In September 2024, the Wall Street Journal reported Haitian migrant workers, some of them recruited via TikTok, experienced labour rights abuse while working at meatpacking company JBS in Colorado. The findings are based on interviews with dozens of current and former JBS employees.

The article says a Haitian sub-agent, who was not an employee of JBS, recruited Haitian workers through TikTok to JBS via TikTok’s messaging function. He charged them recruitment fees and worked with JBS’s HR supervisor at the plant to arrange accommodation for the new workers, where they would live in extremely poor living conditions. The sub-agent also threatened the workers when they confronted him about the conditions.

After workers raised complaints with their local union, JBS opened an investigation into the HR manager’s activities, and he was temporarily suspended, but then reinstated and continued to bring workers to the plant through the sub-agent. After continued pressure, a second investigation was opened, the sub-agent was banned from the plant, the plant’s HR director and another HR official were dismissed and the HR supervisor working with the sub-agent was “reprimanded”.

The Wall Street Journal reached out to JBS for comment. JBS said it found reports about poor living conditions “unacceptable and alarming” and that a new human resources leader would be appointed and a new recruitment training programme would begin.

In November, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invited TikTok to respond to the article, and to outline how it monitors and removes content leading to exploitative recruitment of Haitian workers to the USA. TikTok’s response can be read in full below.