Mar Jack Poultry “looks forward to winning this matter,” the company told ABC News.
According to court filings, investigators have again found minors working on the slaughter floor of a chicken plant owned by the company, which was found responsible for the death of a teenager last year.
After obtaining a civil search warrant, Labor Department investigators announced on May 1 that they had discovered “aggressive child labor” at an Alabama poultry farm. Specifically, they are “children who work in slaughterhouses, deboning poultry and dissecting carcasses.”
“The children had been working at the facility for several months,” the filing states.
According to court documents, Mar-Jac Poultry denied knowing it had employees under the age of 18.
In a statement to ABC News, Mahljak said the minors were hired with documentation “showing they were over the age of 18.”
“Marjac continues to vigorously defend itself and expects to prevail in this matter,” the company said. “Mar-Jac is committed to complying with all relevant laws.”
The Department of Labor is seeking a court order to prevent the company from selling and shipping “poultry contaminated by oppressive child labor” from its Alabama plant, according to a court filing.
Federal regulators said earlier this year that the death of 16-year-old Duvan Perez, who died while cleaning a poultry processing machine at the Mar Jack facility in July 2023, was a “preventable hazardous situation” and that workers should He said he shouldn’t have fallen into it. , “Let alone a child.”
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Ma Jack Poultry with 14 serious and three “non-serious” violations and recommended a $212,646 fine for Perez’s death. The agency previously cited the company as an example of a case in 2021 in which a non-minor employee was involved in a fatal accident on the job.
Perez’s mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit in January against Mal Jack, two of her employees, and the agency that employed Perez. In the suit, Perez alleges that Ma Jack’s disregard for safety regulations led to his death. The complaint alleges that the defendants “acted intentionally, intentionally, recklessly, knowingly with malicious intent, and/or with gross negligence and reckless disregard for the rights and safety of the decedent and similarly situated persons.” “I did,” he claims.
The company’s Hattiesburg plant has been sued twice in recent years by people who say they were injured at the plant, according to court records reviewed by ABC News. One of the lawsuits, filed in December 2022, is scheduled for a jury trial in August. In the other case, brought by a Department of Agriculture veterinarian who allegedly fell during an exam, a jury found in favor of the defendant, Marjac.
The Alabama plant was charged with serious violations by OSHA in December after an employee was injured.
According to the Ministry of Labor, 5,800 children were employed in violation of child labor laws last year, representing an 88% increase from 2019. Additionally, of the 955 child labor cases investigated and closed by federal regulators in 2023, more than half were employed in violation of child labor laws. Minors employed in violation of the Hazardous Occupations Act.
