KANSAS CITY, Mo. (WDAF) — U.S. Senator Josh Hawley is calling on the Department of Labor to investigate Tyson Foods after a whistleblower accused the company of illegal child labor practices.
This week, Sen. Hawley (R-Mo.) sent a letter to Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, urging her to investigate Tyson Foods in light of these allegations.
Hawley said he received a letter from a whistleblower, a former Tyson Foods employee, alleging that they personally witnessed underage workers and received multiple reports from hourly Tyson employees about child workers in the plant.
According to the allegations, these child workers were employed by a third-party entity contracted by Tyson for work in the plant.
The whistleblower claims that Tyson retaliated against them after reporting concerns to company superiors about child workers employed at the plant.
“As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime, I have been contacted by a whistleblower who alleges that Tyson Foods used child workers at one of its processing plants—in likely violation of federal child labor law,” Senator Hawley wrote in his letter to the Department of Labor. “I have opened an investigation in my Subcommittee. Given your role in enforcing federal labor law, I urge you to fully investigate these troubling allegations immediately.”
Nexstar’s WDAF reached out to Tyson Foods Wednesday, but did not receive a response.
You can read the full letter here.
Contractor employed minors at two Tyson Foods facilities in 2023, DOL says
These allegations aren’t the first involving child labor and Tyson Food. In 2023, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found that Packers Sanitation Services Inc. (PSSI) employed minors at 13 meat processing facilities in eight states.
“The company employed at least 102 children – from 13 to 17 years of age – in hazardous occupations and had them working overnight shifts,” the department said in a 2023 news release.
Seven of the minors were employed by PSSI at two Tyson Foods facilities in Arkansas and Tennessee, according to the DOL.
