Cleaning company fined nearly $650K for employing underage workers to work at Sioux City meat processing plant

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) — The cleaning company that used underage workers to clean dangerous meat processing facilities, including one in Sioux City, has agreed to pay more than $600,000 in penalties after U.S. officials investigated the company.

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) said in a Monday release that Tennessee-based cleaning contractor Fayette Janitorial Service LLC has agreed to pay $649,304 in civil penalties and hire a third party to review and then implement policies to prevent hiring children. The company will also have to establish a program to report any concerns about the illegal employment of children.

A consent order and the judgement were approved Monday by the federal court in Sioux City.

“Every employer has a legal and moral obligation to make certain they are not employing children in dangerous jobs,” Wage and Hour Midwest Regional Administrator Michael Lazzeri said. “With this agreement, we are ensuring Fayette Janitorial Service takes immediate and significant steps to ensure they never put children in harm’s way again.”

Days after the investigation was complete, a preliminary injunction stopping the employment of children was approved on Feb. 27 against Fayette. The Fair Labor Standards Act bans children under the age of 18 from being employed in hazardous occupations, such as those in meat and poultry slaughtering, processing, rendering and packing operations.

The judgment against Fayette Janitorial Service LLC came after the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division department found that at least 24 children, some as young as 13 years old, were employed to perform overnight sanitation at Seaboard Triumph Foods LLC in Sioux City and Perdue Farms in Accomac, Virginia. There were nine children employed to work at Seaboard Triumph.

Federal investigators witnessed children in Seaboard Triumph with concealed faces while carrying glittered backpacks before starting the overnight shift. The children had been assigned “to use corrosive cleaners to clean dangerous kill floor equipment, including head splitters, jaw pullers, bandsaws and neck clippers,” the release states .

Meanwhile, at Perdue Farms in Virginia, at least one child tried to remove debris from dangerous machinery and was severely injured.

In a statement at the time, Seaboard Triumph said it terminated all contracts with Fayette after learning of the allegations.

DOL Regional Solicitor Christine Heri said DOL is determined to stop children from being exploited and endangered in jobs they shouldn’t have been near.

“Children in hazardous occupations drove the Fair Labor Standards Act’s passage in 1938,” Heri said. “Yet in 2024, we still find U.S. companies employing children in risky jobs, jeopardizing their safety for profit. We are committed to using all strategies to stop and prevent unlawful child labor and holding all employers legally responsible for their actions.”

DOL investigators found more than 5,800 children had been employed in violation of federal child labor laws during the last fiscal year.

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