A company that the Labor Department says used more than 100 children to clean slaughterhouses hired the same child twice under different names, an internal company document shows.
A June 2021 disciplinary report reviewed by NBC News shows that Packers Sanitation Services Inc. disciplined an employee who hired the same “known minor” twice in six months under two different identities.
The employee who did the hiring was demoted and suspended for three days and required to undergo a “hiring policy review,” according to the document.
The employee did not respond to a request for comment. PSSI spokesperson Gina Swenson said the employee “has been on a leave for personal reasons and is not currently actively working for the company.”
Wisconsin-based PSSI, which is owned by the investment management company Blackstone, was cited by the U.S. Labor Department on Friday for “systemic” child labor violations that indicated “a corporate-wide failure” stretching across 13 locations in eight states.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations division continues to investigate whether the children, largely undocumented migrants, were part of a human trafficking scheme, DHS officials said. PSSI is not a target of that investigation and has not been accused of wrongdoing by DHS.
A former manager for PSSI, who asked that NBC News not disclose their identity, said seeing children working for the company made them “sick.” They said that they were not surprised by the Labor Department’s findings — they were surprised only that it took the Labor Department so long to discover the underage workers.
“There are things happening in the plant that adults aren’t comfortable seeing,” they said. “You can’t walk through [the plant] without getting animal parts on you or blood all over you.”
Shannon Rebolledo, a 17-year veteran of the Labor Department who led the investigation into PSSI’s use of child labor, said that…
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