OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A second company involved in meat processing has agreed to reform its hiring practices, after investigators recently discovered teenagers working there.
The Labor Department said last week Monogram Foods will pay a more than $30,000 fine as part of an agreement reached after a 16-year-old and 17-year-old were found to be working at the company’s Chandler, Minnesota, plant.
Officials also ordered the Memphis, Tennessee-based company not to ship any products produced while the teens were employed at the plant that makes a variety of meat snacks, but normal operations resumed once they were fired.
Earlier this year, a separate investigation found more than 100 kids working overnight for a Wisconsin-based company that cleans slaughterhouses, where they were handling dangerous equipment, like skull splitters and razor-sharp bone saws.
Packers Sanitation Services Inc., or PSSI, agreed earlier this year to pay a $1.5 million fine and update its hiring practices after investigators confirmed at least 102 kids were working for the company at 13 meat processing plants nationwide.
The Labor Department said it would focus on the problem in response to that PSSI investigation and a nationwide 69% increase in the number of children found to be employed illegally across all industries since 2018. The Biden administration also urged all meat processing companies to make sure children aren’t being hired to do dangerous work at their plants.
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