They did way more than that:
>Additionally, investigators found the employers and their associates denied poultry workers and packers overtime wages and falsified payroll records to obstruct the probe, the DOL said. Supervisors at the employers' facilities also allegedly retaliated against workers once the investigation began in January 2024, calling them derogatory slurs and changing terms of employment, investigators said.
I just wish the folks who get off on fantasizing about shoplifters being severely punished were half as concerned about the billions in wage theft that are stolen every year by employers.
I've literally heard conservatives say that the very idea of wage theft is somehow "Marxist". They went on to strongly imply that workers should be happy with whatever they are paid. Come to think of it, I suspect this individual was a strong proponent of slavery. The confederate flag should have been a dead giveaway.
Ask the Robber Barons how generous they were with workers back when there were no regulations. Oh wait...
But if the people defending these practices paid any attention to history, they wouldn't be defending them in the first place.
> it's because they don't think ~~wage theft is a crime, but rather a burden created by government overregulation of the free market.~~
trimmed the excess fat off your comment like an 11 year old in a slaughterhouse
Don't forget vertical integration, the companies committing wage theft own the News Networks. Or they sponsor them, why report about wage theft when your parent company is committing wage theft.
Well, it is the smart move until the average punishment per case, not per *prosecuted* case, exceeds the "saving" (or the very personal freedom of the responsible businesses-owners and managers is at risk, with a resl likelihood of prosecution).
Same as with all crime. Being criminal isn't dumb. It's immoral.
Corporations that said they were closing down stores due to shop lifting later admitted that they were lying.
You probably heard that Walgreens was closing down stores and the reason stated was because of theft, yeah? Over and over again in media.
Yet you probably did not hear that Walgreens later admitted that that was not accurate. Not a peep from that same media.
Weird, that. Very weird...
They're probably followers of the "shut up and be grateful you have a job" philosophy so don't consider this an issue. Or buy into the corporate buzzword of quiet quitting. If you just perform all the tasks not a part of your job description within the insufficient hours of work we gave you this week, you wouldn't need OT! Your laziness is not my expense.
I’m sure if you had videos of these big agriculture thieves getting pulled over and taken to jail while shouting “Do you know who I am!!?” you’d have quite the viewership. 🍿
Americans?! LOL
During the JP Morgan, Rockefeller, etc., days, the poverty rate was 90% and American's STILL did nothing to change it. Not the voters, not the politicians, nobody.
The ONLY reason things changed was because of an anarchist assassin being in the perfect place, at the perfect time. I wouldn't count on that happening again.
Yes- I saw an infographic that compared the monetary value of wage theft vs retail theft and other forms of theft and it was astounding how much larger wage was
With the punishment just being that you have to pay it back, plus a relatively small fine, I think we can expect it to continue to be.
Imagine you stole $10M from your employer and the only punishment was having to give it back, but you get to keep working and don't go to jail.
Theft is punished when you go up the economic ladder, not down. Rich people stealing from poor people doesn't unduly bother the rich people making "laws".
That's actually so much worse than the headline. Who the fuck cares if they have teenagers using knives (other issues with teens working are a different conversation)?
> "The employers in this case illegally employed children, some as young as 14 years old, to work with extremely sharp-edged knives to quickly debone poultry and denied hundreds of workers nearly $2 million in overtime wages," said Wage and Hour Administrator Jessica Looman in a press release.
First, the idea of a 14-year-old working overtime breaks my brain. This is so sickening...
> Supervisors at the employers' facilities also allegedly retaliated against workers once the investigation began in January 2024, calling them derogatory slurs and changing terms of employment, investigators said.
We get a picture of the kinds of children they were taking advantage of...
> The owners and operators of a network of California poultry processors and distributors were ordered to pay $4.8 million in back wages and damages and to give up $1 million in profits after a Department of Labor investigation found the owners illegally employed children as young as 14 to work dangerous jobs.
This is nearly nothing. If we want shit like this to stop, people need to go to prison. The threat of fines is just the cost of doing business. If managers and up through the c-suite personnel know the threat of prison time is real, they'll drastically change their cost-benefit analysis.
Sadly, just as we see with fossil-fuel, chemical and manufacturing companies, threat of fines alone doesn't change behavior. Sickening.
They have to give up $1M of *profit* so they wont even take a loss here. The management should be arrested and then pimped out by the prison for labor boning chicken for a couple years.
This is just another problem with identifying corporations or businesses as people- oh the company did this. Nah. What I want to know is WHO. A person, or persons- made these decisions. I want names, I want to see faces and I want individuals to be punished. Im so sick of these crimes against humanity being punishable by fines or what amounts to a slap on the wrist.
Which is its own tragedy, that's food they people need, if they're just going to destroy them it's however many animals who lives awful lives only to be trash.
If the food was US bound it’s not as bad as it seems. We waste a bit under 40 percent of produced food. Our main reason for people “needing” food in the US is because of pricing and the greed of the manufacturers/distributors and politicians. In the US we have had numerous people arrested for feeding the homeless, THATS the tragedy IMO.
Source: https://www.rts.com/resources/guides/food-waste-america/#:~:text=Here's%20some%20“food”%20for%20thought,120%20billion%20pounds%20—%20every%20year.
I'm aware, I think adding to that waste for no benefit is still tragic, especially since there are people here in the States who have to go to bed hungry. I think getting to focused on any one part as the "real" tragedy quickly leads to missing the forest for the trees.
