Priscilla Helen Castillo, owner of A&J Meats, a meat processing company in the city of Industry, and an employment agency, The Right Here, located in the city of Downey were ordered to hand over $327,484 in profits from oppressive child labor.
An investigation by Department of Labor agents revealed that children were performing dangerous work at the meat processing plant and at illegal hours.
The conviction for selling products associated with oppressive and exploitative child labor also requires employers to pay the Department of Labor $62,516 in fines.
The June 20 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles came after an investigation by staff of the Wage and Hour Division, who determined that A&J Meats and The Right Hire jointly employed and endangered children as young as 15 by assigning them hazardous work.
“The main focus of our investigation was hazardous occupations,” Michael Petersen of the United States Department of Labor told La Opinión. “At the heart of it were violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.”
In fact, the minors used sharp knives to cut meat; They were allowed to work inside freezers and refrigerators, and were scheduled to work hours not permitted by law, all in violation of federal child labor regulations.
“A&J Meats and The Right Hire knowingly jeopardized the safety of these children and put the profits of their companies before the well-being of these children,” said San Francisco Western Regional Labor Attorney Marc Pilotin. “These employers flagrantly violated federal law and have now both learned of the serious consequences for those who so callously expose children to harm.”
Specifically, investigators found that children worked at the facility more than three hours a day during school days, after 7 p.m., and more than 18 hours per week while school was in session. The Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits employers from employing children under age 18 in hazardous occupations, including most jobs in meat and poultry slaughtering, processing, and packing establishments.
The court ruling also prohibits A&J Meats owner Priscilla Helen Castillo and staffing agency The Right Hire from violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) in the future and attempting to market goods related to oppressive child labor.
Additionally, A&J Meats and The Right Here will be required to provide annual FLSA training for at least four years.
“This exploitation is happening in many states, especially where there are meat processing plants and in industries where there are especially undocumented people,” said Victor Narro, a member of the UCLA Labor Center.
Narro told La Opinión that the problem is already part of a crisis of labor exploitation, which particularly affects children.
“We had this issue in this country decades ago in the sewing industry, and we thought that this type of exploitation had already been eliminated, but it is happening again and we have to think about a strategy to deal with this crisis,” he added.
La Opinión requested an interview with the owners of A&J Meats, but a telephone operator said that “they are on vacation and unfortunately could not respond.”
The father also hired minors
Priscila Helen Castillo’s father, Tony Elvis Bran, was also found illegally employing children – the vast majority from Guatemala – in three poultry processing companies that he operates. One of those companies is The Exclusive Poultry Inc., located at 208 South 8th Avenue, in the city of La Puente. The business is now called “Q Ranch Wholesale Distributor.”
In October 2023, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division determined that Bran, along with Karen Rios, Juan Valtierra, Javier Meza, and Jacqueline Garcia, operated a single company comprised of The Exclusive Poultry Inc., Valtierra Poultry LLC, and Meza Poultry LLC that required employees under the age of 18 to use sharp knives to debone and cut poultry and employed children as young as 14 to work overtime and at hours not permitted by law. The company had 437 employees.
“I would think that these violations of people’s rights occur more frequently in states like Kentucky, Virginia or Georgia, but not in California,” said Jimmy Soto, a construction worker who works near the meat processing plant. “These people who hire these children should not only be fined, but also imprisoned.”
The owners of The Exclusive Poultry Inc. also ordered minors to work in prohibited facilities and did not pay them overtime wages, all violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The business owner agreed to pay nearly $3.8 million in back wages, damages and penalties.
Investigators also found that employers interfered with their investigation by threatening and retaliating against employees who raised concerns or attempted to exercise their legal rights.
“No employer should profit from the exploitation of children,” said Ruben Rosalez, regional administrator for the Wage and Hour Division in San Francisco. “When we find children employed in violation of the law, we will take steps to ensure that we can hold all employers accountable under the law. Businesses that use staffing agencies to meet their labor needs cannot escape liability for child labor violations when, in fact, they are also employers.”
An amputated hand
Odilia Romero, executive director of Indigenous Communities in Leadership (CIELO), said that labor exploitation for indigenous people is “very common” not only in California, but throughout the United States.
“We see it in Los Angeles, in New York, in Chicago, where there are young indigenous people working. We were able to see it with the New York Times report of Marcos Cux, who put his hand into one of the cleaning machines where they butcher the chicken and his little arm went away,” he said.
Cux, a young Guatemalan migrant, was barely 14 years old in 2023 when his arm became trapped in the dangerous machine at the Virginia state poultry and animal slaughterhouse.
After finishing washing the machines with a hose, Marcos began cleaning the blood and grease off the steel parts with chemicals that, if they hit the skin, created welts that could take months to heal.
Shortly after 2:30 a.m., he noticed a torn piece of rubber glove inside the conveyor belt in the boning area and reached out to grab it.
Suddenly, the machine was turned on. On the other side of the factory, another worker had not seen Marcos who was crouching with his left arm deep inside the assembly line and started it up.
The conveyor belt caught the sleeve of Marcos’s loose jacket and dragged him across the floor. Hard plastic teeth pierced his muscles and cut open his forearm down to the bone.
By the time someone heard her screams and turned off the power, her arm was limp. A rope of white tendons hung from her elbow to her wrist. Even the police hid the case from the public.
“Indigenous children are not protected. Many of these children come here speaking only their indigenous language, which makes them vulnerable to exploitation,” added Odilia Romero. “They don’t know where to report the crime, that they have labor rights…so they are like a target for being defrauded at work.”