Packers Sanitation, a US company, employed over 100 kids in 2023
Imagine the United States—2023, not 1923. Meatpacking plants, not coal mines. Yet the same question echoes through the generations: How does this keep happening? Packers Sanitation, one of the country’s largest cleaning companies for the food industry, was found employing over a hundred children—kids scrubbing blood and grease off conveyor belts deep into the night, some as young as 13. The conditions aren’t sanitized for anyone, let alone minors: caustic chemicals, dangerous machines, hours that obliterate any hope of attending school in the morning. It’s not a sepia-toned photo from the Library of Congress; it’s this year’s Department of Labor report.
And the adults—managers, supervisors, executives—either look the other way or rationalize. The system doesn’t just allow for these kids; it requires them, in a way. Labor shortages, the relentless demand for cheap meat, and supply chains squeezed for every penny create the kind of environment where no one asks too many questions about who shows up as long as the job gets done. There’s a throughline from the mills of Hine’s era to the sanitized, brightly lit kill floors of today—a kind of willful blindness. You don’t need to squint to see it. The real discomfort isn’t in the details of what these kids are cleaning—it’s in the realization of how thin the veneer of progress really is.
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