The Division of Labor and Labor Relations in North Carolina Revisited: An Exploitative Case Study of a 13-Year-Old Worker
Some kids that work in exploitative situations tend to be from immigrant families, and that is what child labor violations can affect.
“We are doing more education to help people recognize violations, which is what we are doing,” said Jessica Looman, principal deputy administrator. “We also are doing more investigations.”
The division is finding more minors per case, and it’s not clear why. There are more children working in hazardous occupations.
The federal government will have to step up its efforts if states don’t protect workers from abuse. The Biden administration has launched a number of new measures to crack down on illegal child labor after the Times investigation.
prevention is a focus of the division and involves educating teens about their rights and employers about their responsibilities. The division has a range of mechanisms that it can use to respond to violations of different levels of severity.
Bills introduced in January in Minnesota and Iowa would allow some teenagers to work in construction and meatpacking plants, respectively. The bill would allow some youth under 16 to drive themselves to work or work longer hours. In 2022, efforts to expand teens’ working hours passed in New Jersey but weren’t signed into law in two other states.
There is no excuse for the alarming violations that are occurring with children being employed where they shouldn’t even be.
Many of the minors crossed unaccompanied from Latin American countries and may not know when their employment violates the law. The accidental burning of a 13-year-old employee of Packers Sanitation Services in Nebraska occurred during a shift that lasted from 11 pm to 7 am, a violation of multiple federal laws. The Labor Department imposed a $1.5 million fine on the cleaning company, which is owned by Blackstone, one of the world’s largest private equity firms.
They are often picking up fruits and vegetables. Thirty child farmworkers, who ranged from 10 to 17 years old, in North Carolina told researchers they were coerced to work quickly in dangerous conditions, faced wage theft, and worked long hours in the heat.
“We walk a lot. That’s hard. Sometimes your hands hurt,” a 13-year-old boy who picked tomatoes told the researchers. “And your back, sometimes it will be hurting.”
Children in Food Processes are at Risk, and the Labor Department has the Power to Sustain the Safety of Young People from Working at Food Processing Plants
Immigrant children are at risk of other kinds of labor. Immigration raids in the early 2000s inadvertently revealed the children of migrant workers employed in meatpacking plants, and advocates like Maki have been concerned about child labor in those facilities ever since.
Supporters of legislation to allow minors to work more jobs and more hours say it fills an economic need and can teach them responsibility and financial literacy.
Jessica Dunker, president and CEO of the Iowa Restaurant Association, said in testimony to the Legislature that having kids getting the opportunity to work is important. She also said minors who want to work deserve the same level of choice as those who want to participate in other after-school activities.
But he says that allowing children to work longer hours increases the risk they’ll get into car accidents — driving in the dark, exhausted — and that the jobs these bills allow minors to take are dangerous.
“There’s no safe part of a loading dock,” Maki says. With the provision in the Iowa bill that would lessen businesses’ civil liability if child laborers got sick, injured or killed on the job, “it’s as if they know that kids are going to get hurt.”
A bill that was introduced by Republicans in Iowa would allow 14-year-olds to work in freezers, meat coolers and industrial laundries, as well as 15-year-olds to lift heavy items onto shelves. It is backed by, among others, the independent business federation, the Iowa Grocery Industry Association, and Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group backed by Charles Koch, the industrialist who supported many national efforts to deregulate businesses.
The Labor Department would intensify its investigations into business violations, not only by the direct employers of children, but also by the larger companies that contract with those employers, or that use children in their supply chain. Big companies often use staffing agencies to hire kids and then claim they did not have a role in the abuses. Some of those agencies shut down and reopen under new names when they are fined, said Meredith Stewart, a senior supervising attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center. The companies that hire them should be held accountable. The department also has the authority to seize any products that are made using illegal child labor, even through the use of contractors. As well as every other litigation tool available, Seema said that it would use that authority aggressively.
The administration also said it would do more to coordinate the protection of children, particularly those who migrate across the border unaccompanied by a parent and then receive little supervision once they leave immigration shelters. In some instances, H.H.S. has lost touch with the designated sponsors and children, which can lead to criminal exploitation.