Kill floors at slaughterhouses are traumatic places for all involved. Animals suffer tremendously as they approach their deadly fate, and workers must witness and facilitate this horrendous death.
So why did government officials discover that Packer Sanitation Services (PSSI) was employing children in these dangerous and traumatic conditions, at multiple processing facilities?
Sign now to demand the U.S. Department of Labor investigate all 700 processing facilities where Packer Sanitation Services, Inc. operate!To be clear: having children work under these conditions
is illegal. Under federal law, no one under the age of 18 is permitted to work on slaughterhouse kill floors, or with hazardous processing equipment. PSSI broke the law. And it broke the law repeatedly.
A
recent investigation by the Department of Labor found terrifying conditions at multiple processing plants where the company employed minors. In some cases, managers forced these young kids to work overnight! At a plant in Nebraska, one 13-year-old child sustained caustic chemical burns on the kill floor. Officials found thirty other children working for Packer Sanitation Services, cleaning large, dangerous industrial equipment.
To make matters worse,
PSSI allegedly interfered with the investigation by intimidating minor workers, trying to bully them into not cooperating with investigators. According to the Department of Labor, PSSI
allegedly deleted and manipulated employment files to hide the fact that they were not only hiring and employing minors, but forcing them to work in horrific working conditions.
Clearly, PSSI does not care about the well-being of any of its employees - especially not the children it illegally hires. The Department of Labor must investigate all other facilities where PSSI employees work.
This investigation into these specific facilities is an important start toward protecting worker safety. But we cannot take the chance that any more minors are at risk in other facilities.
The Department of Labor must ensure that every single one of this company's 17,000 workers are safe, and that no more literal children are employed in these dangerous working conditions. Sign the petition now if you agree!