A $106b industry looks out for child workers - but fails to find them

One morning in 2019, an auditor arrived at a meatpacking plant in rural Minnesota. He was there on behalf of national drugstore chain Walgreens to ensure that the factory, which made the company's house brand of beef jerky, was safe and free of labour abuses.

He ran through a checklist of hundreds of possible problems, such as locked emergency exits, sexual harassment and child labour. By the afternoon, he had concluded that the factory had no major violations. It could keep making jerky, and Walgreens customers could shop with a clear conscience.

When night fell, another 150 workers showed up at the plant.

Among them were migrant children who had come to the United States by themselves looking for work. Children as young as 15 were operating heavy machinery capable of amputating fingers and crushing bones.

Migrant children would work at the Monogram Meat Snacks plant in Chandler, Minnesota, for almost four more years, until the Department of Labour visited in the spring of 2023 and found such severe child labour violations that it temporarily banned the shipment of any more jerky.

In the past two decades, private audits have become the solution to a host of public relations headaches for corporations. When scandal erupts over labour practices, or shareholders worry about legal risks, or advocacy groups demand a boycott, companies point to these inspections as evidence that they have eliminated abuses in their supply chains.

Known as social compliance audits, they have grown into an US$80 billion (S$106 billion) global industry, with firms performing hundreds of thousands of inspections each year.

But a New York Times review of confidential audits conducted by several large companies shows that they have consistently missed child labour.

Children were overlooked by auditors who were moving quickly, leaving early, or simply not sent to the part of the supply chain where minors were working, the Times found in audits performed at 20 production facilities used by some of the most recognisable brands in the United States.