The Facts
The US Dept. of Labor said Friday that 102 children as young as 13 years old had worked hazardous overnight jobs cleaning slaughterhouses in eight states for Packers Sanitation Services Inc. (PSSI), one of the nation's largest food sanitation companies.
As part of the investigation, PSSI, which employed children 13 to 17 years old to clean meat processing equipment like back saws, brisket saws, and head splitters, paid $1.5M, or $15,138 per minor, in federal civil penalties for their violations.
The Spin
Narrative A
This is not a case of simply hiring a couple of minors by mistake, but a nationwide corporate culture of blatant disregard for child labor laws. Even after the government began investigating, PSSI intimidated its workers into not cooperating with authorities. This is not an isolated event either, as experts say this is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the child labor crisis across America.
Narrative B
Though bans on hazardous jobs are necessary for the physical well-being of children, child labor laws from an economic perspective may be counterintuitive. The goal is usually to protect disadvantaged kids whose parents need financial support, but putting those kids in inadequate schools rather than allowing them to work certain manual labor jobs may disadvantage them even more in the future.