GREEN BAY, WI – The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a federal consent order and judgment against sawmill operator Florence Hardwoods LLC following the death of a child. The order requires the Florence County company to place labels and signage to prevent children under age 18 from using dangerous equipment and entering the company’s sawmill and planer buildings. The company has agreed not to hire anyone under the age of 16 and if the company hires anyone between the ages of 16 and 18 in the future, the company must strictly comply with the requirements for apprentices or student learners and inform the department before hiring them.
The action follows an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division into a 16-year-old worker’s death at the Wisconsin sawmill which led to the department invoking the “hot goods” provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The division opened the investigation after the teenager suffered severe injuries on June 29, 2023, at Florence Hardwoods and died two days later.
On Sept. 6, 2023, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Green Bay Division, the company agreed to, and was ordered by the court to comply with, federal child labor regulations now and in the future.
“This tragic case illustrates just how vital and urgent it is that the Department of Labor uses every tool at our disposal to combat child labor,” said Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su. “Any death of a child is too many. That’s why our Wage...
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