It's late at night in Grand Island Nebraska and
employees are arriving at the city's sprawling
meatpacking plant known as JBs beef. These are clearly
workers arriving for the 11 o'clock start of the
graveyard shift. We were staked out in our vehicle and
trying to get a glimpse of who's showing up for work
here. The US depart Labour did the same thing this past
summer after receiving a tip from law enforcement about
possible child labor violations here. When inspector
went inside the plant, they made a startling discovery
among the adults on the job here. There were more than
two dozen underage workers. One employee was as young
as 13. This P.S.S.I. Training video online offers a
glimpse of the kind of work that Children were
reportedly hired to do until the Department of Labor
intervened Federal records obtained by scripts. News
described teens suffering injuries from chemical burns
then going to school and falling asleep in class 1 17
year old quit high school because they were working and
tired from cleaning. This 65 year old man we met works
at the plant for JBs and agreed to speak to us about
what he saw. If we concealed his identity, he told
overnight crews would clean up blood and animal parts
on the kill room floor and sanitize dangerous eq
is the work dangerous. All the Children discovered by
the Labor department were employed by packers,
sanitation services, inc or P.S.S.I. What inspectors
turned up in Grand Island soon triggered a wider
investigation and this past fall, the department of
Labor found 102 minors illegally employed by P.S.I. At
13 meat processing locations no city had more underage
workers than Grand Island inspectors found 27 Children
at this one plant P.S.S.I. Agreed to pay $1.5 million
in civil penalties. And the Labor Department touted
this case as proof it will aggressively hunt down
violations of child labor. But when you go to Grand
Island, as we did, you quickly learn underage work
had been something of an open secret in this city for
years. Federal Court records reviewed by scripts, news
show underage employees had bee doing jobs in the meat
packing plant since at least 2019 and our interviews
with Grand Island residents revealed a child labor
problem going back even longer than that. I have
memories of classmates falling asleep in school because
they were working overnight. Audrey Lewis grew up in
Grand Island. She was the longtime executive director
of a local group known as the multicultural Coal
which helps new immigrants sett in the city. She made
it a priority to try to help those underage workers
identified by the labor department. They're young
They're vulnerable and they're afraid. What did they
tell you about why they were working in the plan on
that graveyard shift The majori of the youth that we
have spoken with denied working out there. So that
reticent to talk to helping AdU really indicates th
level of fear. She says many of the teens were part of
Grand Island's large immigrant community. My suspici
is that they are all undocumented. How easy or not w
it to get a job at PSS. I without documents It is
known in our community that if you didn't have proper
documentation, the cleaning cre would hire you. PsS. I
told us hiring undocumented workers would be in
complete violation of its policies. The company
declined our request for an interview about the child
labor investigation and in an email the scripts News a
spokeswoman wrote, Our company has a zero tolerance
policy against employing anyone the age of 18 and
fully shares the Department of Labor's objective of
ensuring full compliance at all locations. Children
should not be cleaning with hazardous chemicals in the
middle of the night. I mean this is really unacceptabl
Where was the Department of Labor for all these years
You work there That's a question. We also wanted to
explore our scripts. News investigation, analyzed
records of inspections by the department of Labor at
meatpacking plants nationwide. We found 22 inspections
of the Grand Island plant in the past decade. During
that, the Labor Department documented 16 violat
against PSS I or J.B.S ranging from unsafe wiring to
improper machine guarding. But we found no citations
for child labor. The JBs employee who agreed to talk to
us said young workers would have been obvious had
inspectors showed up in the middle of the night, but we
are always looking for if there's instances of crimina
activity. Michael Waziri led the investigation of PSS I.
For the Labor Department. Why did it take the
Department of Labor so long to detect child labor P.S.S.I.
And to act for an agency like ours where we have 10
million employers, we can't be everywhere. He told us
the Gove government has to rely on employers to follow
the law and employees to blow the whistle when they see
child labor. How do these kids walk by a guard station
in a facility so young walking into plants every day
How come no one picked up the phone I have questions
about that. That to me is concerning. Does this P.S.S.
Case show show that the Department of Labor needs to be
doing more. We are doing everything we can to amp up
our efforts to be able to root out child labor where we
know it could be the penalty for PSS. I was $1.5
million. That doesn't seem like a lot. It is the
maximum that we could assess under law. The Labor
Department this week announced new efforts to combat
underage work, including asking Congress to boost the
maximum civil penalty that can be levied against
employers who break the law in Grand Island. The
underage workers seem to have disappeared since the
Labor Department's crackdown an no one we met here
could tell us exactly what happened to them. Where are
those Children now I have no idea if they're working
somewhere else in town or if they've moved on. The
invisibility of these kids just continues. And that is
a really tough part of this story. Not knowing exactly
what became of those teenagers. JBs which owns that
plant in Grand Island was not accused of any wrongdoing.
JBs told us that they terminated their contract
PSS. I once these child labor allegations came to light
Andrew. So Patrick, I want to get to exactly what is an
underage worker. I think a lot of us remember those
jobs we had when we were 15, 16 years old. Not fun jobs,
long hours. But what you're reporting on tonight is
something very different than w I think a lot of our
viewers can remember when they were teens working.
That's right. Andrew a lot of jobs are open to
teenagers 16, 17 years old. But these jobs are
different. The Labor Department declares them hazard
occupations. And off limits to anybody under 18 you saw,
we talked about people using caustic chemicals, gettin
burns using power driven machinery. Labor Departm
very clear that these are jobs for adults, not those
teenagers. Andrew. All right, Patrick Terpstra, thank
you for that reporting