Child labor is alive and well today in the US, almost 120 years after Upton Sinclair wrote his eye-opening but stomach-churning novel The Jungle.
Last week the US Department of Labor filed an injunction against Fayette Janitorial Service LLC in Memphis, Tennessee to stop them from illegally hiring child laborers. The children were contracted to clean a Purdue Farms facility in Virginia and a Seaboard Triumph Foods plant in Iowa.
An excerpt from the press release follows. The entire document may be found in the link at bottom.
“In its filing, the US Department of Labor alleges Fayette Janitorial Service employed 15 children, hired as young as 13 years old, in Virginia and at least nine children in Iowa on its overnight sanitation shifts. Minors were used to clean dangerous kill floor equipment such as head splitters, jaw pullers, meat bandsaws, and neck clippers. At least one 14-year-old at the Virginia facility suffered severe injuries while employed by Fayette.”
“The Labor Department said hiring anyone under the age of 18 to do such work is unlawful.”
How impoverished can the families of these children be to expose them to such horrific work conditions on a night shift? Who are the supervisors of these children? When do to the children attend school? This is too Dickensian for a 21st century America to tolerate.
Press release: www.dol.gov/...