The Brief

Federal labor investigators are demanding an L.A.-area poultry company forfeit money they said it made by employing minors in dangerous jobs.

At least two minors had been working in “oppressive” conditions, deboning raw poultry with sharp knives at a poultry processing plant in Irwindale, the U.S. Department of Labor alleged in a lawsuit filed Saturday.

The department also alleged the owner of the processing plant, Fu Qian Chen Lu — and owners of two other associated companies — illegally shipped poultry products that had been handled by children workers, violating the “hot goods” provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act. That provision prohibits companies from shipping products that come from locations where government investigators observed child labor in the prior 30 days.

“Instead of being in school, children younger than 18 years old stand on their feet all day in a chilled cutting room surrounded by raw chicken, using knives they must constantly sharpen, to cut and debone chicken,” attorneys for the labor department wrote in court documents.

The lawsuit says Chen Lu also prevented department investigators from accessing information they needed to determine if the company violated labor laws, according to the lawsuit.

On Monday a federal judge in Los Angeles issued a temporary restraining order against the defendants and their companies, ordering them to stop using child labor, to not ship any products from facilities accused of using child labor, and to provide requested information to the labor department.

Dueling child labor allegations

A lawyer representing Chen Lu and the other defendants accused the labor department of planting an under-aged worker in the facilities. The labor department denies this.

Gregory Patterson, an LA-area attorney, said the labor department has demanded a multimillion-dollar “posting amount” without any meaningful evidence that workers weren’t paid full wages.

He told CalMatters in an email that the labor department had a worker younger than 18 hired at Moon Poultry using false identification in late January, as a part of the investigation.

“The (labor department) then directed this person to work in a hazardous area of the Moon Poultry facility in Irwindale,” Patterson wrote. “The (department) has cynically used the child labor allegation — which it manufactured — to strengthen its negotiating hand and attempt to force us into an early settlement of the overtime claims.”

He said the labor department “is likely to be a defendant before this is over.”

A labor department attorney said its staff did not place an underaged employee in the poultry plants or direct them to work in a dangerous job.

“The defense counsel’s allegations are false. The Labor Department has previously responded to the defense counsel on this issue, but he has nevertheless chosen to press his baseless claims,” said Marc Pilotin, regional solicitor for the labor department.

Search warrants and interviews

Investigators discovered children working at the poultry processing plant on March 20 when they served a search warrant against Chen Lu’s company, Moon Poultry, according to the lawsuit.

The labor department said minors have worked at the Irwindale facility since at least October, and investigators identified two of the minors working as chicken deboners in the last two months. One was identified during the March 20 search and the other was found before then using Moon Poultry’s payroll records, according to court documents.

The labor department said it notified Chen Lu of the child labor violations and that products handled by the minors were considered “hot goods” that cannot be shipped. Chen Lu agreed verbally and in a written statement that he would not ship the hot goods, but he did so anyway, the department said.

Chen Lu manages two other companies, L&Y Food, Inc. and JRC Culinary Group, which frequently receive poultry shipments from Moon Poultry, according to the labor department. Both companies and their owners, Bruce Shu Hua Lok and Ryan Zhong Lu are listed as defendants in the lawsuit. Zhong Lu is Chen Lu’s 18-year-old son.

The labor department’s investigators “discovered that 794 boxes of processed chicken and seven 1,500-pound bins of chicken had been removed from the Irwindale facility,” court documents state.

Investigators visited L&Y and found that some of the goods had been shipped there. Before they could investigate further, Chen Lu arrived at the facility and refused to give them access to L&Y’s poultry inventory or answer any questions about the goods, according to court documents.

Later investigators discovered all the hot goods had been removed from the processing plant, the lawsuit states.

Rather than disclosing to investigators whether it was continuing to produce and ship goods and where, Moon Poultry indicated that it would shut down, court documents say.

When investigators visited the Irwindale plant again on March 27 they found it had shut down, according to court documents.

Because the investigation is ongoing, the labor department officials said they would not answer questions about details of the investigation and some of the conditions the child workers faced.

Other enforcement actions

Michael Eastwood, director of enforcement in the labor department’s wage and hour division’s western region, said when investigators execute a search warrant, they usually conduct confidential interviews with employees and review business records. Employees are told why investigators are there and that they don’t ask employees about their immigration status.

In late January, labor department investigators also executed a search warrant at several other processing plants in El Monte and Monterey Park owned by at least one company listed as a defendant in the lawsuit, said Chanchanit Martorell, head of the Thai Community Development Center, a community nonprofit.

The center, along with the Los Angeles County Office of Immigrant Affairs, an attorney with Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and other nonprofit partners, spoke with workers outside the plants in January and offered public services and legal support if they needed it, she said.

The labor department lawsuit asks a judge to order the defendants to give up all profits earned from child labor and pay additional civil penalties arising from labor law violations.

“Our primary concern is stopping the employment of kids doing dangerous things,” Eastwood said.

