As Illegal Child Labor Increases, We Must Protect All Children

Incidences of child labor have risen 69% since 2018 and some states are softening regulations to make it easier to hire minors for high-stakes jobs.

US Congress Senate Bill 3051

If passed, Bill 3051 would beef up penalties for adults who hire minors illegally and allow parents to pursue civil penalties for harm done to their children at work. You can follow the progress of the bill in the Senate here.

While many may believe that the horrors of illegal and dangerous child labor practices are a thing of the past, something that happened long ago in textile mills and coal mines, the truth is child labor remains very much a part of the American experience. In light of numerous reports on the realities of child labor in 2023 and a bill introduced in the Senate that aims to increase criminal and civil penalties for hiring and harming children at work, it is important to consider the ways that parents can protect their kids and others.

Reid Maki has been working to improve child labor conditions in the United States for more than 30 years, and he knows that there is a disconnect between how we perceive the work experience of our country’s youth and the realities that many face. As the Director of Child Labor Issues and Coordinator of the Child Labor Coalition (CLC), Maki has worked firsthand with dozens of families affected by illegal and dangerous child labor practices across the country.

“There was some consumer polling done about 10-12 years ago by Child Rights International where they asked people about child labor and three out of four consumers thought that there were fewer than 1 million child laborers in the world, and at the time there were 152 million child laborers in the world,” he says. “So the perception globally was that it was a very small problem and they were way off.”

Maki notes that while many didn’t perceive child labor to be a problem in the US, reports show otherwise.

“We’re seeing some pretty scary evidence that the problem is bigger here than we thought,” he adds.

The U.S. Department of Labor reports that illegal child labor has increased by as much as 69% since 2018 according to a statement in February 2023. In the last fiscal year alone, “the department found 835 companies it investigated had employed more than 3,800 children in violation of labor laws.”

Earlier this year, the DOL announced a historic resolution of one of the largest child labor cases in its history against Packers Sanitation Services Inc. LTD., in which the company was fined $1.5 million for illegally employing more than 102 children to clean so-called kill floor equipment like “skull-splitters” and “bone saws.” These child laborers were working the overnight shift, with several of them suffering chemical burns as a result of workplace injuries.

In a press release at the time, DOL Wage and Hour Regional Administrator Michael Lazzeri said though Packers Sanitation Services’ systems flagged some young workers as minors, the company ignored the flags.

“When the Wage and Hour Division arrived with warrants, the adults—who had recruited, hired, and supervised these children—tried to derail our efforts to investigate their employment practices,” he added.

Jessica Looman, Principal Deputy Administrator, DOL Wage and Hour Division says the violation, and those like it, are part of a troubling trend.

"First jobs can provide young people with invaluable experience and skills to last a lifetime, but we have seen an increasing trend of employers nationwide exposing children to unsafe work, leading to serious injury and even fatality,” she says. “That’s why the department is using all its resources to combat the illegal employment of children.”

As if to emphasize the pervasive nature of child labor dangers, the landmark settlement’s widespread publicity in early 2023 was followed by new reports of teens fatally injured in hazardous and illegal working conditions.

In June, Michael Schuls died at the age of 16 following an accident at the Wisconsin sawmill where his father was also employed. He was crushed when he attempted to unjam a wood stacking machine, according to an AP report.

Another 16-year-old, William M. Hampton, was crushed to death when he was pinned between a semi-truck and its trailer while working at a landfill. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating to determine whether his employers were in violation of state or federal employment guidelines.

Duvan Tomas Perez, was the third 16-year-old killed this summer, trapped in a conveyor belt at the Mar-Jac poultry plant where he was illegally employed in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

The DOL reported earlier this year that between October 2022 and July 2023, it conducted nearly 800 child labor investigations finding 4,474 children employed in violation of federal child labor laws. Employers in violation of labor laws were assessed more than $6.6 million in penalties.

As troubling as these numbers are, Maki notes the scope of the problem could be even worse.

“It’s really hard to know how extensive these issues are,” he says. “It’s worrisome, and these [...] examples could be just the tip of the iceberg.”

