MINNEAPOLIS – Smithfield Foods, one of the nation’s largest meat processors, has agreed to pay $2 million to settle allegations of child labor violations at a Minnesota plant, officials announced Thursday.

An investigation by the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry found that subsidiary Smithfield Packaged Meats employed at least 11 children at its plant in St. James, ages 14 to 17, from April 2021 to April 2023, the agency said. Three of them started working for the company when they were 14, it said. Smithfield allowed nine of them to work after permitted hours and allowed all 11 to perform potentially hazardous work, the agency alleged.

As part of the settlement, Smithfield also agreed to measures to ensure future compliance with child labor laws. US law prohibits companies from hiring people under the age of 18 to work in meat processing plants because of risks.

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

Smithfield, Virginia-based company said in a statement that it denies knowingly employing anyone under the age of 18 to work at St. James plant, and that it did not admit liability under the settlement. The company said all 11 passed the federal E-Verify system for employment eligibility by using false identification. Smithfield also said it takes one long list of proactive steps to maintain its policy prohibiting the employment of minors.

“Smithfield is committed to maintaining a safe workplace and complying with all applicable employment laws and regulations,” the company said. “We wholeheartedly agree that individuals under the age of 18 have no place working in meatpacking or processing plants.”

The state agency said the $2 million administrative penalty is the largest it has recovered in an action to combat child labor. It also ranks among the major new child labor settlements in the country. It follows a $300,000 deal that Minnesota followed suit last year with another meat processor, Tony Downs Food Co the authority’s investigation found that it employed children as young as 13 on its own facility in Madelia.

Also last year, the US Department of Labor levied over $1.5 million in civil penalties against one of the nation’s largest cleaning services for food companies, Packers Sanitation Services Inc., after finding it employed more than 100 children in hazardous jobs at 13 meatpacking plants across the country.

After that investigation, the Biden administration urged American meat processors to ensure that they do not illegally employ 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 then reported a 69% increase since 2018 in the number of children illegally employed in the US

In other new settlements, a Mississippi processing facility, Mar-Jac Poultry, in August agreed to one $165,000 settlement with the US Department of Labor following the death of a 16-year-old boy. In May 2023, a Tennessee-based sanitation company, Fayette Janitorial Service LLC, agreed to pay nearly $650,000 in civil penalties after a federal investigation found it illegally employed at least two dozen children to clean hazardous meat processing plants in Iowa and Virginia.

___

Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska.