Children continue to work at poultry processor, Labor Department says, even after teen worker’s recent death

Children have again been found working at a Mar-Jac Poultry slaughterhouse, according to the US Department of Labor. The latest discovery in Alabama comes less than a year after a teen worker was killed at a company facility in Mississippi.

Children have again been found working at a Mar-Jac Poultry slaughterhouse, according to the US Department of Labor. The latest discovery in Alabama comes less than a year after a teen worker was killed at a company facility in Mississippi. In a civil complaint filed May 7, the DOL said that investigators at its wage and hour division “discovered oppressive child labor at [Mar-Jac’s] poultry processing facility, namely children working on the kill floor deboning poultry and cutting carcasses.” The complaint added that “the children had been working at the facility for months.” Mar-Jac operates facilities in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. The DOL’s recent allegation follows an incident last year in which a teen died at a Mar-Jac facility in Mississippi. According to Mar-Jac Poultry Alabama’s website, “Mar-Jac Poultry does not sell to the general public, individual restaurants or convenience stores. We sell primarily to wholesale distributors and various national fast food establishments.” It didn’t list which fast food companies it supplied. A DOL spokesperson told CNN Tuesday that “the wage and hour division has multiple ongoing investigations of Mar-Jac plants in Alabama and Mississippi.” Federal labor law bans children from certain jobs in slaughterhouses and meat packaging plants, including using or cleaning machinery, because of the hazardous conditions.