A 16-year-old employee who died after getting sucked into equipment at a Mississippi poultry plant got the job using the identity of a 32-year-old man, a new revelation that highlights the ease with which migrant children are finding work in a dangerous industry, and the challenges companies face in trying to evaluate their true ages.
Duvan Pérez, who was hired to clean up at Mar-Jac Poultry in Hattiesburg, which supplies chicken to companies like Chick-fil-A, died on July 14. Within hours of his death, questions about his true age were raised by a local Facebook news site, and he was soon determined to be 16.
It’s illegal for minors to work in slaughterhouses, which the Occupational Safety and Health Administration considers among the most perilous workplaces in the country.
The number of children working illegally has skyrocketed across all industries, according to the Labor Department, nearly doubling since 2019. More than 800 child labor investigations in 47 states are ongoing across industries, according to the agency.
That probably is what happened, and while that’d be understandable like 40 years ago, we have quite a bit of technology today that should be available to prevent that and it should be on the company to ensure they’re not hiring people using stolen identities.
I agree, it seems to me that there could be some simple improvements to at least flag suspicious requests. The comment from @[email protected] would seem to indicate that a simple address cross-reference when the I9 is submitted could help indicate bogus applications.