Washington (AFP) - A cleaning company in the United States has paid a $1.5 million fine for putting more than 100 children into "hazardous jobs" and putting them to work in meat processing and packaging centers, the Labor Department said Friday.

Authorities concluded that Packers Sanitation Services employed at least 100 and two children, ages 13 to 17, and put them to work night shifts at 13 meatpacking centers in eight states.

"Children were using hazardous chemicals to clean meat-processing equipment, including hand saws, meat cutting machines and animal decapitation machines," the Labor Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry indicated that at least three minors were injured while working for the company.

Major companies, including "Tyssen", "GBS Foods" and "Cargi", manage meat processing centers, according to investigations.

These companies were not fined.

The fine was imposed on Packers Sanitation Services following an investigation launched in August 2022.

"The child labor abuses in this case were systemic... and clearly indicate a corporate failure," said Jessica Lohmann, a Labor Department official.

She told reporters that officials had noticed an increase in child labor violations by about 50 percent since 2018.

"These children should never have been employed in meat-packing centres," she added, emphasizing that "this only happens when employers take no responsibility in terms of avoiding child labor abuses."
The imposition of the fine comes at a time when some states are seeking to ease protective measures related to child labor, to help companies with problems at the level of workers find more employees, while bills were raised in this regard in both Iowa and Minnesota.