Child labor in the US: cleaning the slaughterhouse at 1 pm, mixing drinks at 2 pm

It sounds like a story from an emerging country: two 10-year-olds working late shifts at a fast food restaurant – and not getting paid for it. But it happened in the middle of the United States, in Louisville, Kentucky. Not only the two ten-year-olds, one of whose parents would also have worked at the branch office, toiled until two in the morning. In addition to the two, about 25 children between the ages of 14 and 15 worked outside the legal working hours. They mopped the floor, packed menus and even served the fryer, though you have to be 16 or older to do that. A McDonald’s store owner now has to pay a $212,000 fine.

In the US, many more children earn their own pocket money than in Germany – for example, by mowing the lawn or doing summer jobs. But child labor is also common, with minors being exploited in jobs that adults should be doing. McDonald’s in Kentucky is not unique, albeit extremely extreme given the age of the staff.

Where and how minors – i.e. those under the age of 18 – are allowed to work in the US is governed by the so-called Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), a law passed in 1938. The FLSA prohibits “exploitative child labour” and sets rough lower limits for safety, wages and labor costs fixed working hours. Under the age of 14, only the classic pocket money jobs such as delivering newspapers or babysitting are allowed. Roofing and similar hazardous activities are only legal from the age of 18. Exceptions apply in the parental business and for agricultural activities.

The number of violations has increased dramatically since 2015. Authorities recorded an increase of 283 percent. From 2021 to 2022 alone, the number of cases has increased by 37 percent. Last year, 835 companies illegally employed more than 3,800 children. Large companies that employ children or young people in areas or at times when they should be in school or in bed are repeatedly caught out.

Thousands are exploited

Car manufacturer Hyundai had to admit a few months ago that a 13-year-old from Guatemala, among others, was assembling car parts at one of its suppliers in the state of Alabama. In February, the US Department of Labor fined national cleaning company PSSI $1.5 million for allowing children as young as 13 to clean machines with sharp blades and handle chemicals in slaughterhouses. Shortly thereafter, the New York Times revealed how children and youth fleeing Latin America are being exploited by entrepreneurs across the country – 12-year-olds as roofers, factory workers or construction workers. As entrenched as this system was, so many supply chains were affected that almost no end consumer in the US can assume they have never consumed a product made in the US that exploited children and young people.

Brendan Skip Mark, a professor at the University of Rhode Island, has been researching child labor in the United States for years. He also attributes the fact that their share is increasing to the fact that more and more workers are organizing themselves in trade unions and protesting against low wages and poor working conditions. “Children are much easier to exploit than adults,” he says. “Especially children without papers. You can’t complain anywhere, otherwise you risk being deported.” Or they could no longer send money to their families. “For a company that only thinks about maximizing profit, it’s a dream come true,” says Mark.

Only the New York Times reports on the exploitation of child refugees changed that. Only a day later, the government announced that it would form an inter-institutional working group. She called on Congress to increase penalties for employers for violations. She could have acted herself long ago: Time and time again, as NYT research has shown, responsible authorities have been made aware of cases where business owners have offered to sponsor unaccompanied minors and let the children do the effort. But they did nothing. The fact that President Joe Biden’s domestic policy adviser, Susan Rice, had to leave her post a few days ago might have something to do with it.

States may provide additional protections in FLSA labor laws that do not conflict with applicable federal law. But why are more and more states rolling back rules that are already in place – especially as the examples of exploited children and youth pile up?

In the past two years, at least ten states have written or passed laws to reduce the relevant regulations. Some of these designs do more than just extend the working hours of ordinary teenage jobs: they enable children to take on physically demanding tasks in potentially dangerous workplaces.

On Thursday, the Iowa legislature passed legislation allowing youths as young as 16 to work the same hours as adults, and 14- and 15-year-olds in potentially dangerous areas previously off limits, such as cold storage. A few days earlier, Republicans in Wisconsin introduced a new law that would allow alcohol to be served in bars and restaurants from the age of 14 – although in the US you can only drink from the age of 21. And in Arkansas, it has recently become easier to hire workers under the age of 16: parents no longer have to sign a permit.

