SPRINGDALE, Ark. — Court documents unsealed in the Western District of Arkansas reveal accusations of child labor at Tyson processing plants, which have since prompted searches by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Applications for inspection warrants were filed in September 2024 for Tyson Foods Rogers and Tyson Foods Green Forest.
The applications, which included narratives from an investigator at the Houston District Office for the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor, claim that there is reason to believe minors are employed in violation of labor laws at the Tyson locations in Rogers and Green Forest.
The warrants were seeking records relating to the employment of minors, and the searches were meant to gather records relating to employees for Tyson Foods or affiliates and contractors of Tyson Foods, according to the applications.
Court documents said reviews of the processing plants began in June 2024 after anonymous complaints were received by the Wage and Hour Division.
For the Rogers application, the Wage and Hour Division cited an anonymous tip from a teacher at a nearby school, who reported that one of her 14-year-old students discussed working at the Tyson facility with his mother for the summer.
For the Green Forest application, the complainant said she was a mother of middle schoolers and overheard children between 11 and 13 years old discussing their employment at the Green Forest plant on the night shift, which runs from 11 p.m. to 7 or 8 a.m. The children were allegedly heard talking about not knowing how to get money from their paycheck out of the ATM, the documents said.
Investigators were assigned in July and conducted observations outside both locations of workers coming and going. During these observations, investigators found "multiple individuals whose appearance and body language indicated were potentially minor employees below the age of 16," according to court documents.
One investigator's narratives noted that the children were believed to have been working in potentially hazardous conditions.
A memorandum included in the applications included a narrative from Julie Su, the Acting Secretary for the Department of Labor.
"The Acting Secretary has received information that Tyson Foods employs minors," the document said. "Suspected minors may be working outside of the hours permitted by the [Fair Labor Standards Act]. Additionally, minors may be working in potentially hazardous occupations and below the minimum age standards for such employment involving slaughtering, meat and poultry packing, processing, or rendering in violation of the child labor provisions."
A search warrant was executed at 3 a.m. on Sept. 11 for the Green Forest plant and at around 7 a.m. on Sept. 11 for the Rogers plant.
5NEWS has reached out to Tyson and received the following response:
“To be clear, we do not allow the employment of anyone under the age of 18 in any of our facilities, and we do not facilitate, excuse or in any other way participate in the use of child labor. We take the enforcement of all labor laws very seriously, and we have procedures in place to verify the age of all team members, and fully participate with the federal government's E-Verify and IMAGE programs. We have fully cooperated with the Department of Labor, and they have not provided us with any information that would suggest that any of our policies or practices were violated."
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