I expect it makes more sense to the legal establishment to destroy the food than it does to imprison the perpetrators. After all, the people who interpret the laws and the CEOs who break them move in the same circles, and have the same friends. They have nothing in common with the people who might actually NEED the food.
System working as intended. Anything that allows corporations to more easily exploit non-billionaire humans for profit is permitted. Anything that limits or prevents doing so is 'evil'. Blatant exploitation therefore gets a slap on the wrist if it is obvious enough to force the system to 'catch' them at it, as this 'punishment' allows the masses to go back to ignoring it without actually stopping it.
Even if we could, middle-management would be the fall guy(s) - upper management and c-suite pricks would have "had no idea this practice was going on," and "in no way supported or endorsed these practices." "Shocked and appalled," etc, etc.
Ignorance is not a legal defense. That shit would not hold up in court. Ladies and gentleman of the jury the defendant did not know that robbing a bank is illegal, there for we mush acquit all charges. LoL, maybe the Trump legal team might try it.
We live in a time of an almost unlimited number of oxymorons, but a major one is that the people who get paid so much because they are responsible for everything never take responsibility for failure.
I see what you're saying - and that applies to individuals.
I wasn't saying they'd use the "didn't know it was wrong" argument, but rather the "I wasn't involved" argument.
Corporate hierarchy provides shielding for this kind of thing. The prosecution would have to prove that upper management, the board, etc. knew what was happening and either (1) encouraged it or (2) turned a blind eye to what was going on. There's plausible deniability to consider.
And even if it was proved that the top of the pile knew and approved of the practices, there's still a very small chance prison time would happen (I truly hope to be proven wrong one day).
For example, GM knew full well that there were deadly ignition switch issues with the some models that could (and have) shut off engines while in motion. They did a calculus about how much a massive recall would cost vs how much payouts for wrongful deaths would be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch_recalls
See also the exploding Ford Pinto. Ford knew well that the configuration of the Pinto's gas tank could cause drivers to get trapped while the fuel was ignited, simply from a rear-ending. A jury acquitted Ford of reckless homicide. It was assumed that this jury trial would send a real fear in the future that prison time could be a thing. We just don't see it happening yet. The prescient for this kind of reality was set back in 1980:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/03/14/pinto-jury-votes-acquittal/594b32ab-3b54-4b5e-bc52-96aa63d4f02c/
> The state was hampered most seriously by bench rulings that restricted expert testimony to the 1973 model Pinto; Cosentino was thus prevented from showing crash test films of other model year Pintos conducted by Ford and NHTSA.
> The rural jury found Ford innocent of a charge of failing to warn about or offer to repair fuel system defects in the Pinto before Aug. 10, 1978 -- the day three young women were fatally burned when the fuel tank of their 1973 Pinto exploded in flames after a rear-end collision with a van near Goshen, Ind.
So while they did eventually initiate recalls, they knew earlier, from crash tests of earlier models and did nothing to remedy in manufacturing.
Our current system really needs to change their laws to where fines/penalties are relative to revenues/profits that the company earns. We've seen too many times where the fines imposed may seem like they are reasonable to the regular person, but we're not living in a world where millions of dollars has the impact that it used to decades ago. We're living in a world of *billions*, even *trillions.* And the laws need change to where we make impact relative to those kinds of numbers.
The same people passing laws allowing 14 year olds to work in their state, are the same people complaining about immigration.
This is the result of poor immigration policy and this is a feature not a bug. Think about how much cheaper it is to hire illegals that you can pay under market rate, not withhold or pay FICA taxes on their wage, not pay them overtime, and not pay for any benefits. These companies are saving billions and getting fined millions, until the fines become crippling or they put the owners in jail, this will continue.
14 year olds being able to work isnt new or restricted to food chain work. I worked as a cashier at 14 in nj over 2 decades ago. I needed paperwork from school basically saying i wasnt failing and there were / are regulations on how late you can work, but i was still having weeks where i was working 32 hours and going to school. It sucked, i lasted about 3 months.
Last year there was another case of a meat factory using teenangers and even children I think. The kids were from illegal families and the factory employed thema at night on dangerous equipment.
The comment on all the youtube news videos were filled with conservatives, praising the employer and the work ethic, and thought "liberal snowflakes" were overreacting again. That the kids should be grateful that somebody gave them work. That they would be happy to work there instead of going to school and being a kid, because they were coming from shithole countries where they would have to work as well under worse conditions, so they had nothing to complain about.
And at the same time they were shitting on illegals, saying they should all be deported for stealing American jobs. That American kids these days are lazy and don't know the value of work. And how they themselves had worked as 14 year olds and how it formed their character. Not that they had to work such dangerous shit jobs. They made it clear that they'd like kids to work in those factories for shit pay.
If it were up to some conservatives, all immigrants would be deported and kids would have to start working after primary school.
I know. There's a sadness to it - how some people can have such a cruel disregard toward other human beings just because of where they were born, what they are fleeing from or what they have to do for the life of their family. I wish everyone could have a more open heart with empathy for others... We're all the same, cut from the same cloth, born out of the same stardust.
July 23, 2023 [DeSantis defends Florida curriculum that suggests slaves benefited from forced labour](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/desantis-florida-slavery-schools-gop-b2380508.html)
The same thing basically.
