Poultry Company Accused Of Hiring Minors To Work On Kill Floor

The Department of Labor has cited a poultry company for hiring four underage workers at a plant in Alabama. The agency said that investigators uncovered evidence of "oppressive child labor" at a Mar-Jac Poultry facility in Jasper. 

Court documents said that they found "children working on the kill floor deboning poultry and cutting carcasses" after serving a search warrant on May 1. 

"The children had been working at the facility for months," the Labor Department said in the court filing.

The agency is requesting a court order to prevent the company from selling "poultry tainted by oppressive child labor" at the plant in Jasper. 

Mar-Jac Poultry denied the allegations and claimed that the minors used fake documents to obtain their jobs. 

"Mar-Jac will continue to vigorously defend itself and expects to prevail in this matter," the company told ABC News. "Mar-Jac is committed to complying with all relevant law."

Last summer, Mar-Jac Poultry was found responsible for the death of a 16-year-old worker at a plant in Mississippi.