{"id":34702,"date":"2023-05-04T20:50:19","date_gmt":"2023-05-04T20:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/us-meatpacker-jbs-opens\/"},"modified":"2023-05-04T20:54:35","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T20:54:35","slug":"us-meatpacker-jbs-opens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/us-meatpacker-jbs-opens\/","title":{"rendered":"US meatpacker JBS opens cleaning unit after outside firm fined for hiring kids"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CHICAGO (Reuters) -JBS USA, one of biggest U.S. meatpackers, is creating an internal company to clean some of its processing plants after a private sanitation firm it employed was accused of hiring children for dangerous work.<\/p>\n<p>The launch shows the complexities involved in replacing Packers Sanitation Services Inc (PSSI), a firm that contracts to clean slaughterhouses. The U.S. government in February said PSSI paid $1.5 million in penalties for employing more than 100 underage teenagers at meat plants across eight states.<\/p>\n<p>The new company, JBS Sanitation, will &#8220;immediately begin the transition&#8221; to cleaning 10 JBS USA facilities, which produce beef and pork, according to a statement issued this week. JBS Sanitation will also do in-house cleaning for Pilgrim&#8217;s Pride Corp and create &#8220;hundreds of union jobs,&#8221; the statement said.<\/p>\n<p>JBS USA is the North American unit of Brazil&#8217;s JBS SA, which also owns most of Pilgrim&#8217;s Pride.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We fully expect JBS Sanitation to be cost competitive with other service providers,&#8221; JBS USA spokesperson Nikki Richardson said on Thursday, without providing details.<\/p>\n<p>America&#8217;s largest meatpacking union, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, said it is working with JBS USA on in-house sanitation. <\/p>\n<p>PSSI has said it has a policy against employing minors.<\/p>\n<p>JBS USA previously said it terminated contracts with PSSI at &#8220;numerous&#8221; facilities, including three plants where alleged child-labor violations occurred. Third-party companies that meet employment verification standards will continue to clean some JBS USA and Pilgrim&#8217;s Pride plants, according to the statement. <\/p>\n<p>Meatpacking rival Cargill Inc said it was cutting all ties with PSSI but the process will take months.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack sent a letter to the largest U.S. meat and chicken processing companies last month, urging them to examine their supply chains for evidence of child labor.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Leslie Adler and Bill Berkrot)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/us-meatpacker-jbs-opens\/file-photo-outbreak-of-the-coronavirus-disease-covid-19-in-greeley\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ430TE-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ430TE-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CHICAGO (Reuters) -JBS USA, one of biggest U.S. meatpackers, is creating an internal company to clean some of its processing plants after a private sanitation firm it employed was accused of hiring children for dangerous work. The launch shows the complexities involved in replacing Packers Sanitation Services Inc (PSSI), a firm that contracts to clean [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":34703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-34702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ430TE-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34702"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34866,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34702\/revisions\/34866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}