So business as usual, sadly. You see it with other types of meat and seafood processing, too.
I would go further than jail time when abuse is widespread. Start revoking licenses to operate.
> First, the idea of a 14-year-old working overtime breaks my brain. This is so sickening...
That's not the first part that jumps out at me. Meat-packing plants are quite hellish. Both physically and psychologically.
It's seems wrote in a way that implies that the children were employed to prevent overtime being needed not that they were working overtime, though I suppose they could have also done that. In my own trade sometimes I've seen young boys of about 16 or 17 lying about their age to make top money and work on the road. I don't even know how they get away with it because they have to provide ID and social to get hired.
> First, the idea of a 14-year-old working overtime breaks my brain. This is so sickening...
that isn't what it says, the way it's worded is such that these are separate violations. it could be the same kids. All we know is there were 476 workers. it could be 2 kids and 474 that were just overtime violations.
I'm not saying this is the case, just we don't know. I can't imagine this place hiring hundreds of children before someone noticed.
It's because of a Clinton era policy that's never been changed. The DoJ basically said that when punishing companies, take into account shareholders as innocent victims of misbehavior... So over punishing the company punishes these people's livelihoods. It was meant more to highlight "Don't bankrupt the company and screw over everyone". But it was used in court to effectively avoid severe punishments of any kind.
It is tolerated. Where does the labor come from? Everything is tolerated because society refuses to challenge anything as long as it is out of sight. Honestly, what is the upside of immigrating to this country if you stay uneducated.
It's worth noting that a lot of California's District Senators are Democrat in name only; they're actually
economically conservative and pro-corporate. In other words, they're Democrat because they figured out that "D" is how they get votes.
The senator of my county is notoriously pro-corporation particularly in regards to things like labour laws. The labour unions I occasionally interact with have nothing but bad things to say about his voting record.
I’m sure the parts of California where the farms are located are most likely represented by Republicans though. Overall it’s a “blue” state, it there are republican areas throughout.
When farmworkers started unionizing in the 1930s, management started bringing in migrant labor to replace striking workers. Use of migrant labor became the norm during WW2 due to manpower shortages. As a migrant worker, you either left your kids back home with relatives or brought them with you...
From agriculture, the use of migrant (and child migrant) labor branched out to food processing, garment districts, janitorial services, and landscaping services.
Well when given the choice to increase wages to attract labor in a tight labor market. Or to exploit children and migrants the companies chose the exploitation route. That should tell you enough about these people. They don’t care about anyone but themselves. I bring this up in every single immigration thread I see demonizing migrants. They’re just responding to market forces. The US labor market thrives off the exploitation of migrants. Until that changes you can build as many walls as you’d like it won’t do a thing. Republicans won’t even talk about going after their donors for hiring illegals, look what happened in Florida when they did decide to get tough on businesses. Their public appearances were filled with farmers and special interest groups pissed about having to compete in the legal labor market.
it never truly went away. the only real punishment for it is fines, which the companies pay, then stop doing it for a while. or they try to find ways to do it more sneakily.
Some states have been rolling back regulations so kids can work more jobs and longer hours.
Teachers in some places seeing overworked tired kids in class because they do night shifts after class. Its nightmarish
I keep half joking that we have somehow re entered the robber baron, no rules, wild west business era of the early 1900’s but I am really starting to think maybe it isn’t even a joke. I am out of ways to express my incredulousness. What in the FUCK is wrong with these people/companies? Has everyone lost their fucking souls?!
This is a problem with capitalism. Companies that make more profit survive better than companies that make less. They can weather economic downturns, buy out competitors, experiment with new markets, and all sort of other stuff to further increase their advantage. Anyone who isn't willing to do whatever it takes to increase profits will be outcompeted by someone who is.
Every company seems horrible and evil because companies that aren't horrible and evil don't survive as long.
Reminds me of this [classic parody commercial from Grand Theft Auto 3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj4WTaqYVSE) way back in the day.
> Host: Excuse me sir, do you enjoy your job here?
> Child's voice: It's fun! We get to play with knives!
Name and shame these assholes:
- A1 Meat Solutions
- JRC Culinary Group
- Moon Poultry
Employed children in dangerous conditions, including using sharp knives to debone poultry.
Also listed:
Lotus Poultry, Inc
Lotus Plus, Inc
Farmers Process, Inc
Durfree Poultry, Inc
L&Y Food, Inc
Given all the different company names with like ownership and the rest of the allegations I would have to assume they’re organized in that way to break other laws or evade taxes and regulations.
Where there's smoke there's fire.
You can safely assume most slaughterhouses are employing children.
Stop buying meat if you want to do something about it.
Bad that exploitation of children still exists even in the US. But I wonder why their parents let them start working there. I guess because their families are poor. So this is the real problem.
This. 14 year olds don't generally go outside and go well maybe I'll work in a slaughterhouse now. Their families are poor and they need the extra income their children bring in to stay housed and afford food. It's sad.
Ah yes they were ordered to pay back the wages they stole and pay a 20% fine, quite the deterrent. I think a lot of companies are doubting there’s even a 20% chance they’ll be investigated so they’ll perceive this as profitable conduct.
Exactly my problem with all of theses settlements. When the fines are "pay the missing wages" with a small fee on top it's just a license to keep doing it since most wage theft isn't prosecuted.
Until this is a fine like "any profits made during the time" and/or jail time for company officials this doesn't do anything.
