On this episode of IGI, we take a look at child labor laws and the recent rise in child labor violations, both here in Kansas and across the country.

Stay with us.

This program is brought to you with support from the Lewis H. Humphries Charitable Trust and from the Friends of KTWU.

Hello and welcome to IGI I'm your host, Bob Beatty.

Child labor has been a part of the American economy since colonial times.

In a predominantly agrarian society, most children worked on family farms under the supervision of their parents.

But following the Industrial Revolution, more Americans moved to cities, and young children were found working in factories, mills and coal mines.

Since then, we have seen minimum age reform and prohibition of children working under dangerous conditions.

However, in recent years, we've seen increases in child labor violations around the country, and a number of elected officials are pushing to soften child labor laws, making it legal for young people to not only work longer hours, but to work in potentially hazardous settings.

Joining us today to discuss child labor laws, violations and recent trends in legislation are Reed Trone, Acting Deputy Regional Administrator for the Midwest Office of the US Department of Labor.

Dr. Sharon Sullivan, Executive D irector of the International Policy Institute.

And joining by video conferencing is Max McCoy.

Max is an author, journalist and frequent contributor to the Kansas Reflector.

Thank you all for joining us here on IGI.

I think this is an important topic, so let's get right to it.

We go to Max McCoy and I want to just throw out there, you know, when and how did our child labor laws come about?

You know, we know a lot of people know about the history of the United States.

You know, it seems like a simple question, but it was actually necessary to have these laws into legislation.

And so how and why were children being exploited?

Well, I think children were exploited, Bob, for the reason that they are still exploited now.

And that is, well, because of greed and sometimes necessity.

Really, the national consciousness was stirred by the power of photography when Jacob Riis in 1890 did a book called How the Other Half Lives.

And what Riis did was go into the slums of New York and photograph the living conditions there.

And while his photographs were not particularly of child labor, they did include some images of child labor.

So this was the beginning of a national conversation about the poor, about immigrants, and about child labor.

Later, we had Lewis Hine, who was a sociologist, and he began photographing children at work, particularly in cotton mills in the South.

In these photos, and certainly got the to the public's heartstrings.

We also had Upton Sinclair, the novelist who released The Jungle in 1906.

And in preparation for this novel, what Sinclair did was go to the packing houses in Chicago, researched the conditions there and put what he saw mostly in this novel, The Jungle, that resulted in the Pure Food and Drug Act, and another of a number of other measures.

of child labor.

Child labor, there had been efforts to make child labor laws in Kansas as early as 1905.

This did pass on the national level, though.

We did not get a child labor law until 1938, which was the Fair Labor Standards Act, which is still in force and which has been recently used to fine contractors who are using child labor in meatpacking operations across the Midwest.

So getting into some specifics, maybe Reed can throw some things at us.

But what sort of work before the laws were put in place, dangerous work were children doing in the United States?

So, you know, through in the early history of the 1900s, there was, you know, widespread child labor throughout the country.

You know, and as early as 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire happened.

And it just so happened that in the vicinity on that day was a young Frances Perkins.

And she witnessed this tragedy.

She witnessed children and young women jumping out of the building during the fire.

And this kind of sparked a fire in her for justice.

And several years later, she became the first secretary of labor for the United States, the first female secretary of labor and as part of her efforts she enacted, was pivotal in enacting the Fair Labor Standards Act, which, as Max mentioned, is the law that we enforce today with respect to that.

So all of these dangerous jobs that children were doing and, you know, throughout all all hours of the day, the Fair Labor Standards Act enacted protections for them, you know, so that going forward, they would not be in these dangerous situations.

They'd be able to attend school, get an education and, you know, reach adulthood in safety.

So is this part of the United States growing in an evolutionary sort of process and saying we're now a more modern country, our children should not be doing these things?

Well, I think that part of it is the move from an agrarian culture to the Industrial Revolution.

And, of course, families worked together on farms, harvesting, animal husbandry, all those things.

