JBS USA has canceled its contract with Packers Sanitation Service (PSSI). This is because the company was fined for hiring a child to clean part of the slaughterhouse.
An internal investigation led to the decision because the company “does not tolerate child labor or unsafe working conditions,” JBS USA spokeswoman Nikki Richardson said in a statement to Food Dive. The meat-processing giant is working with UFCW to bring hygiene services in-house at several locations. Represent at least 25,000 JBS employees — and shifts to other third-party providers at other factories, she said.
“After conducting third-party audits of sanitation providers at all locations across the country, we will establish new procedures to ensure underage workers cannot access our facilities and hold third-party providers to higher standards. We do it,” Richardson said. He said.
PSSI It did not respond to Food Dive’s request for comment at press time.
The announcement by the beef, poultry and pork company follows months of government action targeting sanitation companies amid nationwide protests against the illegal use of child labor in reported meat facilities.
In January, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told NBC News: Investigate if at least 31 children A 13-year-old who was illegally employed as a night sanitation worker at several meat processing plants in the Midwest was a victim of human trafficking. The children who worked at PSSI worked at five of his plants, including Grand Island, Nebraska, and his JBS facility in Worthington, Minnesota, a U.S. Department of Labor official told the network.
The ministry told news agencies it had not investigated PSSIbut worked to rule out the possibility that a ring of outside traffickers forced the children to work for a profit.
one month later, PSSI was fined $1.5 million by the US Department of Labor. This is because producers such as JBS and Tyson Foods have put at least 102 children to work night shifts at the 13 meat processing plants he operates in his eight states. the government department saidAccording to the Department of Labor, children were given dangerous jobs such as cleaning “razor-sharp claws” and other high-safety-risk equipment. The sanitary company paid the fine.
