Three migrant teenagers have filed a federal lawsuit against Raw Seafoods, a major seafood supplier in Fall River, Massachusetts, alleging severe violations of child labor laws, according to a report by The New Bedford Light. Represented by Justice at Work and Yale Law School’s Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, the teens claim they were forced into dangerous work environments, including long overnight shifts handling sharp machinery and toxic chemicals, despite being underage.

“Forced to work and denied education”

The lawsuit states that the teens, who immigrated from Guatemala in 2022, were employed at the processing plant when they were just 15 years old. Two of them were unaccompanied minors. Their tasks involved cutting fish with sharp blades, moving heavy boxes, and working in freezing temperatures. Attorneys representing the teens describe a disturbing work environment, with one lawyer stating: “Raw Seafoods has profited off exploiting immigrant children.”

The teens reported serious injuries, including cuts from fish-cutting machines, back injuries, and freezer burns from handling frozen fish without protective equipment. They were further exposed to constant low temperatures working in a refrigerated facility and “routinely experienced flu-like symptoms” so severe that one often wedged a napkin beneath his face mask to “catch the heavy sinus drainage while he worked.”

“The [company’s] conduct was motivated, at least in part … to maximize its employees’ productivity by means of forced labor and increase the corporation’s output and revenues,” attorneys wrote. 

According to the complaint, the migrant teens often slept as little as two or three hours a night while trying to attend both school and work. Many of the allegations focused on one supervisor, referred to only as Rolando, who according to the article,

“incited a hostile working environment … by berating them with racist remarks, profanity, and obscenities nearly every day.” It added that the supervisor “scolded” them for taking days off to attend school and, in one instance, prevented one teen from attending school in the 2022-2023 year by “refusing him time off to obtain the vaccines required for school enrollment.” 

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