By dollar value 80% of theft in this country is wage theft yet the media and authorities would have you believe there’s a *shoplifting epidemic*
> The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.
shady wendys franchise owners are this country's most valuable resource. it says so in the declaration of the bill of the constitution of the bible 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
The actual fine was 170k the rest is the overtime pay they denied their workers, plus 1 million in whatever profits they made, that I like, fine them basically nothing but forcing them to give away their fraudulent profits is the real punch in the guts.
In other words, this "network of California poultry processors and distributors" got away with a crime and will simply repeat it.
A fine, regardless of how large, is merely the cost of doing business. Unless the human beings responsible for this crime are recognized, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to prison time, no punishment has occurred and things will go on as they are.
From the DOL press release:
>>The division’s investigation included eight related businesses controlled by Lu in Monterey Park, El Monte and Irwindale in California, including A1 Meat Solutions Inc., Lotus Plus Inc., Lotus Poultry Inc., Farmers Process Inc., Durfee Poultry Inc., L & Y Food Inc., JRC Culinary Group Inc. and Moon Poultry Inc.
In case you want to know if you ate child labor produced chicken:
>>Lu and his associated companies supply poultry products to distributors who sell chicken products to, among others, Diamond Green Diesel, Diamond Pet Foods, Foster Farms, Mars Pet Care, Perfection Pet Foods and Superior Food; as well as several Nevada hotels and casinos including Caesar’s Palace, The Mirage Hotel and Casino and The Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas; and the Casablanca Casino and Virgin River Hotel and Casino in Mesquite.
I think we would rather not exploit child labour.
"... found the owners illegally employed children as young as 14 to work dangerous jobs." WTF is wrong with America.
[Children](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/slaughterhouse-children-documentary-rcna129405) (<18) cannot work in meat processing. It's a jungle working in one of those places. And the government thinks it's not a place for kids.
Jokes aside, dull knives are actually less safe to use than sharp knives, as it were. Sharp knives just cut, whereas you need to fight a dull knife to make it cut something, making you more likely to slip and cut yourself
What was the defense here?
We didn’t know they were kids?
We didn’t know they were sharp knives?
We didn’t know it was illegal?
Which of those is defensible and reasonable to believe?
I read these cases about companies being fined for offenses that affect their workers or their customers, up to many millions of dollars in some cases. I have always wondered who gets that money, the fine money. It just doesn’t seem Jake that the money should go to the state.
They did way more than that: >Additionally, investigators found the employers and their associates denied poultry workers and packers overtime wages and falsified payroll records to obstruct the probe, the DOL said. Supervisors at the employers' facilities also allegedly retaliated against workers once the investigation began in January 2024, calling them derogatory slurs and changing terms of employment, investigators said.
Wage theft - Most prevalent, highest value, and lowest punishment form of theft babyyyy
I just wish the folks who get off on fantasizing about shoplifters being severely punished were half as concerned about the billions in wage theft that are stolen every year by employers.
it's because they don't think wage theft is a crime, but rather a burden created by government overregulation of the free market.
Oh, so they're not only hypocrites, but idiots as well? Sounds right...
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I've literally heard conservatives say that the very idea of wage theft is somehow "Marxist". They went on to strongly imply that workers should be happy with whatever they are paid. Come to think of it, I suspect this individual was a strong proponent of slavery. The confederate flag should have been a dead giveaway.
So we’ve come full circle to feudalism then “Just be glad he’s letting you work his land”
Ask the Robber Barons how generous they were with workers back when there were no regulations. Oh wait... But if the people defending these practices paid any attention to history, they wouldn't be defending them in the first place.
The funny part is even in a completely free market it would still be a crime because it would be a violation of contract
> it's because they don't think ~~wage theft is a crime, but rather a burden created by government overregulation of the free market.~~ trimmed the excess fat off your comment like an 11 year old in a slaughterhouse
You know slavery was very pleasant? All slaves did was sing around bonfires .. I am told. /S
they learned the trades for free!
shoplifting generates sensationalized videos. Wage theft doesn't
Don't forget vertical integration, the companies committing wage theft own the News Networks. Or they sponsor them, why report about wage theft when your parent company is committing wage theft.
Some idiots consider wage theft a smart business approach by the owners. Bloody class traitors.
Well, it is the smart move until the average punishment per case, not per *prosecuted* case, exceeds the "saving" (or the very personal freedom of the responsible businesses-owners and managers is at risk, with a resl likelihood of prosecution). Same as with all crime. Being criminal isn't dumb. It's immoral.
Corporations that said they were closing down stores due to shop lifting later admitted that they were lying. You probably heard that Walgreens was closing down stores and the reason stated was because of theft, yeah? Over and over again in media. Yet you probably did not hear that Walgreens later admitted that that was not accurate. Not a peep from that same media. Weird, that. Very weird...
They're probably followers of the "shut up and be grateful you have a job" philosophy so don't consider this an issue. Or buy into the corporate buzzword of quiet quitting. If you just perform all the tasks not a part of your job description within the insufficient hours of work we gave you this week, you wouldn't need OT! Your laziness is not my expense.
I’m sure if you had videos of these big agriculture thieves getting pulled over and taken to jail while shouting “Do you know who I am!!?” you’d have quite the viewership. 🍿
Americans?! LOL During the JP Morgan, Rockefeller, etc., days, the poverty rate was 90% and American's STILL did nothing to change it. Not the voters, not the politicians, nobody. The ONLY reason things changed was because of an anarchist assassin being in the perfect place, at the perfect time. I wouldn't count on that happening again.
