The Labor Department is investigating Perdue Farms and Tyson Foods — two of the biggest poultry producers in the U.S. — after reports that migrant children as young as 13 have been working overnight shifts to clean the companies’ plants.
The department told NPR that its Wage and Hour Division is looking into the matter and could not provide additional details.
The inquiry comes after The New York Times Magazine published last week a harrowing account of a 14-year-old boy, Marcos Cux, whose arm was nearly torn off while working at a Perdue slaughterhouse on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
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