Packers Sanitation Services, Inc. (PSSI) is a major U.S. food safety sanitation company. And it may be in some very hot water right now.
On Nov. 9th, the Labor Department filed a request in federal court that seeked to obtain “a nation-wide temporary restraining order and injunction” against PSSI, “to stop the company from illegally employing dozens of minor-aged workers while the department continues its investigation of the company’s labor practices,” according to a Department news release.
The inquiry of PSSI commenced in late August. The Labor Department called for the injunction after wrapping up its investigation.
The charges just don’t read well. For instance, Labor officials have accused the company of “employing dozens of children to clean the killing floors of slaughterhouses during graveyard shifts,” according to NBC News.
Labor officials “discovered that PSSI had employed at least 31 children — from 13 to 17 years of age — in hazardous occupations,” states the Department’s news release.
“The jobs performed by children included cleaning dangerous powered equipment during overnight shifts to fulfill sanitation contracts at JBS USA plants in Grand Island, Nebraska and Worthington, Minnesota, and at Turkey Valley Farms in Marshall, Minnesota,” continued the news release.
“Investigators also learned that several minors employed by PSSI — including one 13-years-old — suffered caustic chemical burns and other injuries,” the release added.
According to Common Dreams, “all of [the children] spoke Spanish.”
The Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits “oppressive child labor” and bars minors from working hazardous jobs, pointed out the federal complaint.
The Labor Department’s Child Labor Regulations “designates many roles in slaughterhouse and meat-packing facilities as hazardous for minors,” according to NBC News. And though federal labor law allows businesses to employ minors for a limited number of hours during a school year, they cannot work overnight shifts.
But there’s so much more …
The Labor Department also has accused PSSI officials of attempting to interfere in the investigation by changing or deleting employee records, and in some instances engaging in behavior meant to intimidate the underage employees as they were being interviewed.
It appears that those employment files may well have included the use of fake IDs for at least some of the employed children.
One investigator’s affidavit stated that a PSSI supervisor in Worthington, Minnesota sent a text from his work-provided cellphone to an underage worker that discussed the utilization of false identity records.
“The ID will need to have your face and that’ll work,” the manager replied in a text to the child, according to court filings.
A federal investigator charged that in a different text message, that same manager offered aid to a person hoping to obtain fraudulent ID documents for a job application they were submitting to Pella, an Iowa-based window manufacturer.
In yet another instance, federal officials allege that a ninth grader working at the Worthington plant used false ID papers to obtain a job he’d held for the last two years.
If that wasn’t bad enough, it appears that some PSSI officials may have attempted to intimidate the underage employees as they were being interviewed.
“During the confidential interviews in the cafeteria, a PSSI supervisor sat directly across the table from the [Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division] investigator conducting an interview of a worker later identified as a minor,” stated the court filing.
“The investigator politely instructed the PSSI supervisor to leave the area as the interview was confidential. The PSSI supervisor eventually agreed to move after lingering for a few minutes,” added the filing.
“Other supervisors remained in the area within view of the employees throughout the interviews, circling the cafeteria,” the court documents continued.
PSSI, a non-unionized company, has been quick to publicly defend its employment activities. However, it has admitted that perhaps some “rogue individuals” working for the company may have engaged in fraud during the hiring process. And last Tuesday it informed the public that the company has suspended the Worthington, Minnesota manager accused of helping children to falsify ID documents, “pending an ongoing investigation in the matter.”
But this isn’t the first time that PSSI may have been caught engaging in questionable business activities.
“Last year, OSHA [the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration] cited PSSI for 17 violations for failing to train workers about the dangers of liquid nitrogen,” stated NBC News, “after a nitrogen leak killed six people who worked for the Foundation Food Group at a poultry plant in Gainesville, Georgia.”
Even though “those killed were not employees of PSSI,” OSHA found that “PSSI was responsible for cleaning the plant and for making sure its own workers were safe there,” added NBC News.
And a study released in 2017 by the National Employment Law Project, a legal rights advocacy group, revealed that PSSI’s OSHA severe injury reports are some of the most numerous in the country — indicating that the company may demand some of the most dangerous work in the nation.
In all, the Labor Department believes it has seen enough.
“The Department of Labor will use every available legal resource to protect workers — regardless of their age — and hold to account those employers who mistakenly believe they can violate the Fair Labor Standards Act, obstruct federal investigations, and retaliate against workers who assert their rights,” stated Chicago Regional Solicitor of Labor Christine Heri in the Labor Department news release.
A court hearing is scheduled for Nov. 23rd to determine whether the federal order against PSSI will be modified, extended or dissolved.
