A 16-year-old employee who died after getting sucked into equipment at a Mississippi poultry plant got the job using the identity of a 32-year-old man, a new revelation that highlights the ease with which migrant children are finding work in a dangerous industry, and the challenges companies face in trying to evaluate their true ages.
Duvan Pérez, who was hired to clean up at Mar-Jac Poultry in Hattiesburg, which supplies chicken to companies like Chick-fil-A, died on July 14. Within hours of his death, questions about his true age were raised by a local Facebook news site, and he was soon determined to be 16.
It’s illegal for minors to work in slaughterhouses, which the Occupational Safety and Health Administration considers among the most perilous workplaces in the country.
The number of children working illegally has skyrocketed across all industries, according to the Labor Department, nearly doubling since 2019. More than 800 child labor investigations in 47 states are ongoing across industries, according to the agency.
More than 800 child labor investigations in 47 states are ongoing across industries, according to the agency.
So when do the feds say enough is enough and implement severe penalties for all involved; ie: all profits the companies made x number of children working, charges/jail time for those who approved the kids to work? Cause whatever they are now obviously aren’t enough.
When are they going to make sure that all families have enough money to live on so that the children do not need to work?
That would require an act of Congress to implement nationwide.
And Congress hasn’t accomplished anything since 2010.
It’s more likely that they’ll pass a law rescinding child labor laws and legalizing these practices.
I saw it in the evening news show of a main TV channel (Das Erste) here in germany that Gov. Huckabee of Arkansas introduced a law to roll back child labour laws, which seems a few other of the GOP reigned, god fearing states also like.
Where several parts of Iowas new law are violating federal child labour laws (e.g. Hazardous Occupations Orders) and that’s why those states are under federal investigation.
From Europe, I hope your gov keeps the promise of cracking down on migrant child labour in hazardous environment and other trends to return to pre-industrial times (e.g. caregivers who exploit the child labour) and offers those kids better possibilities. Those voters in Iowa, Nebraska and the likes are lost anyway.
Now why do I doubt that anyone of the bosses responsible for this hiring will be held personally accountable? I have a sneaking suspicion some measly fines (compared to company profits) will be the result of the vast majority of these ‘investigations.’
I hope I’m wrong.
You’re not wrong, and that’s the sad part. They just caught a warehouse here in Cincinnati using an 11 year old and a 13 year old to shift pallets, with one of them operating a forklift. The entire thing amounted to a $30k fine, for a company that makes multiple billions a year.
That’s the thing I can’t get. In all cases with minors illegally working, they have a boss or supervisor. And they’re just fine with that? They take it in their stride instead of taking it to the press?
I honestly can’t fathom it because all the supervisors I’ve had, regardless of their strengths and weaknesses, genuinely cared about me as a person. It was the corpo suits and execs that didn’t give a shit.
Christ, they need to thoroughly investigate these companies, because this highly suggests there’s more wrongdoing to be found.
“It’s very hard to convince a man of something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.” - George Carlin
-Upton Sinclair
Yeah, “accidentally”.
Arkansas: He wouldn’t have needed to fake his identity here.
He is an undocumented immigrant so he did not really have ID of his own.
I get the sentiment though. Fuck Arkansas and their shitty child labor laws but this ties into a whole different issue.
I mean, it should get doable to get the difference between a 16 and a 32 y old person. The HR in there definitely could not give a fuck and played on plausibility
100%
Whoever hired him should be put in jail.
Very obviously not 32, doesn’t even look 18, but sure I suppose it could be. But is this 32 year old man he supposedly is even real? Is there a social he gave for a 32 year old? Or he just say “yeah I’m 32.” And they’re like “cool deniable enough for me!”
Please don’t construe my comment here as a defense of the company; I’m only providing some context here regarding how he may have been hired.
If you’ve never worked near or in an industry like this, you may not be familiar with “cattle call” hiring. There’s basically a standing advert from the company for work at the plant: Show up Monday morning at 05:00 and you can be working the same day if they hire you in. Typically there’s a group of 10, 20, or maybe more lined up for a job. Everyone is told to bring a photo ID and a social security card.
The kid in the article looks slight, but at 16 he was probably close enough to adult proportions to look like he could do the work. He’d line up with everyone else in front of a table and eventually have his turn to talk to the manager / hiring officer. They’d take his ID and SS card and write down the info, and ask the required questions for the I9 form, likely filling it out for him and signing off as translator / preparer assistance. Then they hand back the credentials and he waits off to the side.
Once they have enough applicants to fill however many positions they need, they send the remainder home. Everyone is given a timeclock ID number. Anyone working the day shift is taken immediately to the plant, handed PPE and tools, and put to work. Second and third shifts are sent home and told to come back in the afternoon or at midnight.
And that’s it. That’s the extent of the contact during the hiring process. At the end of the week there’s a check waiting for you at the plant office. Next Monday the company repeats the process to fill positions for people that didn’t show or quit during the week.
The company has 3 days to submit the I9 form, and if it comes back invalid they must terminate employment. But with stolen identities they likely clear and that’s the end of any scrutiny. If you asked that hiring manager on Tuesday to pick out someone he hired Monday morning, he probably couldn’t do it.
That probably is what happened, and while that’d be understandable like 40 years ago, we have quite a bit of technology today that should be available to prevent that and it should be on the company to ensure they’re not hiring people using stolen identities.
I agree, it seems to me that there could be some simple improvements to at least flag suspicious requests. The comment from @kautau@lemmy.world would seem to indicate that a simple address cross-reference when the I9 is submitted could help indicate bogus applications.
this is very common throughout southeast asia. the company uses a staffing agency who is always looking the other way and nobody involved gives a fuck except the foreigner they hired from germany to run the plant.
Adam Conover has a nice short video on the rise in child labor:
https://youtu.be/_ve6BqXzbjw?si=w17wg9G2xN5Z2oKQ
It’s because we don’t turn away unaccompanied minors like we do adults at the border. So more parents send their kids alone or separately. If we were not as harsh with adults at the border, it would likely be a lot better.
so… HR was corrupt or the hiring manager had a quota to fill or… ?
Didn’t Republican controlled Save The Children states make this type of Child Labor LEGAL?
being vegan isn’t just about your health, the climate, or the protection of animals; it’s about disassembling this horrific industry from the ground up. animal agriculture is inherently exploitative and stories like these are just another reason among many to make the connection and get on the right side of these issues.
I agree, but then we also need to look at labor practices in farming.
you are absolutely right, safety and dignity in the workforce is in need of an overhaul, at least this year has had some highlights on that front; given some of the union victories and movements toward organization.
ideally, our immigration systems in the US, or lack thereof, would be next in line for such a refocus.
pinning down the marginalized to be fleeced for exploitation is the obvious outcome of a capitalistic system, and cruelty seems to be the point.
