Federal labor investigators are demanding an L.A.-area poultry company forfeit money they said it made by employing minors in dangerous jobs.
At least two minors had been working in “oppressive” conditions, deboning raw poultry with sharp knives at a poultry processing plant in Irwindale, the U.S. Department of Labor alleged in a lawsuit filed Saturday.
The department also alleged the owner of the processing plant, Fu Qian Chen Lu — and owners of two other associated companies — illegally shipped poultry products that had been handled by children workers, violating the “hot goods” provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act. That provision prohibits companies from shipping products that come from locations where government investigators observed child labor in the prior 30 days.
“Instead of being in school, children younger than 18 years old stand on their feet all day in a chilled cutting room surrounded by raw chicken, using knives they must constantly sharpen, to cut and debone chicken,” attorneys for the labor department wrote in court documents.
The lawsuit says Chen Lu also prevented department investigators from accessing information they needed to determine if the company violated labor laws, according to the lawsuit.
On Monday a federal judge in Los Angeles issued a temporary restraining order against the defendants and their companies, ordering them to stop using child labor, to not ship any products from facilities accused of using child labor, and to provide requested information to the labor department.
Dueling child labor allegations
A lawyer representing Chen Lu and the other defendants accused the labor…
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