Finding Loopholes in Federal Guidelines

Though federal guidelines vary slightly from sector to sector and depend largely on the age of the child, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) generally allows for the employment of children as young as 14 outside the agricultural industry and allows children under the age of 16 to work up to 3-4 hours a day on a school day, and as late as 7 p.m. during the school calendar year. The FLSA also restricts the work activities of children, especially in dangerous work environments such as coal mining and manufacturing.

While child labor practices are regulated by both state and federal laws, there is often a disconnect between the two. And while laborers’ employment is ostensibly governed by whichever provides them with the most protections, federal or state, loopholes in child labor law abound, allowing for children to engage in technically legal but highly dangerous occupations that put them at risk for injury and/or death. 

The most egregious of these loopholes is in the agricultural sector—which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ranks among the most hazardous industries in the country. A report by the National Center for Farmworker Health estimates that approximately 115 children die annually in agriculture-related incidents and nearly 12,000 experience non-fatal injuries. The most common causes of fatal injuries to children are: working with machinery like tractors, using motor vehicles like ATVs, and drowning.

According to the National Center for Farmworker Health, hundreds of thousands of children work in the agriculture sector in the US, many illegally or off the books. Even within legal limits, OSHA allows a variety of exceptions to normal child labor laws for children employed in the agricultural sector.

For example, while a child must be a minimum age of 14 for employment in all other sectors, a child as young as 12 can work in agriculture on a farm with written parental permission or if their parent is working on the same farm. And while children younger than 14 are prohibited from employment in all other sectors, those younger than 12 can work in agriculture if the farm is not required to pay the Federal minimum wage. When it comes to hourly restrictions, while research repeatedly shows the costly consequences of working more than 20 hours a week for teens, federal law allows children 6 years old or older ”to work on any farm, including during hours when school is in session, on any day, for any number of hours, and in any job.”

There have been calls to strengthen child labor laws at the federal level, most notably, in April this year, Congressman Kildee (Michigan) introduced the Combating Child Labor Act. In a release at the time, his team shared that the goal of the act is to “establish harsher civil and criminal penalties for violations of existing child labor laws and increase transparency for the American people about violations.”

The highest penalty for routine violations is currently set at $15,138, which if the bill is passed, would increase to $150,000 while also addressing gaps in information about the scale of child labor violations nationwide through an annual report to Congress.

“Children should be in school,” Kildee says. “Not working in dangerous factory jobs.”

Changes in State Guidelines

While most states have employment laws that offer minors more protection than federal guidelines, others are attempting to loosen child labor laws with many citing labor shortages across the country.

In this year alone, New Jersey, Arkansas, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, and Iowa were among the states moving to change guidelines to allow minors to seek employment without work permits, lift restrictions on hazardous work, extend working hours to 9 or 10 p.m. on school days, allow children to serve alcohol, and to permit youth employment in or around construction sites.

Maki says the bill from Iowa was one of the most egregious he’s seen in his time with the CLC.

"The bill has lots of bad stuff in it. A lot of the legislators that are introducing bills like this are talking about the labor shortage they feel like their states are having…. but our feeling is you just cannot balance a labor shortage on the backs of vulnerable teen workers. We think that’s a misguided idea.”

Who is at risk?

With the concerning number of reported workplace violations, injuries, and deaths, Maki says it’s important to recognize these figures only reflect those cases that are reported to governing agencies––with countless instances of child labor violations likely unreported and unmonitored.

Most notably, the population of unaccompanied minors and undocumented children is likely at a higher risk of injury or death, as they often lack the support of parental figures and adult protection, he explains.

“A lot of these kids in these dangerous situations are immigrant children, and a lot are unaccompanied minors,” Maki notes. “We do know that in the last four years, there has been a large influx of unaccompanied minors. About 130,000 of them came in last year, and these are kids that they’re extremely vulnerable. They come here with no parental figure, just an uncle, cousin, or friends and they are desperate for money.”

Maki says many of these children are so desperate for work and an income that would allow them to send money back home to their family that they’re taking any job.

“I assume that these kids that are entering these meat-packing plants have no idea how horrible the conditions are,” he says. “So shame on the companies that are allowing it to happen.”

Unfortunately, all children in the workforce can be at risk without proper supervision, education, and oversight, and often parents aren’t even aware of the dangers that can be present in their child’s workplace.

The child in another family Maki spoke with was maimed in a workplace accident where the teen was legally employed. The injured boy lost several fingers.

