Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., speaks with reporters after a closed-door caucus meeting at the Capitol, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023, in Washington. The meeting discussed the federal charges of bribery against Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.(Photo by USA Today)
Amidst the quagmire of a conflict in Israel, the election of a speaker, and the looming specter of a second government shutdown this autumn, Congress confronts a distressing issue that impacts America’s most vulnerable population: a staggering 69% surge in child labor law violations since 2018.
Senator Bob Casey, representing Pennsylvania and chairing the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Children and Families, is the latest stalwart lawmaker determined to bring the nation’s antiquated child labor laws into the modern era. The cause of this concern has been the dramatic upswing in violations over the past few years.
In response to this pressing issue, Senator Casey is set to introduce the “Children Harmed in Life-Threatening or Dangerous Labor Act,” or the CHILD Labor Act. The primary focus of this legislation is to impose more stringent penalties for those who breach child labor laws and to enhance accountability, extending to both contractors and subcontractors who employ underage workers.
The Fair Labor Standards Act, enacted 85 years ago, currently prohibits minors under the age of 18 from engaging in hazardous occupations and provides for child labor regulations. Senator Casey’s bill seeks to inject new life into this aged legislation.
Senator Casey’s words encapsulate the urgency of this matter: “It is long past time we bring our child labor laws into the 21st century and fight back against the employers, contractors, and subcontractors that violate them.”
A disconcerting revelation emerges from the Department of Labor – a harrowing 69% increase in children illegally employed by companies since 2018. In fiscal year 2023, the Wage and Hour Division of the agency conducted investigations, unearthing an 88% spike in children working in violation of the law since 2019.
To put it into perspective, nearly 5,800 children were found to be employed illegally during fiscal year 2023, and these violations incurred over $8 million in penalties, marking an 83% increase from the preceding year. These infractions range from physical injuries, and, tragically, even fatalities in some instances, to children being coerced into working overnight shifts that flout the Federal Labor Standards Act.
Senator Casey’s legislation responds to these stark findings, and it coincides with recent data from the Wage and Hour Division, which conducted over 955 investigations in fiscal year 2023, zealously enforcing the child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. This division has held more employers accountable for child labor law violations in the last year than in any single year over the past decade.
These violations span a wide spectrum of severity, as illustrated by a case from February resulting in a staggering $1.5 million penalty against Packers Sanitation Services, a company responsible for cleaning services at meat processing facilities. The investigation revealed that the company had engaged over 100 children in the use of hazardous chemicals to clean perilous equipment.
In another incident from just last month, nine children were discovered to be employed illegally, operating dangerous machinery at Florence Hardwoods, a Wisconsin-based sawmill operator. Tragically, one child lost their life due to work-related injuries.
Presently, the maximum civil penalty for a child labor violation stands at $11,000, but for many of the multi-billion dollar corporations, this sum proves to be an inadequate deterrent against violating federal law.
The CHILD Labor Act of 2023, as envisioned by Senator Casey, introduces several pivotal provisions aimed at modernizing the Fair Labor Standards Act and federal contracting laws to ensure that businesses, contractors, and subcontractors hiring minors are held accountable.
The legislation is co-sponsored by several notable senators, including Patty Murray of Washington, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and others, illustrating the broad bipartisan support it enjoys. Among the essential components of the bill are the authorization of the Secretary of Labor to label products produced with child labor and the issuance of stop-work orders for those in violation of child labor provisions. Moreover, the legislation proposes to raise the civil penalty amount for those violating child labor provisions significantly.
As Congress grapples with an array of funding bills prior to the government funding deadline, the Department of Labor has called upon lawmakers to meet a funding request of $50 million each for the Wage and Hour Division and the Office of the Solicitor of Labor to intensify investigations into child labor cases. These agencies, over the past decade, have witnessed a 15% reduction in full-time employees due to budget constraints.
In response to the escalating child labor violations, the Department of Labor has initiated an Interagency Taskforce to Combat Child Labor Exploitation and a National Strategic Enforcement Initiative on Child Labor, deploying data-driven strategies to target these violations more effectively.
Senator Casey, concerned about the issue’s gravity, has urged these groups to enhance data collection, thereby gaining a more comprehensive understanding of where these violations are transpiring and enabling a more precise targeting of responses.
In the eloquent words of Senator Casey, “Recent cases of child labor violations demonstrate that we need more accountability and liability across supply chains.” The introduction of the CHILD Labor Act represents a crucial step towards safeguarding the rights and well-being of America’s most vulnerable, its children.
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