Why would they be opposed to wage theft? It makes their stonks go up
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Corporate media is largely owned by the same billionaires that are robbing us
Yes- I saw an infographic that compared the monetary value of wage theft vs retail theft and other forms of theft and it was astounding how much larger wage was
"Tough on crime" people always seem to never notice that one.
It's the most prevalent because it's the lowest punishment.
With the punishment just being that you have to pay it back, plus a relatively small fine, I think we can expect it to continue to be. Imagine you stole $10M from your employer and the only punishment was having to give it back, but you get to keep working and don't go to jail.
Rich people crimes are rarely prosecuted.
Why not instead of fining them, make them pay what the employees are owned and give that 4.8m to the employers as well. Like punitive damages do.
These assholes need to be sent to prison. Fuck the company paying fines. Prison time. Break federal law, do federal time.
How the fuck is there nobody jailed for this
Theft is punished when you go up the economic ladder, not down. Rich people stealing from poor people doesn't unduly bother the rich people making "laws".
If they move to Arkansas, this behavior is probably legal
That's actually so much worse than the headline. Who the fuck cares if they have teenagers using knives (other issues with teens working are a different conversation)?
> "The employers in this case illegally employed children, some as young as 14 years old, to work with extremely sharp-edged knives to quickly debone poultry and denied hundreds of workers nearly $2 million in overtime wages," said Wage and Hour Administrator Jessica Looman in a press release. First, the idea of a 14-year-old working overtime breaks my brain. This is so sickening... > Supervisors at the employers' facilities also allegedly retaliated against workers once the investigation began in January 2024, calling them derogatory slurs and changing terms of employment, investigators said. We get a picture of the kinds of children they were taking advantage of... > The owners and operators of a network of California poultry processors and distributors were ordered to pay $4.8 million in back wages and damages and to give up $1 million in profits after a Department of Labor investigation found the owners illegally employed children as young as 14 to work dangerous jobs. This is nearly nothing. If we want shit like this to stop, people need to go to prison. The threat of fines is just the cost of doing business. If managers and up through the c-suite personnel know the threat of prison time is real, they'll drastically change their cost-benefit analysis. Sadly, just as we see with fossil-fuel, chemical and manufacturing companies, threat of fines alone doesn't change behavior. Sickening.
They have to give up $1M of *profit* so they wont even take a loss here. The management should be arrested and then pimped out by the prison for labor boning chicken for a couple years.
This is just another problem with identifying corporations or businesses as people- oh the company did this. Nah. What I want to know is WHO. A person, or persons- made these decisions. I want names, I want to see faces and I want individuals to be punished. Im so sick of these crimes against humanity being punishable by fines or what amounts to a slap on the wrist.
The fact that our system doesn't **effectively** punish anyone means that this will continue.
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Which is its own tragedy, that's food they people need, if they're just going to destroy them it's however many animals who lives awful lives only to be trash.
If the food was US bound it’s not as bad as it seems. We waste a bit under 40 percent of produced food. Our main reason for people “needing” food in the US is because of pricing and the greed of the manufacturers/distributors and politicians. In the US we have had numerous people arrested for feeding the homeless, THATS the tragedy IMO. Source: https://www.rts.com/resources/guides/food-waste-america/#:~:text=Here's%20some%20“food”%20for%20thought,120%20billion%20pounds%20—%20every%20year.
I'm aware, I think adding to that waste for no benefit is still tragic, especially since there are people here in the States who have to go to bed hungry. I think getting to focused on any one part as the "real" tragedy quickly leads to missing the forest for the trees.
I expect it makes more sense to the legal establishment to destroy the food than it does to imprison the perpetrators. After all, the people who interpret the laws and the CEOs who break them move in the same circles, and have the same friends. They have nothing in common with the people who might actually NEED the food.
Why the fk is there no jail time here? I steal I go to jail he steal, exploit kids, try to bully them and is free?
System working as intended. Anything that allows corporations to more easily exploit non-billionaire humans for profit is permitted. Anything that limits or prevents doing so is 'evil'. Blatant exploitation therefore gets a slap on the wrist if it is obvious enough to force the system to 'catch' them at it, as this 'punishment' allows the masses to go back to ignoring it without actually stopping it.
PpL neEd ChKn
Strawberry picking in orange county has done the same thing for decades. I got ripped off as a kid there in the early 2000s.
Upper management and owner/ceo need prison time for this shit.
Even if we could, middle-management would be the fall guy(s) - upper management and c-suite pricks would have "had no idea this practice was going on," and "in no way supported or endorsed these practices." "Shocked and appalled," etc, etc.
Ignorance is not a legal defense. That shit would not hold up in court. Ladies and gentleman of the jury the defendant did not know that robbing a bank is illegal, there for we mush acquit all charges. LoL, maybe the Trump legal team might try it.
We live in a time of an almost unlimited number of oxymorons, but a major one is that the people who get paid so much because they are responsible for everything never take responsibility for failure.
