CA Chicken Boss to Pay $4.8M for Child Labor Law Violations

free range chickensPhoto byBen MorelandonUnsplash

This article is summarized from several sources and all attributions are linked within.

Per the California Department of Labor’s site, the DOL has just settled “one of the largest wage violation settlements ever reached for U.S. poultry workers.” A federal “court in Los Angeles has entered a consent judgment that orders Fu Qian Chen Lu, Bruce Shu Hua Lok and others as owners and operators of a network of California poultry processors and distributors to pay $4.8 million in back wages and damages to 476 workers and $221,919 in penalties after a U.S. Department of Labor investigation.

Owner Lu and associated companies have a large presence in the poultry industry, sending their products to distributors who in turn send “chicken products to, among others, Diamond Green Diesel, Diamond Pet Foods, Foster Farms, Mars Pet Care, Perfection Pet Foods and Superior Food; as well as several Nevada hotels and casinos including Caesar’s Palace, The Mirage Hotel and Casino and The Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas; and the Casablanca Casino and Virgin River Hotel and Casino in Mesquite”

This action and settlement was relatively quick given the investigation began in January 2024. The DOL discovered that these companies were employing children as young as fourteen years old and endangering them by mandating use of sharp deboning knives, “a violation of federal child labor regulations.” Beyond breaking the law and exploiting children, they also cheated workers out of $2 million of overtime pay. “Employers and their associates denied the poultry- and red meatcutters and packers overtime wages for hours over 40 in a workweek and falsified payroll records to obstruct the probe. “

Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda stated, “When we find an employer has put a child’s well-being at risk in return for profit, the Department of Labor will use all available tools to seek to remove children from harm’s way and prevent future violations, including stopping the shipment or sale of goods located where children are being exploited.” She added that, “no employer should profit off the shipment of contraband and the backs of children.”

After the Wage and Hour Division’s Los Angeles District Office previously filed a temporary restraining order that barred the shipment of goods, “the supervisors at the employers’ facilities began retaliating against the workers, telling them they put the “noose around their own necks” for talking to the department and calling them derogatory slurs, as well as changing the terms of employment.” The court found that “the employers “employed oppressive child labor at the facility, which permanently render[ed] produced goods as contraband that [was] forbidden from entering commerce.”

To make matters worse, the employers’ prior counsel “flatly refused to respond to any of the agency’s administrative subpoenas and attempted to obstruct the investigation, leading to a successful action to enforce subpoenas and obtain an order against the supervisors for retaliatory conduct.”

On April 30^th the case was settled. With the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California directing “Lu and his associated businesses to pay more than $1.8 million in back wages and $3 million in damages to the affected workers.” They must also pay “civil money penalties for their child labor violations and willful overtime violations, and disgorge profits earned from the sale of goods tainted by oppressive child labor.”

Additionally, the DOL encouraged downstream distributors and customers to protect themselves against potential liability related to handling hot goods by requiring producers, manufacturers and other dealers to take measures to ensure that the goods they produce and sell are not made with oppressive child labor.