Child Labor Laws: Prioritizing the Well-Being of Children in the United States

There is a grave misconception that child labor is an issue that takes place far beyond the stripes and stars of our American border, however, child labor is alive and well in the United States. Recently, the New York Times published an article exposing the prevalence of child migrant laborers in the United States.[1] The article details the horrific conditions and circumstances under which children as young as 12 years old have to endure in the United States labor force. For example, 13-year-old Jose Vasquez works six days a week, 12 hours a day at an egg farm in Michigan instead of going to school and being a normal child.[2] Despite the Fair Labor Standards Act that has clauses to protect children from unfair and unethical labor practices, unaccompanied migrant children are particularly vulnerable to labor exploitation and are often left unprotected. Child labor laws in the United States should deviate from their history and start to prioritize the well-being of children, specifically migrant children, through more fines, regulation of the agricultural industry, and precautions that lessen the need for employment for children.

Historically, child labor laws in the United States are either often violated or put in place to further the economy. For example, our current child labor laws found in the Fair Labor Standards Act emerged from the Great Depression as many, “sought to restrict child labor and improve working conditions to uplift the masses, but it took the Great Depression—a time when Americans were desperate for employment—to shake long-held practices of child labor in the United States.” During this time of vast adult unemployment and economic downturn, there was a greater desire for stricter child labor laws. The removal of child labor served a purpose to the state of the economy that was not previously there. Prior to the Great Depression, in 1900, 18% of the United States labor force were children under 16 years old.[3] However, now as the United States experiences labor shortages, many states are either in the process of weakening their child labor laws or already have such as expanding youth hours in New Jersey[4] and allowing 14 year olds to work in meatpacking and mining industries in Iowa.[5] Child labor laws in the United States have often been altered and championed based on the labor force when they should be updated to reflect the needs of children who are most at risk of unethical labor practices.

Unaccompanied migrant children searching for a better future are a growing part of the United States labor force. However, they are the most vulnerable to child labor violations. Many children are left virtually alone as they arrive in the country and are placed with strangers who feel no reason to care for them. Some of these children fall victim to fraud as soon as they enter the United States because their sponsors, who are supposed to act as their legal guardians, hit them with debts that they have no means of paying. For example, 13 year old Nery Cutzal arrived in Florida with a debt of over $4,000 and climbing from his sponsor for filing paperwork, clothes, food, and he had to find a place to stay. Nery received several threatening messages from his sponsor such as “Don’t mess with me” and “You don’t mean anything to me.”[6] With fear and responsibilities to this degree, unaccompanied migrant children are susceptible to unfair labor practices. Many of the migrant children like Nery get lost in the system due to a lack of attentive check ins from their case workers.[7] The current legal process regarding the unaccompanied migrant children leaves great room for exploitation of migrant children.

Some might believe that having a job is a good way for youth to learn responsibility, money management, and other timely skills and that the rules listed in the Fair Labor Standards Act are adequate enough. However, many unaccompanied migrant children have long surpassed what is acceptable work for youth and have a far different motivation for working than to have some spending money. The root of the problem occurs before they even seek employment. It is the debts, housing, and food payments that shackle them to the labor force so young. For instance, Charlene Irizarry, a human resource officer at a meat plant in Alabama who often has migrant minors seek employment, expressed concern about what happens to them beyond her interview room. “‘I worry about why they’re so desperate for these jobs,’ she said,” as reported by the New York Times. Her plant has had labor violation issues in the past. Similarly, a report from the U.S Department of Labor mentions the dangerous conditions, such as use of heavy machinery and chemicals,[8] that often occur at sites that illegally employ migrant children. More often than not, the jobs that want to hire underage children are dangerous jobs with long shifts. Children are regularly injured and have a terrible sleep schedule. Youth employment shouldn’t infringe on one’s well-being and inhibit them from going to school.[9] Jobs that violate one law, often violate multiple, which is all the more detrimental to young and desperate children.