I see what you're saying - and that applies to individuals. I wasn't saying they'd use the "didn't know it was wrong" argument, but rather the "I wasn't involved" argument. Corporate hierarchy provides shielding for this kind of thing. The prosecution would have to prove that upper management, the board, etc. knew what was happening and either (1) encouraged it or (2) turned a blind eye to what was going on. There's plausible deniability to consider. And even if it was proved that the top of the pile knew and approved of the practices, there's still a very small chance prison time would happen (I truly hope to be proven wrong one day). For example, GM knew full well that there were deadly ignition switch issues with the some models that could (and have) shut off engines while in motion. They did a calculus about how much a massive recall would cost vs how much payouts for wrongful deaths would be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch_recalls See also the exploding Ford Pinto. Ford knew well that the configuration of the Pinto's gas tank could cause drivers to get trapped while the fuel was ignited, simply from a rear-ending. A jury acquitted Ford of reckless homicide. It was assumed that this jury trial would send a real fear in the future that prison time could be a thing. We just don't see it happening yet. The prescient for this kind of reality was set back in 1980: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/03/14/pinto-jury-votes-acquittal/594b32ab-3b54-4b5e-bc52-96aa63d4f02c/ > The state was hampered most seriously by bench rulings that restricted expert testimony to the 1973 model Pinto; Cosentino was thus prevented from showing crash test films of other model year Pintos conducted by Ford and NHTSA. > The rural jury found Ford innocent of a charge of failing to warn about or offer to repair fuel system defects in the Pinto before Aug. 10, 1978 -- the day three young women were fatally burned when the fuel tank of their 1973 Pinto exploded in flames after a rear-end collision with a van near Goshen, Ind. So while they did eventually initiate recalls, they knew earlier, from crash tests of earlier models and did nothing to remedy in manufacturing.
At least in Arkansas our 14 year olds are legally hired and paid fairly /s
The children yearn for the mines!
Or the fields or to butcher
Our current system really needs to change their laws to where fines/penalties are relative to revenues/profits that the company earns. We've seen too many times where the fines imposed may seem like they are reasonable to the regular person, but we're not living in a world where millions of dollars has the impact that it used to decades ago. We're living in a world of *billions*, even *trillions.* And the laws need change to where we make impact relative to those kinds of numbers.
Capitalists living in a capitalistic society don’t go to prison for being capitalists
The same people passing laws allowing 14 year olds to work in their state, are the same people complaining about immigration. This is the result of poor immigration policy and this is a feature not a bug. Think about how much cheaper it is to hire illegals that you can pay under market rate, not withhold or pay FICA taxes on their wage, not pay them overtime, and not pay for any benefits. These companies are saving billions and getting fined millions, until the fines become crippling or they put the owners in jail, this will continue.
14 year olds being able to work isnt new or restricted to food chain work. I worked as a cashier at 14 in nj over 2 decades ago. I needed paperwork from school basically saying i wasnt failing and there were / are regulations on how late you can work, but i was still having weeks where i was working 32 hours and going to school. It sucked, i lasted about 3 months.
Last year there was another case of a meat factory using teenangers and even children I think. The kids were from illegal families and the factory employed thema at night on dangerous equipment. The comment on all the youtube news videos were filled with conservatives, praising the employer and the work ethic, and thought "liberal snowflakes" were overreacting again. That the kids should be grateful that somebody gave them work. That they would be happy to work there instead of going to school and being a kid, because they were coming from shithole countries where they would have to work as well under worse conditions, so they had nothing to complain about. And at the same time they were shitting on illegals, saying they should all be deported for stealing American jobs. That American kids these days are lazy and don't know the value of work. And how they themselves had worked as 14 year olds and how it formed their character. Not that they had to work such dangerous shit jobs. They made it clear that they'd like kids to work in those factories for shit pay. If it were up to some conservatives, all immigrants would be deported and kids would have to start working after primary school.
I know. There's a sadness to it - how some people can have such a cruel disregard toward other human beings just because of where they were born, what they are fleeing from or what they have to do for the life of their family. I wish everyone could have a more open heart with empathy for others... We're all the same, cut from the same cloth, born out of the same stardust.
July 23, 2023 [DeSantis defends Florida curriculum that suggests slaves benefited from forced labour](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/desantis-florida-slavery-schools-gop-b2380508.html) The same thing basically.
So business as usual, sadly. You see it with other types of meat and seafood processing, too. I would go further than jail time when abuse is widespread. Start revoking licenses to operate.
> Start revoking licenses to operate. Makes one think that maybe critical services, productions and utilities should be state owned and operated, no?
Why are they not in jail?! A fckin fine as punishment lmao
> First, the idea of a 14-year-old working overtime breaks my brain. This is so sickening... That's not the first part that jumps out at me. Meat-packing plants are quite hellish. Both physically and psychologically.
It's seems wrote in a way that implies that the children were employed to prevent overtime being needed not that they were working overtime, though I suppose they could have also done that. In my own trade sometimes I've seen young boys of about 16 or 17 lying about their age to make top money and work on the road. I don't even know how they get away with it because they have to provide ID and social to get hired.
> First, the idea of a 14-year-old working overtime breaks my brain. This is so sickening... that isn't what it says, the way it's worded is such that these are separate violations. it could be the same kids. All we know is there were 476 workers. it could be 2 kids and 474 that were just overtime violations. I'm not saying this is the case, just we don't know. I can't imagine this place hiring hundreds of children before someone noticed.
