The Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938, which went a long way toward eliminating dangerous child labor in the U.S. Now these protections are being eroded, especially among migrant children. A majority of U.S. states have taken action or are considering legislation that would weaken protections for child workers, who have always been allowed to work in agriculture starting at age 12.
The Campaign to End U.S. Child Labor includes dozens of labor, educational and social service organizations. Their shared agenda calls for the protection of unaccompanied migrant children; increased enforcement; proposing strong legislation to hold corporations accountable for child labor law violations; and mandating corporate funding to eradicate child labor from supply chains.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Reid Maki, director of child labor advocacy for the internationally-focused Child Labor Coalition and the National Consumers League, which is also a co-founder of the Campaign to End U.S. Child Labor. Here, he talks about the current assault on protective child labor laws in states across the U.S.
REID MAKI: There have been, I think, over 30 states that have looked at weakening child labor laws. When you take a really close look, it’s not quite as dire as it might seem initially. There have been some states where there’s been kind of an egregious attempt to weaken protections, like Iowa is an example of that where they assaulted child labor protections from a variety of angles, including hours and putting kids into somewhat harmful workplaces.
And there’s currently a bill in Florida that we really hate where basically older teens, 16- to 17-year-olds and some younger teens work really long hours, overnight hours before school. You can’t even fathom how they could come up with a plan that would impact children so much — how can they possibly work all night and then go to school?
It has been something we have seen in some of these instances of child labor. In recent years, kids working in the meat packing plants and cleaning crews were working all night and then trying to go to school, where of course, they fell asleep often. There was a very big DOL investigation that came out in February of 2023, the US Department of Labor Investigation found kids working in 13 facilities, I believe it was in 8 states. So it was really spread. It wasn’t really localized to a specific region.
These were meat processing plants and the kids were mostly immigrants, immigrant children, a lot of them unaccompanied minors that had come across the border. Very, very vulnerable children desperate for work. I think the sending countries were mostly Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador. Yeah. The kids were cleaning the meat processing plant, cleaning these grisly tools that cut up animals, render animals, and they were using caustic chemicals. So that was very disturbing, this report from Department of Labor.
But then Hannah Dreier, a New York Times reporter, did a series of exposés that ended up winning her the Pulitzer Prize and she found kids working in 20 different states doing all kinds of hazardous labor — children as roofers, children working in auto supply factories and meat processing as well. So we’ve seen kids in lots of dangerous situations.
MELINDA TUHUS: Reid Maki, does the coalition focus on both national and state concerns?
REID MAKI: Yes, we’re working at both levels. I will tell you at the state level it’s challenging because there are so many states and their assembly calendars are all somewhat different, and their protocols for passing legislation are all slightly different. So we really often rely on a partner within that state to really be on top of things.
REID MAKI: Yes. We’re very afraid right now that there’s very little enforcement going on. If it’s happening in the Department of Labor, Wage and Hour division, they’re not talking about it, which is a critical part of reducing child labor. If you have an enforcement action, you have to talk about it, you have to do a press release, you have have to let the business community know that child labor laws are being enforced. And so we’re not seeing that. We’re not seeing any evidence of enforcement. So that means that it’s either not happening or they just don’t want people to know about it and it’s going to have an effect where the business community stops paying attention.The child labor law, we’re going to see, I think, more rampant child labor violations in the future if that doesn’t change.
Another factor is that the number of labor inspectors by the Department of Labor has been dropping and it has been dropping for a while, but in the Biden administration, it was in the low 700s, and we think by the end of the Biden administration had a drop to the mid-600s. Our guess is that that’s dropping considerably under the Trump administration. We are hearing that they’re not renewing some of the state offices that Federal Department of Labor has sometimes has in the states to help enforce the child labor laws, other labor laws and those leases are not being renewed. Those offices are closing. So it seems like there is a significant retraction in the labor inspectorate going on right now.
For more information, visit the Child Labor Coalition at enduschildlabor.
See more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. For weekly updates on the Trump authoritarian playbook now underway, subscribe here to our Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine Substack newsletter to get updates to our “Hey AmeriKKKa, It’s Not Normal” compilation.
For the best listening experience and to never miss an episode, subscribe to Between The Lines on your favorite podcast app or platform.Or subscribe to our Between The Lines and Counterpoint Weekly Summary.
