The meat and poultry sector must stop using child labor

a report A joint publication by the International Labor Organization and UNICEF, organizations that have declared June 12 as World Day against Child Labor, has established that agriculture is the largest employer of child labor.

According to the latest available data, in 2020 more than 75 percent of all 5- to 14-year-olds who were exposed to child labor worldwide were employed in agriculture.

In recent months, the meat and poultry industries in the United States have been the top users of child labor, often through contracts for janitorial services.

With frequent actions to enforce child labor laws citing the meat and poultry sectors, it wasn’t long before the leading Meat Institute, formerly the ‘North American Meat Institute’, decided to do something about it. The Washington DC-based trade association distributed specific instructions to keep its members out of trouble.

With hundreds of thousands of migrants entering the country illegally each month, including more unaccompanied minors than ever before, the Meat Institute says child labor is being hired both knowingly and unknowingly in the United States, including by many meat and poultry companies. These are often food safety jobs, which involve cleaning dangerous equipment.

The Meat Institute’s best practices are designed to help prevent child labor, given the record influx of undocumented minors associated with the increasing prevalence and sophistication of identity theft and fraud.

All of these meat and poultry facilities employ USDA inspection personnel from the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). Early suggestions that USDA folks add audit IDs to their inspection duties were not considered realistic by the department.

Instead, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack sent a letter to the meat and poultry industries in April asserting that the Biden-Harris administration is committed to “combatting illegal child labor.” He also said the federal government has an “Interagency Task Force to Combat Child Labor Exploitation.”

It provided few details, but Vilsack did say something about the use of USDA regulatory and procurement authorities. In the weeks since his letter, his vagueness has sparked discussion about including more punitive measures for child labor offenders in the 2024 Farm Bill.

Since there won’t be a USDA employee at the door checking IDs, the Meat Institute’s Campaign Against Child Labor is a seven-page best practices document focused on “Workforce Age Verification.”

“Children have no place in meat or poultry packaging or processing facilities,” the document’s statement of principles said. “Meat Institute member companies categorically prohibit hiring anyone under the age of 18 to work in their production facilities. The prohibition on hiring child labor extends to the use of subcontractors.”

According to the Meat Institute, a commitment from the business community to prevent illegal child labor is a crucial first step. This should include a supplier code of conduct for these external contractors.

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