In response to a dramatic spike in child-labor violations, the Biden administration has launched a wide-ranging push to compel employers to obey the law. Among the initiatives: a Department of Labor-led interagency task force to combat child-labor exploitation and a nationwide strategic enforcement plan. However, this effort won’t just impact companies engaged in illegal practices.
Since 2018, the U.S. Department of Labor has seen a 69% increase in children being employed illegally. In fiscal year 2022, the DOL found that 835 companies it investigated employed more than 3,800 children in violation of labor laws. The maximum civil monetary penalty under current law for a child-labor violation is $15,138 per child.
“That’s not high enough to be a deterrent for major profitable companies,” a DOL statement said.
Read the DOL’s announcement of the child-labor initiative here.
On Feb. 17, the Labor Department settled one of the largest child-labor cases in its history against a Wisconsin company that provides laborers to clean meat-packing plants.
Packers Sanitation Services, one of the nation’s largest such firms, has paid $1.5 million in penalties after the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division found the company employed at least 102 children—from 13 to 17 years old—in hazardous occupations and had them working overnight shifts at 13 meat-processing facilities in eight states.
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the department assessed the maximum $15,138 for each...
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