The current fines that are administered by the U.S. The Department of Labor are simply not enough to incentivize companies to use more ethical forms of labor. For example, Packers Sanitation Services Inc. was recently charged with multiple child labor violations. The United States Depart of Labor reported that their “Wage and Hour Division found the company employed at least 102 children – from 13 to 17 years of age – in hazardous occupations and had them working overnight shifts at 13 meat processing facilities in eight states.”[10] In total, Packers Sanitation Services Inc. was fined a total of $1,544,076 for the violations and mistreatment of over 100 minors.[11] This amount is not significant enough to incentivize the company to stop using child labor as their yearly revenue is around 2.73 billion.[12]

Penalties for child labor violations should be increased greatly to truly deter large companies like Packers Sanitation Services from allowing minors to be in dangerous and detrimental working conditions. The current penalty of “up to $11,000 for each employee who is the subject of a child labor violation” is too lax.[13] The Fair Labor Standard Act offers additional sanctions such as “an assessment of up to $50,000 for each violation that causes the death or serious injury of a minor and such assessments may be doubled, up to $100,000, when the violations are determined to be willful or repeated.” There are also other secondary fines in play.[14] For example, “in the case of a willful violation of the child labor rules, the FLSA provides for a fine up to $10,000. For a second offense committed after the conviction for a prior offense, a person can also be imprisoned for not more than 6 months.”[15] Though these punishments might seem comprehensive, they facilitate an environment where it is more economically favorable for big companies to risk the fines and utilize unethical child labor. In a capitalistic society with such an emphasis on cost-benefit analysis, if the punishments administered by the Department of Labor were viewed as too risky because of their potential economic damage to the company, there wouldn’t be such great numbers of child labor violations in the United States.

Unaccompanied migrant children need safeguards to protect them from employment circumstances that are too laborious, unsafe and harmful to their well-being. Firstly, there needs to be a complete overhaul of the current intake system with a focus on tracking incoming children and ensuring they are not victims of false sponsor schemes and locating many unaccompanied children from recent years. There will be a decrease in migrant child laborers because children who have to provide for themselves are easily exploited by large companies who have little motivation to provide safe and humane conditions. Essentially, these children need adults to work and provide for them, so they are not forced to do it for themselves. Secondly, child labor laws in the United States need to be modernized. Though child labor laws have tended to be at the whim of the needs of the labor force, there should be a more robust law that prioritizes the needs of vulnerable children. Change is not new to the Fair Labor Standards Act. Throughout the years it has been changed to reflect new minimum wages and cutting down the work week from 44 hours to 40.[16] Amendments to this law must go through Congress, which will inevitably take time. However there are prompt measures that can be taken by the presidential office. The Biden administration echoed the same sentiments, but this problem needs immediate action, not just sentiments.[17] There should be new changes that adapt to the necessities of the growing and susceptible population of migrant children in the workforce.

References

[1]Hannah Dreier and Kirsten Luce, “Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs across the U.S.,” The New York Times (The New York Times, February 25, 2023), https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/25/us/unaccompanied-migrant-child-workers-exploitation.html.

[2]Ibid.

[3]History.com Editors, “Child Labor: Laws & Definition - History,” History.com (History.com, August 24, 2022), https://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/child-labor.

[4]Kaitlyn Radde, “Child Labor Violations Are on the Rise as Some States Look to Loosen Their Rules,” NPR (NPR, February 26, 2023), https://www.npr.org/2023/02/26/1157368469/child-labor-violations-increase-states-loosen-rules.

[5]Brett Wilkins et al., “Critics Slam Business-Backed Bill to Expand Child Labor in Iowa,” Truthout (Truthout, February 8, 2023), https://truthout.org/articles/critics-slam-business-backed-bill-to-expand-child-labor-in-iowa/.

[6]Hannah Dreier and Kirsten Luce, “Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs across the U.S.”

[7]Ibid.

[8]Ibid.

[9]Ibid.

[10]United States Wage and Hour Division, “More than 100 Children Illegally Employed in Hazardous Jobs, Federal Investigation Finds; Food Sanitation Contractor Pays $1.5m in Penalties,” United States Department of Labor (United States Department of Labor, 2023), https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20230217-1.

[11]Ibid.

[12]“Packers Sanitation Services Inc. Information,” RocketReach, accessed March 23, 2023, https://rocketreach.co/packers-sanitation-services-inc-profile_b5eab21cf42e7aa1#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20annual%20revenue,was%20%242.73%20billion%20in%202021.

[13] “Enforcement,” Elaws - FLSA - Child Labor Rules advisor, accessed March 23, 2023, https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/flsa/cl/enforcement.asp.

[14]Ibid.

[15]Ibid.

[16]J.D. Lisa Nagele-Piazza, “The FLSA after 80 Years: How Has It Changed and What Lies Ahead?,” SHRM (SHRM, October 29, 2019), https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/flsa-after-80-years.aspx.

[17]  Hannah Dreier, “Biden Administration Plans Crackdown on Migrant Child Labor,” The New York Times (The New York Times, February 27, 2023), https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/27/us/biden-child-labor.html.