Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a bill into law on Wednesday that will scale back labor protections for children under 16.
Under the new law, children under 16 no longer have to get permission from the state’s Division of Labor to get a job, nor will they need to have their age verified or submit things like their work schedule for a permit. In addition to no longer needing to get a work certificate, children won’t need their parents’ consent.
Sanders’s communication director, Alexa Henning, told BuzzFeed News in an email that the permit was “an arbitrary burden on parents to get permission from the government for their child to get a job.”
“All child labor laws that actually protect children still apply and we expect businesses to comply just as they are required to do now,” Henning added.
But Seema Nanda, the US Department of Labor’s solicitor of labor, said in an email that it’s “irresponsible” to loosen child labor protections.
“Federal and state entities should be working together to increase accountability and ramp up enforcement — not make it easier to illegally hire children to do what are often dangerous jobs,” Nanda said. “No child should be working in dangerous workplaces in this country, full stop. The FLSA and its child labor protections apply in all states and no state has the ability to limit these provisions. The Department has and will continue to vigorously enforce child labor protections across the nation."
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