Federal labor investigators say L.A. poultry plant used child labor and tried to cover it up
A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on Monday to block a poultry processing plant in the city of Irwindale from using “oppressive” child labor.
The order came after investigators with the U.S. Department of Labor filed a lawsuit on Saturday alleging the poultry processor and its affiliated companies illegally employed children under the age of 18 to debone raw meat with sharp knives.
Grocery supplier Exclusive Poultry must pay nearly $3.8 million after an investigation found it employed children as young as 14 in dangerous jobs, the agency said.
The department is seeking action forcing involved companies to forfeit money they made from selling products processed in facilities where minors were allegedly made to work in dangerous conditions.
The judge’s order involves three companies in the San Gabriel Valley — L & Y Food, Moon Poultry and JRC Culinary Group — that are all either owned, operated or managed by Fu Qian Chen Lu, who is also named in the lawsuit.
The Labor Department said in court documents that the companies continued to deliver and sell products even after agreeing to voluntarily refrain from shipping products following accusations of their use of child labor, and refused to provide information to investigators.
The companies hid 794 boxes of processed chicken and seven 1500-pound bins of chicken from investigators visiting the Irwindale facility, according to the court filings .
Federal officials and the poultry companies have presented dueling narratives of the child labor allegations.
Gregory W. Patterson, an attorney representing Chen Lu and other defendants named in the suit, accuses the Labor Department of planting an underage worker in the facility as part of its investigation, a claim the department has dismissed as “baseless.”
The crackdown by federal investigators comes as some of the country’s biggest consumer brands have come under broad scrutiny for child labor in their domestic supply chains amid revelations that children are working throughout American manufacturing and food production.
Investigators discovered children deboning poultry at the plant after visiting the facility in the city of Irwindale on Mar. 20 for a civil search warrant, the lawsuit said. Operators of the facility continued to process products, even after the Labor Department raised objections during its search warrant, in violation of federal laws prohibiting sale of products “tainted by child labor,” according to the lawsuit.
The “hot goods” provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits companies from selling products from locations flagged for child labor use in the prior 30 days.
U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II in his Monday decision issued a temporary restraining order requiring the businesses to stop using child labor, provide the Labor Department with information it is requesting related to its investigation, and refrain from shipping any poultry from facilities accused of employing child labor.
“In light of the immediacy of irreparable harm pending the Court’s review of this action, the Court finds a temporary restraining order warranted,” Wright wrote in his order on Monday.
Barring immediate action, he said, companies named in the lawsuit “will continue to employ oppressive child labor to the risk of minors’ life and limb; hot goods may enter the stream of commerce; and Defendants will continue to thwart Plaintiff’s investigation.”
Patterson, the attorney representing Chen Lu and other defendants, said in an emailed statement that the labor department had a 17-year-old “gain employment with Moon Poultry under false pretenses by presenting a fake government identification” and “directed this person to work in a hazardous area of the Moon Poultry facility in Irwindale.”
Patterson alleged that the Labor Department aimed to manufacture a child labor claim to “strengthen its negotiating hand” in an investigation about overtime wages that had not been paid to workers.
“The defense counsel’s allegations are false. The Labor Department has previously responded to the defense counsel on this issue, but he has nevertheless chosen to press his baseless claims,” said Marc Pilotin, regional solicitor for the Labor Department, in an emailed statement.
The Labor Department has investigated other poultry processing plants in California in recent months.
In December, federal investigators found grueling working conditions at two poultry plants in City of Industry and La Puente operated by Exclusive Poultry Inc. as well as other “front companies” owned by Tony Elvis Bran.
Children as young as 14 stood for long hours cutting and deboned poultry and operating heavy machinery, the labor department said. The workers came primarily from Indigenous communities in Guatemala.
The poultry processor, which supplies grocery stores including Ralphs and Aldi, was ordered to pay nearly $3.8 million in fines and back wages.
An investigation published in early February by the Fresno Bee detailed dangerous and sometimes deadly conditions for primarily Latino immigrant workers at Pitman Farms in the Central Valley, which produces the Mary’s Free Range Chicken brand.
