Two 10 year olds worked at a McDonald’s restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky, serving customers, cleaning the restaurant and manning the deep fryer, sometimes until 2 a.m. in the morning, according to a report for the Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division.
The report released on Tuesday disclosed that three franchises operating 62 McDonald’s restaurants in Kentucky, Indiana, Maryland and Ohio employed 305 children beyond the legally permitted hours and had them perform tasks prohibited by law for their age. The franchises were fined a total of $212,754.
In the Louisville restaurant, investigators discovered the 10 year olds were allegedly visiting a parent who is a night manager at the location. The children were not employees of McDonald’s nor were they paid for their labor.
These citations are only the latest of several violations of child labor laws by McDonald’s, the most horrifying resulting in a 15 year old in Morristown, Tennessee, being severely burned while working a deep fryer in June 2022.
The latest DOL report of McDonald’s child labor law violations is one of several within the past year. In December 2022, a McDonald’s franchisee with 13 locations in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area was fined for violations involving 101 minor workers. In February 2023, a franchise with restaurants in Erie and Warren, Pennsylvania, incurred citations covering 154 minors for exceeding the number of hours 14 and 15 year olds are allowed to work and for allowing...
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