Recent moves in some states to loosen child worker protections are “irresponsible” and make it easier to hire children for dangerous work, the Labor Department’s top attorney said Thursday.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a rising Republican star, on Tuesday signed legislation into law that eliminated age verification requirements for youth workers younger than 16 years old. A similar proposal is advancing in Missouri. Iowa legislators are considering a bill that would allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work certain jobs in meatpacking plants and shield businesses from civil liability if a child laborer is sickened, injured or killed on the job. A bill in Minnesota would permit 16- and 17-year-olds to work construction jobs.
Instead of making it easier to hire youths for dangerous work, governments should try to “increase accountability and ramp up enforcement” of existing laws, Labor Solicitor Seema Nanda said in statement. “No child should be working in dangerous workplaces in this country, full stop.”
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Federal officials have pledged a crackdown on child labor law offenses after regulators discovered hundreds of violations in meatpacking plants, and after news reports emerged of children working in hazardous occupations around the country.
The Labor Department has observed a 69 percent increase in minors employed in violation of federal law since 2018, Nanda said. The agency in February fined Packers Sanitation Services, a subcontractor for meatpacking...
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