Slaughterhouse found guilty of migrant teen’s death fined $200,000 

. TheA Mississippi meat processing plant, Mar-Jac Poultry, was found responsible for the death of a 16-year-old migrant worker who sustained fatal injuries when he was sucked into a deboning machine reports Independent. A child labor investigation has since been launched by The Department of Labor against the company.  

Federal and state child labor laws failed to protect 

In Mississippi, state labor laws ban minors from working in positions that involve processing meat or poultry. Additionally, federal labor law prohibits minors from operating and cleaning meat processing and packing equipment. This work is classified as “particularly hazardous” by the U.S. Labor Department. So how did this happen? 

OSHA Regional Administrator Kury Petermeyer said: 

“The company’s inaction has directly led to this terrible tragedy, which has left so many to mourn this child’s preventable death.”  

Mar-Jac Poultry called the death a “tragedy” and acknowledged that the boy “should not have been hired.” Essentially, displacing the blame for a child doing this illegal and dangerous work onto the third-party hiring company. They claim the third party misrepresented the victim’s age.

Federal statutes imposed a fine of over $200,000 on the poultry processing company. The fine is the result of being found responsible for the child’s death. However, in 2021, Mar-Jac Poultry was cited for a worker fatality due to safety negligence. While they merely paid the fine, two years later, “nothing has changed.”

Is children’s safety the cost of doing business?

Unfortunately, companies like Mar-Jac Poultry seem to believe that child labor violations are just the “cost of doing business.” Child labor laws are vital to keeping working minors safe and ensuring their work is age-appropriate. However, instead of stepping up protection for child workers, ten states recently introduced or passed legislation that weakens child labor protections.  

Petermeyer states:  

“Following the fatal incident in May Mar-Jac Poultry should have enforced strict safety standards… (but) the company continues to treat employee safety as an afterthought, putting its workers at risk.” 

The new laws propose to lower minimum wage for minors, allow minors to work longer hours, and permit their employment in hazardous occupations, like meatpacking plants, that are currently banned for minors. Companies like Mar-Jac Poultry know how dangerous the machinery in their facilities is. However, companies continue to ignore the realities of reducing child labor protections due to labor shortages.

Petermeyer said,

“the company’s inaction has directly led to this terrible tragedy, which has left so many to mourn this child’s preventable death.”  

Filling labor shortages shouldn’t cost children’s lives 

As demonstrated by the increase in children killed or injured on the job, instead of rolling back existing protections, we need to strengthen laws to adequately protect child workers, including deeper fixes to the immigration system and individual states laws. The broken system of citations and fines currently in place seems to be facilitating their exploitation instead of protecting minors from harm.   

Freedom United echos Petermeyer’s words: 

“No worker should be placed in a preventable, dangerous situation, let alone a child.” 

Stand with Freedom United and tell representatives of those states rolling back child labor laws to stop exploiting migrant children and all children! Write to the representatives and Governors to demand they do their job and protect children from harm, exploitation, trafficking, and abuse. Say NO to child labor law rollbacks! 

And tell major meat suppliers in the US to stop profiting from the exploitation of children! Children belong in school—not in slaughterhouses. Take action.