In today’s news and commentary, a new Washington Post report highlights the impact of child labor investigations on the children involved; the Department of Commerce imposes childcare requirements on companies seeking microchip subsidies; a New York City Starbucks worker is reinstated after being fired without cause; and the NLRB rules that Google is the employer of subcontractors hired through a staffing agency.

We continue to learn about the fallout from the Department of Labor’s investigation into child labor violations by Packers Sanitation Services Inc. On Friday, the Washington Post reported on the impacts the investigation has had on the children in one Nebraska town. After the DOL raided the meatpacking plant, some children employed at the plant skipped school for several days; others dropped out of school; and two fled the town entirely. Many of the children that PSSI employed are migrants, and one school employee concluded that “when the authorities came, the kids thought they would be taken away or deported.” The children’s families face their own consequences; the Post highlighted one girl whose mother pled guilty to child abuse for allowing the girl to work at PSSI, and whose stepfather faces deportation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor for driving her to work at the slaughterhouse.

David Weil, a professor at Brandeis University and the former head of DOL’s Wage and Hour Division, explained some of the causes of the recent surge in child labor...

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