So it made sense on some level that children would be working in the industry during, you know, when we became more industrialized.

But we also increased our our need and requirement for education for kids in a different way.

And so if you're working, you're not going to school.

And that's really crucial to I would say it's really crucial to our success as a country.

The other thing going on at this time, of course, Max, was you mentioned immigrants.

So were were immigrants and treated differently.

I think, you know, we know the answer to this at the time that, you know, maybe some people would say we don't want our kids.

Some Americans have been there a while.

We don't want our kids doing this stuff.

But maybe it's okay for immigrant kids, immigrants were certainly treated differently.

And part of the reason for that, I think, is because they represented then and represent now a shadow workforce, an unseen workforce that that most Americans couldn't see They really didn't think about.

And it was documentary photography, photojournalism, which really brought it to the attention of the American public.

Immigrants are in a tough situation in terms of finding work.

Often they don't have the correct credentials.

Often immigrants.

Now the one of the commodities they have might be their children in terms of sending their children off to work might be the only way that they have to survive.

And so this is one of the problems that has always been with us.

And as Sharon said when a child is working, a child is is not in school.

So this is a choice that we make as a society which is more important, the contribution of the of child laborers or the contribution that they could make if they got an education.

To some extent that's still happening now.

And we've seen that with the packing plants, for example, the most recent fine or one of the most recent ones, the $1.5 million paid by Packers Sanitation Services, Inc.

This is the group that had about 120 children working and cleaning up slaughterhouses in about eight states.

One of the teachers in Iowa noticed that the children were engaged in this kind of work and then reported it.

And so this led to to the fines for the for PSSI.

So this struggle between work and education among children still goes on.

And while in some ways we are still an agrarian and still in an agrarian system because our school year is is still based on that, even our our labor laws, there are different laws.

Children can work longer in the summer, for example.

And that goes back.

That's a very long tradition.

But immigrants always have been in a very tenuous position when it comes to work.

And this is why I think they need special protection against those who would exploit and abuse them.

And certainly children deserve the protection most of all.

Reed, I'm sure there's many viewers and people like myself who are wondering, okay, what what are the rules?

Because we know that some some children are what people think of as children can work.

But what has evolved into sort of the pretty, pretty strict guidelines in terms of what is allowed and what isn't allowed?

Sure.

So there's there's a couple of different ways we look at it.

First, we kind of divide it by whether or not the work is agricultural in nature or nonagricultural.

And there's kind of a different set of standards depending on where you're at.

So, you know, kind of the example that Max gave was with PSSI and the packing plants there, so that would fall into the non-agricultural.

So the standards for non agricultural work are for anyone under the age of 18.

And then once we're talking about that group of individuals, we divide it a little bit further into 16 and 17 year olds and 14 and 15 year olds.

And the standards are a little bit different depending on which class they fall into.

So I'll start with the 14 and 15 year olds.

Let me interrupt that.

When I looked into some of this, I just personally, I was a little surprised to see that 14 year olds could do any work.

So I'm very interested to see to hear what kind of work 14 year olds are allowed to do.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

So and I probably should have started with, with that baseline that workers can work as young as 14 in nonagricultural settings.

So 14 and 15 year olds.

There's a lot of restrictions on what they're allowed to do.

And most of the work is prohibited, which, you know, working in a manufacturing setting would be a prohibitive occupation.

And there is within the regulations that we enforce a list of permitted occupations that 14 and 15 year olds can do.

And those include things like working as a cashier or bagging and carrying out grocery orders, doing jobs like clerical in nature.

Those are the types of things that 14 and 15 year olds can do.

In addition to the standards on what they can and cannot do there's also standards on the hours that they're allowed to work.

And as Max was pointing out earlier, there is kind of a distinction based on whether or not school is in session.

So if school is in session, the regulations are pretty strict on when they can work.

So they can only work between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m..

They can work no more than 3 hours in a day and they can't work during school hours.

And then once school is not in session, it's a little bit more relaxed.

