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WASHINGTON — Top Democrats on the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee are urging Republican Chair Virginia Foxx of North Carolina to hold a hearing this month on the uptick in child labor violations.
Democratic Reps. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the ranking member of the committee, and Alma Adams of North Carolina, the ranking member of a panel on workplace safety, outlined their concerns that the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division has shown “a near quadrupling of the number of children involved in child labor violations since 2015.”
“This surge in child labor violations is happening while WHD has had steadily decreasing resources to invest in enforcement,” the lawmakers wrote in a June 6 letter.
During fiscal 2022, there were 835 companies that employed more than 3,800 children in violation of labor laws, according to data from the Wage and Hour Division. That’s an increase from fiscal 2015, when 542 companies employed more than 1,000 children in violation of labor laws.
Scott and Adams are asking for a hearing so that members of the committee can understand the “scope of the child labor problem confronting the country and the legislative solutions to address it.”
In a statement to States Newsroom, Foxx said Democrats’ request for a hearing is “all for show,” and that Republicans on the committee grilled Acting DOL Secretary Julie Su on Wednesday about reports on child...
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