Smithfield agrees to pay $2 million to resolve child labor allegations at Minnesota meat plant

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Smithfield Foods, one of the nation’s largest meat processors, has agreed to pay $2 million to resolve allegations of child labor at a Minnesota plant, officials announced Thursday.

An investigation by the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry found that the Smithfield Packaged Meats subsidiary employed at least 11 children, ages 14 to 17, at its St. James plant from April 2021 through April 2023. the agency said. Three of them started working for the company at age 14, the company said. Smithfield made nine of them work outside authorized hours and had all 11 perform potentially dangerous work, the agency alleged.

As part of the settlement, Smithfield also agreed to steps to ensure future compliance with child labor laws. U.S. law prohibits companies from hiring people under the age of 18 in meatpacking plants because of the dangers.

State Commissioner for Labor Nicole Blissenbach said this the agreement “sends a strong message to employers, including in the meatpacking industry, that child labor violations will not be tolerated in Minnesota.”

The Smithfield, Virginia-based company said in a statement that it denies that it knowingly hired anyone under the age of 18 to work at the St. James plant and that it has not admitted liability under the settlement. The company said all eleven passed the federal E-Verify employment eligibility system by using false identification. Smithfield also said that a long list of proactive steps to enforce its policy prohibiting the employment of minors.

“Smithfield is committed to maintaining a safe workplace and complying with all applicable labor laws and regulations,” the company said. “We wholeheartedly agree that persons under the age of 18 should not work in meatpacking or processing facilities.”

The state agency said the $2 million administrative fine is the largest it has recovered in an enforcement action against child labor. It is also among the larger recent child labor settlements across the country. It follows a $300,000 deal that Minnesota reached last year with another meat processor, Tony Downs Food Co., after agency investigation discovered that children from the age of 13 were employed factory in Madelia.

Also last year, the U.S. Department of Labor imposed more than $1.5 million in civil penalties against one of the largest cleaning services for food processing companies, Packers Sanitation Services Inc., after discovering that more than 100 children were working in dangerous jobs at 13 meatpacking plants across the country.

After that investigation came the Biden administration urged U.S. meat processors to make sure they don’t illegally hire children for dangerous jobs. The call, in a letter from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to the 18 largest meat and poultry producers, was part of a broader crackdown on child labor. The Labor Department subsequently reported a 69% increase since 2018 in the number of children employed illegally in the US.