According to the Associated
Press and other
reports, one of the largest egg factory farms in Ohio has been exploiting
underage, immigrant children as slave labor. Federal authorities have indicted four
people on charges of labor-trafficking conspiracy, forced
labor, harboring illegal aliens, witness tampering, and giving false
information.
A total of 10 people, including at least eight teenagers as
young as 14, were forced to live in dilapidated trailers without heat, beds, or
working toilets, and to work grueling manual labor jobs up to 12 hours a day, six
to seven days a week at Trillium Farms—formerly known as Ohio Fresh Eggs.
No stranger to bad publicity, Ohio
Fresh Eggs has a sordid history of violating
environmental standards, sexual
harassment of workers, and cruelty to animals.
In 2009, Ohio Fresh Eggs pled
guilty in court and was fined $300,000 for
clean water violations. In 2011, the company was ordered to pay a civil penalty
of $635,000 to settle 71 allegations of violations of Ohio Department of
Agriculture and Ohio Environmental Protection Agency laws.
The facility even has ties with Austin “Jack” DeCoster, the infamous businessman behind Quality Egg of New
England, the facility raided
by state officials following an MFA undercover investigation in Maine. MFA’s
investigator documented birds suffering from broken bones and bloody open
wounds, workers throwing live birds into the trash, and other horrific abuses.
In 2010, more than a quarter
million salmonella-contaminated eggs were recalled
from Ohio Fresh Eggs’ central Ohio facility, representing the largest egg
recall in U.S. history. Earlier this year, Jack DeCoster and his son Peter were
convicted
and sentenced to jail for sickening up to 56,000 people by
knowingly selling contaminated eggs prior to the recall.
The company was also the subject of a 2004 MFA undercover
investigation, which revealed hundreds of thousands
of egg-laying hens with broken, damaged, and feces-covered feathers packed into
battery cages so small they couldn’t spread their wings, and chicken corpses
left to rot in cages with birds still producing eggs for human consumption.
Watch the undercover video here:
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Sadly, Ohio Fresh Eggs’ dirty practices
are just par for the course in the egg industry. The best action caring consumers
can take to safeguard their own health and the environment and to help prevent
needless cruelty to millions of animals is to adopt a compassionate vegan
lifestyle. For egg-free recipes and tips on cooking without eggs, visit ChooseVeg.com.