[[link removed]]

PORTSIDE CULTURE

MAR-JAC POULTRY, CHICK-FIL-A’S CHICKEN PROVIDER, FINED FOR CHILD
LABOR  
[[link removed]]


 

John McCraken
August 6, 2025
Investigate Midwest
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Chick-fil-A buys its chicken from a company fined by the Department
of Labor for employing 14-year-olds to eviscerate poultry at an
Alabama packing plant. Children also operated fork lifts, worked on
the kill floor, and worked overnight shifts. _

The Chick-fil-A store in Champaign, Illinois on August 5, 2025,
Darrell Hoemann, Investigate Midwest

 

One of Chick-fil-A’s major poultry providers was recently fined for
repeated child labor law violations, with children as young as 13
working at an Alabama-based facility.

Chick-fil-A, the nation’s largest chicken sandwich quick service
restaurant with 3,000 locations worldwide, buys chicken from Mar-Jac
Poultry, according to legal filings.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Labor fined Mar-Jac Poultry
$385,000 after a child labor investigation found that the poultry
processing company routinely hired children as young as 13 years old
at its facility in Jasper, Alabama. 

The investigation also found that 14 and 15-year-olds performed
hazardous tasks such as eviscerating poultry, operating forklifts and
working on the plant’s kill floor, according to the DOL. These
children were also working overnight shifts between 10 p.m. and 7
a.m., outside legally allowed hours.

“Mar-Jac Poultry has repeatedly been found to put young workers at
risk, resulting in the tragic death of a child at their Mississippi
facility in 2023,” Wage and Hour Division Regional Administrator
Juan Coria said in a DOL statement.

Investigate Midwest repeatedly reached out to Chick-fil-A for comment
on the DOL’s investigation and its current relationship with Mar-Jac
Poultry, but the company has not responded. 

Mar-Jac Poultry, a privately-held company based in Gainesville,
Georgia, owns slaughter plants in Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama.
The company said in a statement that it has complied with the DOL, but
claims it did not knowingly hire underage employees.

“Mar-Jac only accepts job applications from individuals who are over
18, and is happy to agree with the U.S. Department of Labor to
continue to do so. Our policy against hiring minors ensures that
persons under 18 are not exposed to the risks inherent in certain
hazardous occupations,” said Joel Williams, senior vice president of
operations, in a statement. “With the resolution of this lawsuit
Mar-Jac can focus on providing good jobs to adult workers and
wholesome products to consumers.”

The company declined to answer questions about how the settlement has
impacted its customers and whether Chick-fil-A remained an active
buyer.

A HISTORY OF HARM

The settlement between DOL and Mar-Jac Poultry comes after years of
worker injuries and deaths at Mar-Jac facilities, including the death
of 16-year-old Duvan Tomas Perez. 

Perez, a Guatemalan immigrant who was too young to be legally working
at Mar-Jac Poultry’s Mississippi meatpacking facility, died while
sanitizing a vertical conveyor belt when he was pulled into the
machine’s moving gears and killed on July 14, 2023.

Two years prior, Bobby Butler, 48, died at the same Mar-Jac Poultry
processing plant after his arm was pulled into a moving machine made
for eviscerating chickens.

This year, Investigate Midwest published an investigation
[[link removed]] into
how Mar-Jac Poultry and other companies have benefited from delays and
a growing backlog of cases held by the commission that reviews
responsible for reviewing company challenges to Department of Labor
violations.

Mar-Jac Poultry’s various facilities have paid nearly $1 million in
workplace safety and wage violations since 2009, according to DOL
filings, including its recent child labor violation fines. 

The number of child labor law violations has increased by 35% in the
last decade
[[link removed]],
with monetary fines tripling in the same time. 

As investigations have risen, some federal lawmakers have called for
increased probes into the meatpacking industry for child labor
[[link removed]].
However, the agencies that investigate these claims have been hit by
recent federal workforce reductions, which could impede those actions.

* child labor
[[link removed]]
* Chicken workers
[[link removed]]
* Chik-fil-A
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit portside.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 



########################################################################

[link removed]

To unsubscribe from the xxxxxx list, click the following link:
[link removed]