Members of the House Agriculture Committee heard from a meat processing industry representative and a labor law expert Wednesday on the use of child labor in meatpacking plants.
The closed-door meeting was motivated by a failed last-minute amendment from Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, during the panel’s farm bill markup in May. The amendment would have pushed USDA to end contracts with meatpacking facilities that engage in “serious, repeated, or pervasive” illegal child labor.
While it was voted down along party lines, Chair Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., promised to open discussions on the topic in the committee.
After the meeting, Thompson said he is interested in “potentially” having a hearing on the topic, and Wednesday’s discussions helped clarify who may need to testify. He said it could be helpful to hear from the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Labor.
“There was a number of things that came out of this, it was pretty helpful,” Thompson said. “We're gonna huddle and figure out where we go from here. It was very apparent that this has agriculture implications, but it probably has implications in other industries. So it's largely a Department of Labor issue."
House Agriculture Chair Glenn ThompsonAttendees at the meeting included Paul DeCamp, who works on labor issues at the law firm Epstein, Becker and Green, and Bryan Burns, vice president and associate general counsel of the Meat Institute.
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DeCamp is a former head of the Wage and Hour Division at the Labor Department.
There was agreement in the meeting between the meat industry and lawmakers that eliminating child labor would not affect the price of food or the food supply, Casar said.
“This isn't a food price or food supply issue,” Casar said. “This is an issue about whether we're going to root out this exploitative practice that's on the rise or not.”
Between Oct. 1, 2022, and July 20, 2023, the Department of Labor found over 4,000 children illegally employed, a 44% increase compared to the same period a year before, according to the agency.
Casar said he expects to have a public hearing, and that it was promised again during the closed meeting. After his amendment failed in the markup, the panel approved an amendment to require a Government Accountability Office study on child labor. Casar emphasized that studying the issue is not enough, and it is time to take action by including his legislation or a similar measure from Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., in the farm bill.
“I think egregious and pervasive child labor violations are easy to spot,” Casar said. “I think that these multimillion-dollar corporations can spot it and do something about it.”
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