For employers, this means that they no longer have to verify the age of young people. And who can tell from a face whether someone is 13 or already 14 years old?

The state must stay out

As the Biden administration tries to implement the law, individual states are working to relax the rules, especially the Republican-controlled ones. It comes as no surprise that the party is in favor of deregulation. The state should stay out of it, even when it comes to whether young people are ready for the labor market, is her point of view. So-called parental right, parental right to determination, hardly anyone could object to – and so the party uses this as a motto by which it currently promotes a conservative to right-wing reactionary agenda.

The fact that this culture war now extends to the relaxation of the rules against child labor is mainly due to a lobby group that calls itself the Foundation for Government Accountability and is based in Florida. According to research from the Washington Post, she advocated for Iowa deputies to relax the rules in place, arguing, among other things, that young people should be introduced to jobs early on. And that clearly gets the job done: “Thanks to these efforts, we will produce a generation of qualified leaders,” as Republican Senator Jason Schultz, one of the drafters of the Iowa bill, puts it. But how exactly does it help to be behind the counter at 2 p.m. or work until 9 p.m. on a school day?

“Of course it can be useful to gain experience before you graduate,” says labor market researcher Mark. The traditional university career is not for everyone. “There’s also the very American idea of ​​success, working from the bottom up.” Many companies also presented it as doing something good for the children by employing them.

Very few entrepreneurs looking to hire cheap underage workers are likely to care about altruism. Certainly not lobby groups such as Americans for Prosperity, which is supported by right-wing conservative billionaire Charles Koch and has campaigned for the Iowa bill, among other things. In fact, it’s not just Republican-controlled states that are easing child labor with easing — New Jersey is also one of them, where the Democrats are in the majority. Gov. Phil Murphy signed legislation last year allowing young people over the age of 16 to work up to 50 hours a week during the holidays.

The background: the country has no workers. The pandemic has drained the US labor market, especially in low-wage sectors where working conditions and wages are unattractive, such as the hospitality industry. Not just because supply and demand of jobs have changed. People are missing: 1.1 million have died of a Covid infection in the US, workers in so-called blue-collar jobs were especially at risk. Up to four million are currently unable to work due to Long Covid.

However, the economic situation does not only affect the labor market. It also encourages families to send their kids to work, says Brendan Skip Mark. “For some it is simply not enough to live on. Moreover, education is no longer a way out of poverty these days.” The school and study system in the US is poor and expensive. “So many people say they have better chances in life if they go to work instead of school.”

The fines are priced in

On the other hand, besides the gaps in the labor market, there are more obvious and sensible means than having children and young people do work that no one else wants, says labor market researcher Mark – especially a higher and national minimum wage. “You could pay people better to make jobs more attractive again. You could offer better health and social services or, best of all, universal health insurance. Government officials should take the position that “if a company can’t afford to pay its employees a decent wage, it should go out of business.” But such fundamental changes lack the majority in the US Congress.

Now on

In turn, federalism makes it more difficult to punish violations and deter business owners accordingly: Corporations are not liable for subcontractors in all states. And the fines are manageable: if child labor rules are broken for the first time, they are up to $15,000 per child. Much less is owed in many places: In the Democratic-controlled state of Colorado, you only pay $20 to $100.

“Even if you double the amounts, the companies just factor them into their calculations,” says Mark. “A company like PSSI can be fined $1.5 million in a single day.” PSSI, the cleaning service provider for slaughterhouses, actually seems to have done well with this amount. He fired his CEO and launched a fund to “improve the well-being of children in the communities in which we operate”. The scope: ten million dollars.

This article was first published on Zeit Online. Watson may have changed the headings and subheadings. Here’s the original.