BY NBC NEWS
The identity of a 32-year-old man was used to hire a 16-year-old worker at a Mississippi poultry plant who perished after becoming sucked into machinery. This recent discovery underscores the difficulties employers have in determining the actual age of migrant children working in hazardous industries.
On July 14, Duvan Pérez, who was employed to clean up at Hattiesburg’s Mar-Jac Poultry, which provides chicken to businesses like Chick-fil-A, passed away. A local Facebook news site inquired about his true age within hours of his passing, and it was soon established that he was sixteen.
Slaughterhouses are among the nation’s most dangerous jobs, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and it is against the law for minors to work there.
The Labor Department reports that the number of minors working illegally has increased dramatically across all industries, almost doubling since 2019. According to the agency, there are more than 800 active child labor investigations in 47 states, spanning several industries.
“Slaughterhouse Children,” a new documentary from NBC News, is the culmination of a year-long investigation into child labor in America. It is based on reporting from two countries and six states, dozens of interviews, and the examination of thousands of pages of public records, accident reports, and internal corporate documents.
poultry Mar-Jac verified to NBC News that Perez had assumed the persona of a man in his 30s while conducting research for the project.
Mar-Jac lawyer Larry Stine stated that Perez did not appear to be 32 years old after displaying a photo of the 16-year-old. Stine, who has been a representative of the Georgia-based company since the 1990s, remarked, “But he might have looked 18.”
poultry Mar-Jac attributed the teenager’s hire to a recruiting firm that provides labor to the plant.
When asked if the corporation had been taken aback by Perez’s age of sixteen, Stine replied, “I can tell you that they were surprised.” They were taken aback and perhaps scared.
A request for comment regarding Pérez’s usage of an adult identity was not answered by his family.
Identity theft
According to police reports received through public information requests, American residents have complained at least nine times in the last three years to the Hattiesburg Police Department and occasionally to Mar-Jac about their identities being stolen and exploited by Mar-Jac employees.
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In 2021, a person reported to the police that they attempted to claim unemployment benefits in Florida but were informed that a Mar-Jac employee was using their identity. “I called Mar-Jac poultry to notify them and was told by [redacted] the HR supervisor that I couldn’t do anything without a police report and he couldn’t help me in any way,” the complainant wrote in an email, which is included in a police report.
In 2022, a different person called the local police to report that a Mar-Jac employee was using her identity to obtain child care aid in Texas. The police report added, “[Redacted] stated she’s never lived outside of the state of Texas.” When she called Mar-Jac HR, she was told that they were unable to provide her with any information and that she should speak with the police.
poultry According to Mar-Jac, it has examined every employee and doesn’t think it is hiring anyone under the age of 18. According to Stine, the company’s ability to scrutinize the documentation beyond the government’s E-Verify system is restricted. We are constrained by the way the regulations are written. We are unable to investigate the documentation they provided us with.
According to the Labor Department, it is the responsibility of employers to carry out due diligence on potential hires to ascertain whether or not they are of legal age to perform the job.
Following Pérez’s passing, two investigations were started by the Labor Department (looking into how Mar-Jac employed an adolescent) and OSHA (looking into the accident itself). Both inquiries are still being conducted.
In a September press release, OSHA urged Mar-Jac staff members to get in contact with the organization to talk about the circumstances surrounding Pérez’s death. The release also mentioned that workers’ rights to take part in an inquiry by the Labor Department are protected by federal law.
poultry A DHS representative stated that the Department of Homeland Security is assisting with the OSHA investigation. “Mar-Jac is unaware of any involvement by DHS,” stated Stine.
Stine stated in an email that Mar-Jac had looked into the accident in great detail and had not discovered any mistakes made by its human resources or safety staff. It has taken strong action to avoid recruiting minor workers or having another mishap because it has learned a lot from the last one.
The highest fine for a corporation found to have broken child labor regulations is $15,138 per occasion.
“I think the publicity of having something like that is far worse than the penalty,” Stine responded when asked if the possible fines would have an impact on how a corporation does business. Nobody wishes to appear to have employed a minor.
poultry Pérez was the second individual at the plant to pass away in the last two years as a result of becoming tangled in machinery.
Gildardo Pérez, Pérez’s uncle, told Telemundo that Pérez was ignorant of the job’s perils and that he might have spoken up if he had been aware of them. “Maybe we could have stopped it, but we were never told if the work was dangerous.”poultry
poultry “We are reviewing our own procedures for investigation and response as we pursue the necessary steps to effectively hold all of our suppliers to our high safety standards,” stated a spokeswoman for Chick-fil-A, which purchases chicken from Mar-Jac.
