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.
  • Omgboom@lemmy.zip
    11·
    9 months ago

    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.

    • SeaJ@lemm.ee
      5·
      9 months ago

      FTA:

      Most of the children are from Guatemala.

      So yes, just are migrant children.

    • FenrirIII@lemmy.world
      4·
      9 months ago

      If we actually arrested and punished the people employing illegal immigrants we’d see some change.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        21·
        9 months ago

        Why would Republicans do that when they can just arrest and punish the immigrants themselves- if they don’t die first?

        You know what happens when these companies end up killing children? They get a fine. And not even a very big fine.

  • TechNerdWizard42@lemmy.world
    5·
    9 months ago

    Well somebody has to do it. And since they aren’t down in the coal mines anymore at least it’s a surface job… Darn soft kids of the iPad generation, nobody wants to work anymore…

    /s

    • inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world
      9·
      9 months ago

      Animals are killed in a way that’s efficient and profitable, not in a way that minimizes suffering. You should sit down and watch Earthlings sometime. Meat is the largest industry in the world, but most people intentionally ignore how it operates.

    • prole@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      9·
      9 months ago

      States with Republican legislatures have been rolling back child labor protections for years now.

        • crusa187@lemmy.ml
          3·
          9 months ago

          This is a contemporary battle for conservatives in the states, so the landscape is changing as we speak.

          However, yes, in both Iowa and Arkansas, it is now legal for children as young as 14 to work in these meat packing plants. Children as young as 16 are serving alcohol in restaurants in those states now too. And, legislators in those and other red states are now pushing to lower that age threshold to as little as 10 or 12 y/o.

          • Nakedmole@lemmy.world
            3·
            9 months ago

            That is seriously fucked up! I can´t believe this is happening in a developed country that considers itself a lighthouse of freedom and democracy in the world.

            • crusa187@lemmy.ml
              3·
              9 months ago

              Yeah well, it’s a race to the bottom for conservatives, and neoliberals are following them the whole way down. This isn’t unique to America however, fascists are making a push across the globe now.

              But yeah, considering the promise of America, it is especially tragic how brutal this country treats its own citizens.

              • Nakedmole@lemmy.world
                1·
                9 months ago

                fascists are making a push across the globe now

                Yes, I too wrote that somewhere else a few days ago, fuck!

  • XTornado@lemmy.ml
    4·
    9 months ago

    I read it like 3 times as “mirrors” and I was like what? What does this mean?..

    Man… I should not reddit lemmy in the early morning.

    • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
      61·
      9 months ago

      Do you want to know how the problem isn’t the parents, but instead it is corporate greed?

      I’m not even a lefty and I can see where the problem actually is.

    • SeaJ@lemm.ee
      21·
      9 months ago

      Most of these children are migrants who were likely sent across the border by themselves and live with distant relatives and/or shady people who want them to pay for their room and board.