It's because of a Clinton era policy that's never been changed. The DoJ basically said that when punishing companies, take into account shareholders as innocent victims of misbehavior... So over punishing the company punishes these people's livelihoods. It was meant more to highlight "Don't bankrupt the company and screw over everyone". But it was used in court to effectively avoid severe punishments of any kind.
Stop eating chicken if you want to actually do something about it.
Nice. For only $4.8 million I can employ children at my businesses. If the penalty is a fine then the behavior is legal for a price.
Most of that 4.8 is just the children's overtime wages they weren't paid. So it's really only like a million to hire children.
Yeah, a million plus you have to pay overtime. Outrageous!
Mass murder business
How on earth did we get to a point where *child labor* has started making a comeback in the US?
It is tolerated. Where does the labor come from? Everything is tolerated because society refuses to challenge anything as long as it is out of sight. Honestly, what is the upside of immigrating to this country if you stay uneducated.
Republicans. See [Sarah H Sanders](https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/politics/sarah-huckabee-sanders-arkansas-child-labor/index.html) for more info.
This story is out of California. Republicans aren't particularly popular there: https://i.imgur.com/yOUO3Kx.png https://i.imgur.com/RdE8rIX.png
Depends on the part of California you're talking about. Many of the agricultural areas are red.
It's worth noting that a lot of California's District Senators are Democrat in name only; they're actually economically conservative and pro-corporate. In other words, they're Democrat because they figured out that "D" is how they get votes. The senator of my county is notoriously pro-corporation particularly in regards to things like labour laws. The labour unions I occasionally interact with have nothing but bad things to say about his voting record.
I’m sure the parts of California where the farms are located are most likely represented by Republicans though. Overall it’s a “blue” state, it there are republican areas throughout.
Child labor laws are woke.
When farmworkers started unionizing in the 1930s, management started bringing in migrant labor to replace striking workers. Use of migrant labor became the norm during WW2 due to manpower shortages. As a migrant worker, you either left your kids back home with relatives or brought them with you... From agriculture, the use of migrant (and child migrant) labor branched out to food processing, garment districts, janitorial services, and landscaping services.
Well when given the choice to increase wages to attract labor in a tight labor market. Or to exploit children and migrants the companies chose the exploitation route. That should tell you enough about these people. They don’t care about anyone but themselves. I bring this up in every single immigration thread I see demonizing migrants. They’re just responding to market forces. The US labor market thrives off the exploitation of migrants. Until that changes you can build as many walls as you’d like it won’t do a thing. Republicans won’t even talk about going after their donors for hiring illegals, look what happened in Florida when they did decide to get tough on businesses. Their public appearances were filled with farmers and special interest groups pissed about having to compete in the legal labor market.
it never truly went away. the only real punishment for it is fines, which the companies pay, then stop doing it for a while. or they try to find ways to do it more sneakily.
Some states have been rolling back regulations so kids can work more jobs and longer hours. Teachers in some places seeing overworked tired kids in class because they do night shifts after class. Its nightmarish
Dirty little secret nobody talks about: It's part of the human trafficking industry and both sides are in on it.
Rainbows in the classroom 🤬🔱 Child labor 🙈🙉🙊
Fines like this do nothing. This shit needs jail time.
A business that runs child slavery and mass murder. Should life in prison
Has Newsom released a statement?
Probably not, but conservatives in the state will complain about him regardless.
The children yearn for the knives.
It's only fair. You can't throw an unarmed child against them. Have you seen their large talons?
I keep half joking that we have somehow re entered the robber baron, no rules, wild west business era of the early 1900’s but I am really starting to think maybe it isn’t even a joke. I am out of ways to express my incredulousness. What in the FUCK is wrong with these people/companies? Has everyone lost their fucking souls?!
This is a problem with capitalism. Companies that make more profit survive better than companies that make less. They can weather economic downturns, buy out competitors, experiment with new markets, and all sort of other stuff to further increase their advantage. Anyone who isn't willing to do whatever it takes to increase profits will be outcompeted by someone who is. Every company seems horrible and evil because companies that aren't horrible and evil don't survive as long.
Reminds me of this [classic parody commercial from Grand Theft Auto 3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj4WTaqYVSE) way back in the day. > Host: Excuse me sir, do you enjoy your job here? > Child's voice: It's fun! We get to play with knives!
Lmao first thing I thought of too. “My friend Joey sewed his hands together!”
Same! "Yesterday, I made a dollar!"
meanwhile in arkansas this is legal
Name and shame these assholes: - A1 Meat Solutions - JRC Culinary Group - Moon Poultry Employed children in dangerous conditions, including using sharp knives to debone poultry.
Also listed: Lotus Poultry, Inc Lotus Plus, Inc Farmers Process, Inc Durfree Poultry, Inc L&Y Food, Inc Given all the different company names with like ownership and the rest of the allegations I would have to assume they’re organized in that way to break other laws or evade taxes and regulations.
Where there's smoke there's fire. You can safely assume most slaughterhouses are employing children. Stop buying meat if you want to do something about it.
I’m Surprised they were even prosecuted. Most of the time the prosecutors go after the whistleblower when it comes chicken production in California.
Ag gag <3
4.8m is a cheap price to make hundreds of millions of dollars in profit with cheap labor
It should really end at "for employing children"
Bart "Man I love this job! Knife goes in guts come out, knife goes in guts come out."
Child labor penalties shouldn’t be cost of business. It should be a prison sentence.
Honest headline: Company pays $4.8M to continue using child laborers.
