Weakening child labor laws is the latest Republican target

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday approved a bill that would eliminate the need for state documents for children under the age of 16 to work. The Arkansas law is now just one of several bills designed to relax restrictions on child labor, despite evidence that young children are already engaged in hazardous and exploitative labor across the country.

State GOP lawmakers have used the rhetoric of protecting children and giving parents more choices over their children’s lives to push extreme policies like Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s drag show ban and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ban for any teaching about gender identity or sexual orientation to justify elementary schools. Sanders spokeswoman Alexa Henning told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, “The governor believes child protection is most important, but it’s tedious and redundant to arbitrarily burden parents to get government approval.” so her child can get a job. ”

The new law, called the Youth Employment Act, removes the requirement that children aged 14 and 15 who are looking for work must obtain a document issued by the Director of the Department of Labor that contains the child’s work schedule and a description of their work duties. and proof of age and parental or guardian consent.

Sanders signed the law into law just weeks after the Labor Department released the results of an investigation that found 102 children, ages 13 to 17, were illegally doing dangerous jobs like cleaning meat processing plants. Ten of those children worked at facilities in Huckabees Arkansas, according to the research, and 25 worked in Minnesota, another state that is considering loosening child labor laws.

Many children working in dangerous and illegal jobs are migrants from Central America trying to earn money to send home to their families who are struggling due to the economic downturn triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a recent investigation by the New York Times.

The removal of documentation requirements in Arkansas “seems just to create a state of lawlessness,” Reid Maki, head of advocacy at the Child Labor Coalition, told The Washington Post. Add to this a labor and immigration system that has failed to protect migrant children from dangerous and demanding jobs that affect their mental and physical health and their ability to attend school.

Republicans have long sought to erode labor protections, often by attacking unions and pushing right-to-work laws that limit union power. Arkansas law represents a new, troubling frontier in this trend; under the guise of liberty, it undermines the protections of some of society’s most vulnerable people.

The reality of child labor in the US is devastating

The child labor at the heart of the Labor Department’s investigation and the New York Times story is much more than just a summer stint as a lifeguard at a local swimming pool or bagging groceries at the grocery store after school. These investigations uncovered migrant children working long night shifts in factories cleaning meat cutting equipment with dangerous chemicals, in the construction industry, or packing food for large corporations with fast-moving conveyor belts that could rip off a person’s fingers.

Sanders spokesman Henning said the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which prohibits children under the age of 18 from performing certain hazardous jobs such as manufacturing or construction, still applies to labor practices in Arkansas. Enacted in 1938, the FLSA limits the hours children can work so they have enough time to go to school, do homework, and get enough sleep to stay awake in class.

Relying on the federal system to protect children from exploitative labor is a dubious proposition, despite government promises to do more to address child labor. The federal system has abandoned the most vulnerable children, exposing them to hazardous labor practices and exploitation. In Hannah Dreier’s New York Times investigation, children she spoke to reported working night shifts in hazardous conditions that affected their health and prevented them from getting enough rest to attend school. Many children dropped out of school in order to continue to support their families at home.

Penalties for violating child labor laws are minimal, especially for large companies. Packers Sanitation Services Inc., the subject of a Labor Department investigation that employed 102 children cleaning meat-processing tools such as “back saws, breast saws and head splitters,” was fined $1.5 million — just over $15,000 for each illegally employed child, which is the maximum penalty allowed by law.

The new Arkansas law assumes that “Companies [will comply with federal law] as they must do now,” Henning said in a statement to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Although the federal government has promised to crack down on child labor violations, the Labor Department is currently unable to investigate and punish all reports of child labor violations, reports the Washington Post, making states handy enforcers of labor laws.

Arkansas Senator Clint Penzo, a co-sponsor of the bill, told the Democrat-Gazette he is working with prosecutors and Rep. Rebecca Burkes, who proposed the bill to increase penalties for companies that violate child labor laws. Rep. Burkes did not respond to Vox’s request for comment as of press time.

Michael Lazzeri, the Department of Labor’s regional administrator for wages and hours, said in a statement that their investigation found that “Packers Sanitation Services’ systems flagged some young workers as minors, but the company ignored the flags,” indicating the risk of fines or violations of federal laws was not enough to persuade the company to stop employing children.

Additionally, a multi-tiered supply chain often means that the facilities where children work are not technically their employers. Various companies across the country have hired Packers to clean their facilities. When the supply chain is so convoluted, it’s easier for companies to plausibly deny who works for them.

Other states are poised to follow Arkansas’ example

After decades of reforms that sought to make work safer for everyone, adults and children, Arkansas’ new child labor withdrawals appear to be on the decline, especially given the realities of child labor as highlighted by the Labor Department and New York Times were revealed.

“Stories of children dropping out of school, collapsing from exhaustion, and even losing limbs to machines are what you’d expect in a Charles Dickens or Upton Sinclair novel, but not a description of everyday life in 2023, not in the United States of America America,” said Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) in a speech on February 27 before the House of Representatives.

But the push to undo child labor protections isn’t just limited to Arkansas, and it follows a decade-long Republican attempt to undo labor protections of all kinds, including through the passage of right-to-work legislation and the undermining of the political power of unions.

In a tight labor market like the one currently prevailing in the United States, there are more jobs available than there are workers willing to do those jobs. In particular, employers offering low-paying, low-skill jobs have tried tactics such as offering signing bonuses and raises to lure workers into jobs they may have left during the Covid-19 pandemic. But that bait hasn’t been enough to fill the gaps, and some companies are refusing to offer the kind of wages and benefits that would attract adult workers.

“Unfortunately, because of the high demand for labor where there are gaps in the system, child laborers may be employed to fill some of those gaps,” David Weil, a professor of social policy and management at Brandeis University, told The Washington Post.

States like Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota are now considering loosening child labor laws, and Ohio just passed a law allowing 14- and 15-year-olds to work until 9:00 p.m. year-round.

Under Iowa law, children as young as 14 would be allowed to work certain jobs in meatpacking plants. This bill would also protect companies from liability if a child is injured or killed while on the job. The Iowa Department of Labor declined Vox’s request for comment on the bill.

According to the Labor Department’s findings and the New York Times investigation, the federal government has vowed to crack down on child labor violations, particularly those involving migrant children. New initiatives from President Joe Biden’s administration include a proposal to target and hold accountable companies that use child labor in their supply chains — not just the smaller contractors responsible for hiring children. Labor Department officials will also launch investigations into states that have been identified as child labor hot spots and will ask Congress to increase fines for FLSA violators, the Times reported last month.

But ending dangerous and exploitative child labor – especially when made possible by failures in multiple systems – requires more vigilance and more protection for the vulnerable, not less, as Labor Solicitor Neema Sanda told the Washington Post. “No kid should work in dangerous jobs in this country, period.”