Cleaning Company Fined Nearly $650,000 After Hiring Kids To Clean Slaughterhouses

The children's responsibilities included cleaning kill equipment — head splitters, jaw pullers, bandsaws and neck clippers — the Labor Department said.

A Tennessee-based cleaning company has been fined $649,304 after it was found to be employing at least 24 children, some as young as 13, to clean slaughterhouses and meatpacking facilities during overnight shifts, the U.S. Department of Labor has announced.

Fayette Janitorial Service, which operates as Fayette Industrial, agreed to pay Monday’s court-ordered penalties and hire a third-party watchdog following a federal investigation into its use of child labor, according to the signed court order.

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, children younger than 18 are barred from working in dangerous occupations. These include most jobs in facilities that slaughter, process and render meat and poultry.

“Children in hazardous occupations drove the Fair Labor Standards Act’s passage in 1938. Yet in 2024, we still find U.S. companies employing children in risky jobs, jeopardizing their safety for profit,” Christine Heri, the Labor Department’s regional solicitor in Chicago, said in a statement.

The children were found to be working shifts at two slaughtering and meatpacking facilities, Seaboard Triumph Foods in Sioux City, Iowa, and Perdue Farms in Accomac, Virginia, the Labor Department said.