Perdue Farms and JBS, two of the country’s biggest meatpackers, will pay a combined $8 million after the Department of Labor found the companies relied for years on migrant children to work in their slaughterhouses.

The deals, announced this week, are part of a flurry of child labor settlements that have come in the last days of the Biden administration, which has been cracking down on the practice.

It is rare for major brands to come under federal scrutiny for child labor. Many food-processing and manufacturing companies outsource cleaning and other jobs to third-party staffing firms, which technically employ the workers and shield companies from any violations.

Federal investigators found that children had been working at a Perdue plant on Virginia’s Eastern Shore as far back as 2020. The children, who had been hired by a staffing firm, worked late hours and performed dangerous tasks with electric knives and hot sealing tools.

Perdue agreed to pay $4 million in restitution to the children and to organizations including Kids in Need of Defense, a national nonprofit organization that provides lawyers to young migrants who come to the country alone. Perdue, one of the country’s largest poultry processors, will also pay a $150,000 civil penalty.

In a statement, Perdue said it strongly disagreed that it should be held liable for the child labor violations but wanted to avoid a prolonged dispute with the Labor Department.

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