NEWS: Casar Pushes to Hold Meat Packing Corporations Accountable for Child Labor Violations
House Ag Republicans hold closed-door roundtable on child labor with meat packing associates
WASHINGTON – Today, Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas) releases the following statement after sitting in on the House Agriculture Committee Republicans’ closed-door, corporate-backed child labor roundtable with meat packing industry associates.
“Child labor has been illegal in American plants since the 1930s. We should hold companies that get multi-million dollar contracts from the federal government, but continue to exploit children, accountable,” said Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas). “Members on both sides of the aisle at this closed-door meeting agreed that 13-year-olds working in meat packing plants is wrong. The question remains — will we just keep talking about it, or actually do something about it?”
At the closed-door meeting, the witnesses said that children working in their plants are hard to identify as underage. Casar brought two children’s backpacks to the meeting, referencing a Department of Labor case at the Seaboard Triumph facility in Sioux City, Iowa, where federal investigators witnessed
children “carrying glittered school backpacks” before starting their graveyard shift to clean kill-floor equipment.
Republican witnesses at the hearing included:
- Paul DeCamp, who works on labor issues for the law firm Epstein, Becker and Green. Prior to his work at the Firm, DeCamp was the Administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) Wage and Hour Division under President George W. Bush. Recently, DeCamp served as an expert witness for Packers Sanitation Services (PSSI) after they were found to have hired 102 teenagers across multiple states.
- Bryan Burns, who serves as Vice President and Associate General Counsel of the Meat Institute. In his role, Burns serves as the primary staff liaison to the Worker Safety Committee, Environmental Committee, and Labor & Employment Committee. Prior to joining the Meat Institute, Burn previously served as a Senior Counsel for Litigation and Regulatory Affairs at Tyson..
Ahead of the hearing, Casar and Congressman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) hosted a press gaggle. Remarks as delivered:
Casar: “During the Farm Bill markup, I brought forward an amendment that Mr. McGovern and all the other Democrats supported to hold companies, major meatpacking companies, accountable if they violate our child labor laws that date back to 1938.
GC:“The Department of Labor, just in the last year, found over 4,000 cases of illegal child labor just last year. We know there's thousands more kids that are illegally put to work every year. But the Department of Labor has extremely limited resources, so the fact they were able to find 4,000 of these cases last year shows just how significant and pervasive this problem is. So what we're asking is that if the federal government gives billions of dollars in federal contracts to these mega-corporations, that they simply follow the law. And don't exploit child labor.
GC: “What, I expect, we will hear in this closed-door, industry-only roundtable is excuses. What is on the meat packing lobby’s website, is that they essentially say that they can't identify when a worker is an adult versus when they’re a child. But we know that many of these cases are cases of 13-year-olds and 14-year-olds working night shifts at the meat packing plants. Cleaning really dangerous equipment, mopping blood off of kill floors, and doing other extremely hazardous work. And if a bartender isn’t — we know that bartenders aren't serving 13-year-olds when they walk into the bar because they can tell, regardless of what their ID says, this child is 13 or 14, then I think multi-billion dollar companies can do the same thing.
GC: “And, we’ve got these backpacks here today because in one of the complaints, one of the verified complaints, from the Department of Labor — they saw children wearing, and the exact quote, ‘glittered backpacks, glittered school backpacks,’ as they walked into their night shifts. And so I’m going to ask representatives from these major companies today, how it is that they can't tell that these are school children going into their plants, if they are walking in with these sort of backpacks. It's a serious, very serious issue. It's a life and death issue. You know, there was recently a 14 year old child, named Marcos, who had his entire right forearm ripped off, in a dangerous machine working in these plants. These are kids that should be in school, and, and should be able to grow up like anybody else and not be put illegally to work, in these plants. And so what we'll be asking, is these questions in this industry-only roundtable.
GC: “And then, we will hopefully — the Chairman has said that we will have a hearing, a public hearing. And I hope that at the public hearing, we mark up Senator Booker’s and my bill, to hold these companies accountable, to make sure that if we're giving them billion dollar contracts that they aren’t illegally exploiting child labor. And I hope that both the House version of the Farm Bill, and then Senator Stabenow’s Senate version, that we include these provisions to protect children from being exploited and also to just protect workers, in general, at these meatpacking plants where, you know, many people have died working for many of these corporations in recent years in these meat packing plants, many people have been hurt and we should have these baseline protections both in the House bill and if not in the House bill, then we should have them in the Senate bill.”
McGovern: “I can't even believe we're having this discussion. You know, we work, we have a Congress where there's lots of disagreement on lots and lots of issues. I would like to think that what would not be controversial, is that we would all agree that we have to crack down on child labor violations, that somehow that's a radical idea in this Republican-controlled Congress, really is insane.
JM: “Child labor is getting worse in this country, it's going in the wrong direction. And we're having a briefing here today, basically in response to not taking up my colleague's amendment, during the Farm Bill markup, when we’re briefing today, it's all industry. I mean, really? I mean, this is the, this is the response, somebody who represents the trade association from meatpackers, another who used to work for a company where, you know, they were found 100 violations, in terms of child labor, I mean, this is insane.
JM: “I mean, look, there are states all around the country, state legislatures that are moving in the wrong direction. That are weakening child labor laws, and these guys here, you know, want to be wind at their back. It's disgusting. It really is. And it's so disappointing. And we're going to go through this charade today and we'll listen to the industry-only panel tell us how everything is beautiful or how they can't tell them who is a child and who's not, all that bullshit. Right? But the bottom line is, this is, this doesn't cut it. And so it's really disappointing.
JM: “I expected much better from the Chairman and, and from the Republicans quite frankly.”
Last year, Casar introduced the Child Labor Exploitation Accountability Act, aimed at holding corporations accountable for the exploitation of children and workers in the food industry.
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Congressman Greg Casar represents Texas’s 35th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, which runs down I-35 from East Austin to Hays County to the West Side of San Antonio. A labor organizer and son of Mexican immigrants, Casar serves as the Whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus for the 118th Congress. He also serves on the Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Committee on Agriculture.
