More Than 100 Children Illegally Employed by Packers Sanitation Services

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Labor Department says one of the country’s largest cleaning services for food processing companies, Packers Sanitation Services, employed more than 100 children in dangerous jobs.

The department says the children worked at 13 meatpacking plants across the country.

Department officials searched three meatpacking plants that are owned by JBS USA and Turkey Valley Farms in Nebraska and Minnesota.

It says they found 31 underage workers, with some as young as 13.

Department officials say over the past three years, children were found to be working with caustic cleaning chemicals, and cleaning dangerous power-driven equipment, including razor-sharp bone saws.

The cleaning company is being hit with more than $1.5 million in fines.