Fayette Janitorial LLC employed 15 children to clean dangerous equipment at a Perdue Farms plant in Virginia and nine to clean a Seaboard Triumph Foods pork plant in Iowa.
I worked at a small meat processing facility when I was young, on the cleanup crew as well. I don’t say that to advocate for children doing these jobs, it was miserable, and dangerous, and incredibly disgusting. At the end of the day every piece of equipment had to be completely disassembled and each part cleaned. A lot of the meat is cut with a band saw, when the blade cuts the meat it turns some of it into a fine paste, think meat sawdust. That meat sawdust goes everywhere inside the machinery. To clean it you have to take the blade out of the machine which is like trying to fold 100 foot razor sharp knife onto itself, it’s very easy to get seriously injured if you aren’t careful.
I worked at a small meat processing facility when I was young, on the cleanup crew as well. I don’t say that to advocate for children doing these jobs, it was miserable, and dangerous, and incredibly disgusting. At the end of the day every piece of equipment had to be completely disassembled and each part cleaned. A lot of the meat is cut with a band saw, when the blade cuts the meat it turns some of it into a fine paste, think meat sawdust. That meat sawdust goes everywhere inside the machinery. To clean it you have to take the blade out of the machine which is like trying to fold 100 foot razor sharp knife onto itself, it’s very easy to get seriously injured if you aren’t careful.