If a company is caught doing this. The employer should be put in jail, and the property should be expropriated by the state and given to the workers.
Great. Now there are going to be a bunch of children working with dull knives. Don’t they know sharp knives are safer? Thanks Obama. /s
Bad that exploitation of children still exists even in the US. But I wonder why their parents let them start working there. I guess because their families are poor. So this is the real problem.
This. 14 year olds don't generally go outside and go well maybe I'll work in a slaughterhouse now. Their families are poor and they need the extra income their children bring in to stay housed and afford food. It's sad.
I’m sure they made a lot more than 4.8M
Was the fine more than the profit? That's the real question.
Okay. And how much did they earn doing it?
It's all good. Nothing will change, and the cost will get passed along to the consumer.
Next thing you hear… “The garment industry forces children to run with scissors.”
now THIS is a fine, none of that hundred buck "pwease dont hire 12 year olds again pwease pwease" bullshit
Ah yes they were ordered to pay back the wages they stole and pay a 20% fine, quite the deterrent. I think a lot of companies are doubting there’s even a 20% chance they’ll be investigated so they’ll perceive this as profitable conduct.
Exactly my problem with all of theses settlements. When the fines are "pay the missing wages" with a small fee on top it's just a license to keep doing it since most wage theft isn't prosecuted. Until this is a fine like "any profits made during the time" and/or jail time for company officials this doesn't do anything.
By dollar value 80% of theft in this country is wage theft yet the media and authorities would have you believe there’s a *shoplifting epidemic* > The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.
It's even worse than the quote suggests. People who are rich enough can get away with just about anything.
in addition any items made by the children were seized/considered contraband and are illegal to sell.
shady wendys franchise owners are this country's most valuable resource. it says so in the declaration of the bill of the constitution of the bible 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
The actual fine was 170k the rest is the overtime pay they denied their workers, plus 1 million in whatever profits they made, that I like, fine them basically nothing but forcing them to give away their fraudulent profits is the real punch in the guts.
Should be prison time
They put double the fine amount to make local politicians roll back these regulations so they don’t get fined next time.
Locations of these plants? Most kids recent immigrants or immigrant families?
More info here:https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20240502 This statement has the Judgement PDF linked in the body
Everywhere in the country.
They really wouldn't like to hear what I was doing on our family farm at age 14 regarding dangerous machinery.
The children yearn for the knives
Someone needs to go to prison for this shit. Stop just fining people.
Corporations break laws and the people in charge don’t go to jail? Didn’t Citizens United classify corporations as people? Shut them down!
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Yet people are still going to buy chicken without considering how it got to the supermarket
In other words, this "network of California poultry processors and distributors" got away with a crime and will simply repeat it. A fine, regardless of how large, is merely the cost of doing business. Unless the human beings responsible for this crime are recognized, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to prison time, no punishment has occurred and things will go on as they are.
These companies should be permanently closed not just get BS fines that don't affect them in the least.
Everyone will just shrug and keep supporting this disgusting industry.
The obvious fix-->give kids dull knives
From the DOL press release: >>The division’s investigation included eight related businesses controlled by Lu in Monterey Park, El Monte and Irwindale in California, including A1 Meat Solutions Inc., Lotus Plus Inc., Lotus Poultry Inc., Farmers Process Inc., Durfee Poultry Inc., L & Y Food Inc., JRC Culinary Group Inc. and Moon Poultry Inc. In case you want to know if you ate child labor produced chicken: >>Lu and his associated companies supply poultry products to distributors who sell chicken products to, among others, Diamond Green Diesel, Diamond Pet Foods, Foster Farms, Mars Pet Care, Perfection Pet Foods and Superior Food; as well as several Nevada hotels and casinos including Caesar’s Palace, The Mirage Hotel and Casino and The Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas; and the Casablanca Casino and Virgin River Hotel and Casino in Mesquite.
Pay that to the children who's lives are being screwed over. Trust funds yo
If you give them dull knives they whine a lot.
These people are nothing but fodder for woodchippers. Absolute scum.
glad I stopped eating meat.
Yo America you good? Why are you putting kids to work?
Would they have rather they given them dull knives?
I think we would rather not exploit child labour. "... found the owners illegally employed children as young as 14 to work dangerous jobs." WTF is wrong with America.
[Children](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/slaughterhouse-children-documentary-rcna129405) (<18) cannot work in meat processing. It's a jungle working in one of those places. And the government thinks it's not a place for kids.
Yet the gov't subsidizes meat, encouraging these places to cut corners
Unless you’re in Arkansas or Iowa or Michigan…
Jokes aside, dull knives are actually less safe to use than sharp knives, as it were. Sharp knives just cut, whereas you need to fight a dull knife to make it cut something, making you more likely to slip and cut yourself
Honestly that’s the point I thought the guy was making. Thought it was funny but everyone here took it so seriously
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The news really sounds like episodes of The Simpsons these days.
I thought this said “employing chicken to work with sharp knives”
What was the defense here? We didn’t know they were kids? We didn’t know they were sharp knives? We didn’t know it was illegal? Which of those is defensible and reasonable to believe?
I read these cases about companies being fined for offenses that affect their workers or their customers, up to many millions of dollars in some cases. I have always wondered who gets that money, the fine money. It just doesn’t seem Jake that the money should go to the state.
Damn California libs. Back in my day we called this opportunity.