- A sanitation company that paid $1.5 million in penalties after being accused of employing children hired one child twice, NBC News reports.
- The child was hired under two different identities in six months, per NBC News, citing an internal report.
The sanitation company that was fined $1.5 million after being accused of employing children as young as 13 hired the same child twice under two different identities, NBC News first reported, citing an internal company report.
Packers Sanitation Services Inc. demoted and suspended an employee for three days for hiring a "known minor" twice within six months, the internal document shows, according to NBC News.
Gina Swenson, a spokesperson for PSSI, told Insider in an email that the employee "was disciplined and required to undergo retraining in spotting identity theft in each instance." Swenson confirmed that the employee was demoted and "has been on a leave for personal reasons and is not currently actively working for the company."
Swenson said the employee "is a lower-level hourly employee," and that the company's disciplinary records "do not show that she hired a 'known minor.'"
"Had she been proven to have knowingly hired a minor she would have been terminated," Swenson said, adding that the company's records show "in both cases the applicants committed identity theft to circumvent our hiring procedures — and when this was discovered by the Company, they were terminated consistent with our policies."
A former manager at PSSI told NBC News that they were not surprised the Labor Department found underage workers at the sanitation company, and that seeing children working there made them "sick."
The former manager alleged that PSSI didn't review employee documents carefully enough when they were hired, including undocumented immigrants with false identities used to pass government compliance.
Swenson told NBC News that the former manager's claim is "categorically false."
"We have been crystal clear that we do not want a single person under the age of 18 working for the company," Swenson said. "We have trained and retrained our hiring employees on how to actively spot identity theft — as part of our extensive efforts to enforce this absolute prohibition against employing anyone under the age of 18."
Although they've denied the former manager's claim, PSSI paid the Department of Labor over $1 million — $15,138 for each of its alleged 102 minor workers — in civil money penalties, Insider reported Saturday.
The DOL filed an official complaint against PSSI in November after a three-month investigation by its Wages and Hour Division, per an official news release. In its filing, the department accused the company of employing at least 102 children ages 13 to 17 in "hazardous occupations."
According to the DOL, the minors were tasked with cleaning power equipment, such as bone and meat saws, during overnight shifts, and many suffered injuries on the job. Officials allege the violations occurred at 13 meat processing facilities in eight states.
"Our investigation found Packers Sanitation Services' systems flagged some young workers as minors, but the company ignored the flags," Wage and Hour regional administrator Michael Lazzeri wrote in a statement.
Lazzeri continued: "When the Wage and Hour Division arrived with warrants, the adults – who had recruited, hired and supervised these children – tried to derail our efforts to investigate their employment practices."
In a statement to Insider, Swenson asserted that PSSI was cooperating with the DOL and even "terminated two local managers cited in DOL's filing as allegedly impeding their investigation."