The U.S. Labor Department is looking into allegations of child labor at facilities run by meatpacking giants Tyson Foods and Perdue Farms following a recent New York Times Magazine story about Central American migrant children working for sanitation contractors at poultry processing plants in Accomack County, Virginia.
The story, by NYT reporter Hannah Dreier, is a gut-wrenching must read. It centers on a 14-year-old boy named Marcos whose arm was torn apart while cleaning a piece of machinery at a Purdue plant.
Deploying industrial-strength acids and cleaners that leave them with chemical burns and hacking coughs, kids as young as 13 put in a shift at the meat plant each night, then catch the bus to middle school in the morning. (One of their teachers has set up a beanbag chair in a closet to allow those who worked the overnight shift to nap before the bell rings.) Or kids simply skip school; they’ve come to the U.S. with the singular aim of working and sending money home to their families — many are “unaccompanied minors” who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents — rather than sitting in a classroom.
That’s the central dilemma that keeps teachers, plant supervisors and other adults in the community quiet about the fact that eighth-grade kids are toiling away at some of the most dangerous jobs in the country, in violation of federal labor law. After he was released from the hospital, his maimed arm dangling by his side, Marcos’ main concern was: How soon can I get back to work?
Dreier focuses on the lives of the children working in the Accomack plants rather than the politics of immigration, but that backdrop adds to the story’s pathos. These kids, whose labor keeps the machinery of the industrialized American food supply running, are among the migrants vilified by conservatives and nativists as “invaders.” At the same time, this shadow economy wouldn’t be possible without a dysfunctional immigration system that’s encouraged families to send teenage children alone across the border in search of jobs.
It’s not clear if the new federal probe will focus only on the facilities described in the NYT story or whether it could be broader. Tyson, which is based in Springdale, did not immediately respond to questions about whether any Arkansas plants could be affected. But the investigation recalls the Labor Department’s action in February against Packers Sanitation Services, a cleaning contractor that hired minors to clean meat processing plants in multiple states, including two in Arkansas (one facility was operated by Tyson, the other by George’s Inc.)
As with the Arkansas facilities busted earlier this year, the kids at the Virginia plants are technically employees of contractors, not Tyson and Perdue, which allows the brand-name companies to say any labor violations are outside their control. Dreier writes:
In Accomack, cleaning staffs once worked directly for the slaughterhouses. But years ago, the plants started delegating this work to outside sanitation companies, which pay less and allow brands to avoid accountability for problems. The largest such U.S. contractor, Packers Sanitation Services Inc., says on its website that it can “take the liability and risk off your facility’s record.” The Biden administration has pledged to start fining brands for violating child-labor laws, but so far it has imposed penalties only on subcontractors.
Arkansas is among several states that have recently loosened their child labor laws. A bill signed by Gov. Sarah Sanders this spring allows 14- and 15-year-olds to get a job without first obtaining a work permit. The law doesn’t let kids legally work in poultry plants, which would be impermissible under federal labor labor law, but it does send the message that Arkansas is eager to get more young teenagers into the workforce in general.
Many people who support looser child labor laws are likely imagining a small-town Arkansas teen picking up a summer job at the local Subway, not a poultry sanitation worker. But the true face of the underage workforce in the U.S. today is also that of the kids profiled in Dreier’s story: easily exploited, desperate young immigrants working full-time or close to it, living in overcrowded trailer parks, risking their health and safety to give multi-billion dollar companies lower labor costs and American consumers cheaper breaded chicken cutlets.
The ironic thing is that while Sanders extolls the virtues of teenage labor, she also warns of the U.S. being “completely overrun” by “illegals.” Many unaccompanied migrant children are coming to the U.S. specifically to work, for better or worse. If American companies, including Arkansas’s own Tyson Foods, wouldn’t or couldn’t hire them, far fewer would come. So far, the governor seems less interested in that side of the equation.