The actions follow a December judgment against another L.A.-area poultry processing company, The Exclusive Poultry Inc. The labor department ordered its owner and associated front companies to pay almost $3.8 million in back wages, damages and penalties.

The department says there’s been a nationwide surge in child labor in recent years. It has pressed at least 34 child labor cases in California as of December, involving 103 children employed in violation of labor laws.

Photojournalist Ted Soqui contributed to this report.  

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law that requires large companies to disclose if they or their predecessors profited from chattel slavery.

The Truth in Disclosure Act will require major companies operating in the state to disclose these historical and financial ties to enslavement-related transactions. 2

The bill was a top priority for the California Legislative Black Caucus this year. No other state requires corporations to account for their historical role in the slave economy, according to advocates.

Authored by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, a Democrat from Culver City, the law applies to companies with annual worldwide gross receipts over $100 million. Assembly Bill 2599 also requires relevant records and disclosures to be made publicly available through a searchable digital to be established by the state’s Civil Rights Department.

The sworn filings will be subject to the penalty of perjury. The first affidavits are due by Jan. 15, 2029.

Supporters say the database could be a useful tool for academics, journalists and advocates to examine the connections between current corporate wealth and historical participation in the slave economy.

An example of a type of company that would likely have to make such disclosures in California is JP Morgan Chase. According to the California Reparations Task Force report, in 2005, the banking giant wrote a formal apology because two banks that it had taken ownership of had taken 13,000 enslaved people as security for loans in Louisiana. When enslavers could not pay back the loans, the banks took ownership of 1,200 people.

The law only applies to companies that existed or whose predecessor company existed on or before December 1964.

“I’m thinking agriculture. I’m thinking banking, insurance. I’m thinking anything in the financial sector,” Bryan said about the types of companies he expects may have to file disclosures.

“Once the public has this disclosure and we have a full accounting of the impact, then it’s up to us to decide what that means and what we’re going to do about it,” he added.

Several insurance companies opposed the measure as it moved through the Legislature. They said they already disclosed their connections to slavery through a 2000 California law that resulted in a publicly available report.

The newest law is the latest in a slow, uneven effort to act on the findings of the state’s reparations task force.

Newsom created the task force in 2020. After two years of study, it released a 2023 report detailing California's history of enslavement and discriminatory policies and made more than 100 recommendations. Economists estimated the state owes Black residents at least $800 billion for harms in policing, housing, and health.

Lawmakers have since taken small steps. In 2024, Newsom signed six of the Legislative Black Caucus' 14 priority bills that drew from the task force report, including a formal state apology. That year, the caucus declined to advance two ambitious reparations bills, opening a painful split with grassroots advocates.

The California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation and Truth applauded Newsom and Bryan for the new law.

“California has long been a state that prides itself on justice and equity and AB 2599 moves the needle closer to the transparency that is necessary to recognize and rectify these historical injustices and understand the roots of modern economic disparities,” said CAIR-CA Chief Executive Hussam Ayloush in a written statement.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

The Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office has been investigating the Lineage warehouse fire since the first week of July, contradicting Mayor Karen Bass’ recent statement that the elected attorney had chosen not to.

City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto had not publicly disclosed the investigation, and it’s unclear whether Bass knew about it when she told student journalists at The LA Local that she had asked Feldstein Soto and state officials to investigate the fire but was met with inaction.

The rare public admission of the nearly three-month old investigation came a week after The LA Local reported that the two candidates vying to replace Feldstein Soto said her office could do more to help Angelenos in the wake of the fire. The City Council asked the city attorney to report in closed session on what legal options are available to them. But that report has not yet been completed and may not reach the public when it is.

Bass had previously declined to comment on possible legal action related to the fire despite residents’ demand for help. On Wednesday, student journalist Edgar Vasquez asked if she would request the city attorney open a corporate accountability investigation.

“I asked [Feldstein Soto] to open one quite a while ago,” Bass responded. “I also asked Attorney General Bonta to open one. I am not in charge of them. They are independent elected officials. They can choose to do it or not. So far, they have not chosen to do it.”

Karen Richardson, the city attorney’s communications director, told The LA Local that Bass may have “misspoke” and defended Feldstein Soto’s decision to keep the investigation from the public and presumably from other elected officials in the city.

“We do not comment on pending investigations or litigations but in this instance our office will confirm that we have had an open investigation since the first week of July and that investigation is ongoing and active,” Richardson said by email. “The City Attorney, in her capacity as Chief Prosecutor for the City, investigates and brings actions without prompting or reporting to City Officials or the press. As a prosecutor, the client of the Office is the People of the State of California, not the City of Los Angeles.”

Richardson did not immediately respond to a follow-up inquiry about the nature and scope of the investigation or if those impacted by the fire will be told of its findings.

Bass’ office also did not immediately respond to questions after the city attorney’s team told The LA Local about the months-old investigation.

