minors and interfering within the investigation. The corporate says it’s cooperating and already prohibits hiring anybody youthful than 18.