Workers at Mar-Jac, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of losing their jobs, claimed to be lawfully employed by the company and to have had visits from Chick-fil-A representatives. The worker stated, “Supervisors advise us to please do the work well because Chick-fil-A bosses will be passing through to check the work.”
According to the worker, plant employees also get a coupon good for a free Chick-fil-A meal once a year.
poultry “A huge influx of girls and boys”
Almost all of the cases of child labor discovered at meat processing facilities nationwide during the course of a year-long investigation originated in Guatemala.
More than 250,000 unaccompanied minors have entered the country in the last two years. Guatemalan nationals make up about half of the minors.
According to specialists, a large number of these children are from remote, Indigenous communities whose families agree to repay thousands of dollars to the human smuggler, also known as a “coyote,” in order for the child to travel to the United States.
poultry A number of those kids have been able to secure employment at slaughterhouses around the nation.
Some appear youthful, yet they are older than 18. Investigators from the Labor Department have taken images of other workers, who distinctly look like minors.
Huispache, a small mountain community in western Guatemala close to the Mexican border, was the hometown of Duvan Pérez.
NBC News and Telemundo visited Huispache to find out more about the reasons behind the exodus of young people from the nation. There is an effect of children migrating; a large number of them are moving without their parents.
According to information gathered from the Ministry of Education in Guatemala, almost 1,500 schools had closed during the previous fifteen years.
In response to inquiries about the reasons behind the closures, the Ministry of Education has not commented; nevertheless, according to a government agency in Guatemala, fewer children are leaving the country to pursue their education in the United States.poultry
A UNICEF employee in Guatemala, Estuardo Sánchez, said the latest kid migration is noteworthy. He described the exodus of boys and girls as “a massive flow.” “Guatemala is losing that human resource—its good demographic—because the most courageous and enterprising youth are leaving.”
crackdown by the Labor Department
When the Labor Department revealed in late fall 2022 that it had discovered over thirty children working the graveyard shift illegally for Packers Sanitation Services Inc., a company that cleans the largest slaughterhouses in America, child labor in the United States became a new and pressing worry.
In the end, the Labor Department discovered that 102 kids were employed by PSSI at 13 sites throughout eight states.
PSSI consented to third-party monitoring in exchange for paying a $1.5 million civil fine. The business insists that it did not intentionally hire minors. It stated that the only way children could have gotten employment was if they had taken on false or stolen identities.
Additionally, the company stated that it has “implemented enhanced screening processes and technologies” in its employment operations and that it is steadfastly committed to a zero-tolerance policy against hiring anyone under the age of 18.poultry
PSSI has also appointed its first-ever compliance officer and named a new CEO following the deal with the federal authorities.
Following the disclosure of the PSSI charges, more companies have now been subject to inquiry.
The Labor Department is currently looking into Tyson Foods, Perdue Farms, Hearthside Food Solutions, and Gerber’s Poultry in Ohio after it was claimed that kids were working there. The businesses have each released a statement stating that they strictly prohibit hiring anyone under the age of 18 and that they work with the Labor Department.
“Tyson Foods is committed to compliance with all labor laws and holding those we do business with to the highest standards of accountability,” the company stated in a letter to senators looking into child labor.
“Underage labor has no place in our business,” Perdue Farms declared in a public statement. These recent accusations disgust us since they are not consistent with our values or the identity of our organization.poultry
Hearthside Food Solutions’s spokesperson cited an editorial written by the company after The New York Times conducted an investigation, which stated, among other things, that “when we became aware of the story, we took decisive action focused on rooting out what may have enabled underage workers hired by our staffing agencies to enter our facilities.”
NBC News first reported that during an October midnight search, FBI investigators discovered over twenty-six juveniles employed at the Gerber’s Poultry facility. “We have formal identity verification procedures in place and dedicate significant resources to ensure that Gerber’s Poultry employees and contractors are legally authorized to work,” the company stated in addition to stating that it is assisting federal authorities.
The months and years that migrant kids have worked are something that federal investigators are unable to retrieve. The children he has encountered via his ministry who have worked in Kansas’ meatpacking facilities, according to Pastor Joel Tuchez of Dodge City, Kansas, were deprived of their childhoods.
You must behave like a grownup. You must act like a responsible adult. You need to act like a grown-up. Furthermore, you receive adult treatment if you make mistakes.