“They’re not an immigrant family,” Maki adds. “The parents [...] had no idea that their child would be doing something dangerous. He was working in a factory but they thought he’d be doing sweeping or filing. When you’re in a dangerous work setting, danger has a way of finding you.”

Illegal and dangerous child labor practices are pervasive throughout the country and affect both citizens and children of immigrants and migrants alike. In Maine, workplace injuries among minors have more than doubled in the past decade—from 162 in 2012 to 365 in 2022.

Mike Roland, the Director of the Maine Bureau of Labor Standards noted earlier this summer that the state of Maine is “observing a marked increase in the numbers of work permits denied, violations of child-protective labor laws, and most disturbingly, in reported injuries to minors in Maine's workplaces.”

He adds that ultimately child labor violations affect everyone—not just immigrant or migrant workers. “It certainly happens in Maine to people who have lived here their entire lives,” he says.

Academic Delays and Lost Earning Potential

Though the length of time children work, even in non-hazardous jobs, may seem relatively unimportant, research has repeatedly shown that a 20-hour limit matters. One European study says that extended working hours that lead to loss of educational opportunities can have devastating effects on a child’s future.

“The negative effect of child labour is cumulative: the academic delay accumulated in the first year of labour adds to that of the following year, and so on,” the study explains.  “In the long run, child labour affects the number of years of schooling completed only when children work more than 15-20 hours of work per week. By impeding school completion and learning performance, child labour can also have an impact on adult labour market outcomes, particularly for employment requiring academic skills.”

Maki says the potential educational and economic impacts on young people are very concerning. “We’re very worried about the academic impact,” he says. “It can have lifelong consequences.”

Studies repeatedly find that high school dropouts make significantly less than their peers who secure a high school diploma, while researchers have found that those who earn a college degree stand to earn more than $1 million more in lifetime earnings than their peers without a bachelor’s degree.

“We don’t want to see kids sacrificing their economic future or consigning themselves to poverty for a lifetime,” Maki adds. 

Injury and Death

Even if their child is working within the parameters of legal employment, parents should be aware of the dangers—some of which may lead to injury or death. One of the most surprising workplace hazards parents should be aware of is driving. According to the CDC, traffic accidents are the leading cause of fatalities among teenagers, causing the deaths of approximately 2,800 young people ages 16-19 in 2020, and the injury of about 227,000 others.

A report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics cites transportation incidents as the most frequent cause of death for all workers in 2021, “with 1,982 fatal injuries, an increase of 11.5 percent from 2020. This major category accounted for 38.2 percent of all work-related fatalities for 2021.”

“Parents don’t know one of the most common ways that teens can die is in car accidents,” Maki says. “So you don’t want your teen taking a job where they’re being driven a lot or where they're expected to drive themselves either. That increases the likelihood of premature death significantly.”

Beyond operating vehicles, children are at increased risk when they work in environments where they may be around heavy machinery or equipment.

“The problem is teens are very compliant,” Maki adds. “They’re desperate to please their employers because it’s their first job.  So if an employer says, ‘Go throw these boxes into the compactor and press the button,’ well, the law is that the teen can throw the boxes in the compactor, but they can’t press the button because that’s how people get hurt or die.”

No matter where their children are working, Maki emphasizes that parents need to be involved in the decision. “Parents need to be very engaged in this decision,” he says. “They need to talk to their kid, they need to talk to their employer, they need to make sure that there’s nothing dangerous that’s expected.”

Maki states one obvious solution to minimizing exposure to dangerous and illegal employment for children is for employers to attract qualified adult workers to such jobs instead, which would do much to address the perceived labor shortage—and research seems to support that view.

“There are solutions to labor shortages including raising wages,” he says. “If you’re trying to attract adult workers, you just need to raise wages, and a lot of firms are reluctant to do that.”

When it comes to ensuring the safety of our children and making strides in reporting illegal or unsafe child labor practices, Jessica Looman says that one of our most valuable resources can be our community networks.

“We hope that parents, teachers, and community members will learn the signs of illegal child labor and unsafe workplaces and report it to us when they see indicators of child labor violations in their area,” she notes. “We all have to work together to make sure that our children are safe, healthy, and protected from exploitation.”

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