The Attorney General’s Office declined to comment for this story.

Marissa Roy and John McKinney, one of whom will become the next city attorney, previously told The LA Local that the city attorney’s office should have acted publicly sooner. Both said they would be more transparent and would launch a corporate accountability investigation of the fire if elected. Depending on how long the current investigation takes to complete, the next city attorney could inherit it.

Past L.A. city attorneys have pursued such investigations and won settlements for people harmed by corporate misconduct. Roy has worked on similar lawsuits for the California Department of Justice, contributing to a landmark settlement against the tech company Meta. 

Community advocacy groups, meanwhile, have asked the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office to open a criminal investigation of the fire. That agency declined to comment for this story. 

McKinney, who currently is a deputy district attorney, said if the investigation found criminal activity, he would pursue filing charges. 

Bass told the student journalists that the fire department’s investigation “was a preliminary one” and that more can be expected. 

“There’s other investigations coming, and by the way, I really want those investigations because you know I’m blocking them from rebuilding,” Bass said Wednesday.

Bass and the City Council established a temporary suspension of the permit to rebuild Lineage’s damaged facility. 

Lineage’s CEO has said that the company has not decided yet if it will rebuild the damaged facility. Bass conceded that the company has a legal path to rebuild if it chooses to. But after several public disputes about blown cleanup deadlines and other matters, Bass said she does not support the company rebuilding.

“I know it’s your right, but you lost your right by the harm you inflicted on this community,” Bass said. “Then if they don’t rebuild. Then the community has to ask itself: then what?”

MacArthur Park will close every night once an 8-foot-tall fence goes up around the green space, with Los Angeles police officers sweeping the park for encampments and people sleeping there before the gates shut. The Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners approved the plan Thursday.

Construction of the green metal fence is expected to begin in November and continue through spring 2027, Recreation and Parks officials said during a public meeting.

The park will stay open while the fence is being built. Once construction is finished, the gates are expected to close from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. LAPD officers will patrol the park while it is open.

Officials said the fence is not intended to be permanent.

The Department of Recreation and Parks plans to review the fence after three years, looking at maintenance, crime and feedback from people who use the park. The department has set specific benchmarks that could eventually lead to the fence coming down.

The three-year review will include a comparison with Lafayette Park, which Recreation and Parks is using as a benchmark for maintenance and crime.

The department wants MacArthur Park to eventually have no more than about twice as many maintenance and repair requests as Lafayette Park. MacArthur Park covers about 35 acres, while Lafayette Park covers about 10 acres. General Manager Jimmy Kim said Thursday that MacArthur Park had a 230% higher rate of repair work orders than Lafayette Park.

A rendering shows a proposed green metal gate at one of MacArthur Park’s entrances.

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Courtesy LA Recreation and Parks

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From January through August 2026, MacArthur Park also recorded 136 robberies and aggravated assaults, compared with 20 at Lafayette Park. Neither park recorded a homicide during that period.

MacArthur Park recorded 694 arrests during those eight months, compared with 36 at Lafayette Park.

The department also plans to survey park users and conduct another community survey through the council office as part of the three-year review. 

The nightly closures will also change how law enforcement handles the park. 

LAPD plans to sweep the park every night before the gates close, according to Capt. Ben Fernandes, who represented the Rampart Division at Thursday’s Recreation and Park Commission meeting.

“For right now, we will do a full sweep of the park before the gates close on each side of the park,” Fernandes said. He added that LAPD has been “very good about keeping encampments out of the park.”

Officers will monitor the park while it is open, working with LAPD’s Security Services Division, Fernandes said. First responders will have keys and access to the park at all hours.

Community members attend a Recreation and Park Commission meeting Thursday, Oct. 1, where commissioners approved final plans for a new fence around MacArthur Park.

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Hanna Kang

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The LA Local

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The nightly sweeps also raised the question of what will happen to people who are found sleeping in the park. 

Fernandes said the mayor’s office would provide service providers who can assist people struggling with substance use and people experiencing homelessness.

“So, if we do come across someone who is asleep in the park during our sweep, we will be able to hopefully make them be involved in those services and hopefully get them housed,” he said.

Recreation and Parks says the fence would give the department more control over the park after hours. The department said MacArthur Park had a 230% higher rate of repair work orders for lighting, plumbing and graffiti than Lafayette Park between January 2025 and June 2026, and that damage and vandalism typically occur overnight.

Those improvements are part of a larger list of changes planned for the park. Recreation and Parks plans to restore access through the tunnel connecting the park’s north and south sides, improve accessibility, add free Wi-Fi and replace some of the park’s existing lights with solar-powered fixtures.

The department listed more recreational programming, including run and walk events, movies in the park, sports and fitness classes, quarterly community events and the return of pedal boats on the lake.

Recreation and Parks plans to return to the community later this month with another update on the project.

The post LA will start building a fence around MacArthur Park in November appeared first on LA Local.