They can extend until 9 p.m., but they cannot work more than 8 hours in a day and more than 40 hours in a week.

What about obviously, Kansas is is a good example of a state that probably would be interested in the agricultural piece.

The rules are different, I assume, for agriculture.

Yes.

And so a becomes a little bit more relaxed in that 16 kind of becomes the standard that 18 is in Nonagricultural work and once once a worker becomes 16, they can do any type of job in a farm setting.

And then this one will be more interesting.

So workers can work as young as 12 years old in an agriculture, rural setting if they have their parents permission or they're working on a farm with their parents.

But what about non agriculture?

Do does all kids need parents permission or is there an age cutoff for that?

So under the federal laws, there's no requirement that workers have parental permission and there's no certificates that are required or anything.

They just have to meet the age requirement.

But there's a there's state some states require that, right?

Yes.

So it's up to each state whether they want the parents to be able to give permission.

And so, yeah.

And so when there's a difference between a state law and the federal law, whichever law provides more protection to the workers is the one that's going to apply.

And on the on the ag side, are there then restrictions on what the children can do, even though that they are working on a farm?

Is there certain things they can't do?

There are.

There's 11 hazardous occupations in agriculture that they cannot do.

Some of them include operating a tractor that has more than 20 horsepower or handling dangerous chemicals, working around livestock.

Those are just some of the things that apply.

And then once that worker turns 16, then there are no restrictions on them in the agricultural setting.

Okay, so let's move to the current situation.

Max alluded to that.

And again, I think some people might be surprised in terms of how many violations there have been, because I think most people assume that the laws you've talked about solve this and the country does not really approve of this and allow for it and then also want to ask for comment on.

Then I was a bit surprised at the penalties.

And what I mean by that is the penalties are fines.

You can correct me if I'm wrong.

I didn't see criminal penalties here.

So seems like that some corporations could possibly make a gamble that it's worth paying the fine, Im.

not accusing any corporation of doing this, but that could be an actual calculation.

Oh, well, if no one's going to jail over this.

Max, I'll start with you.

You already mentioned this, but tell us again what currently violations are occurring in the United States?

Well, Bob, I can talk about some fines that have been levied.

The the PSSI fined the $1.5 million and there were workers there, if I recall, as young as 13, which is appalling.

It's not just in packing plants, though.

Here in Kansas, there was a chain of Sonic restaurants that was fined for violating the hours.

So a very different situation than than the packing plants, the sonic restaurant, they got fined and then they did again and were fined once more.

So I think no one actually knows how much child labor there is in the U.S. right now, because, as I said, this is a shadow workforce.

And I suspect that that the fines represent only a fraction of the abuses that are going on in the country right now.

I don't know if you know the answer to this, Max, but is the decision is is it just part of capitalism?

Is the decision to just have fines versus any criminal sort of criminal aspect to it?

Just part of a respect.

You don't want to hurt business and the culture of America, because I think we can all agree that the real deterrent in the United States against things happening is, you know, going to jail.

But in all the reading I've done of violations, there's certainly no one, you know, saying that that's going to happen.

Well, I agree with you.

There ought to probably be criminal penalties for employing children in dangerous situations.

I think some companies probably do use a calculus in terms of what is our risk versus reward here, particularly for those companies that are hard pressed to find workers.

There is an electronic verification system for workers and their ages that, from what I understand or perhaps Reed, could elaborate on this.

It is not all that effective.

So that's one of the concerns I personally would like to see criminal violations for these, because if it's just if it's just a penalty, as you say, if it's just paying a fine, then what is the real harm for the company that does this?

Also what concerns me are companies that hire contractors, for example, the meatpacking plants that hired PSSI contractors who use child labor and that seems to let them off the hook.

There should be stricter compliance for those larger companies to make sure that the contractors they hire are not employing children, Sharon, you've done some work on the trafficking of human beings and those the laws around trafficking are criminal, correct?

Just if somebody is found trafficking, especially a child, there's criminal.

So but but certainly, you know, I don't want to be crass and say trafficking fits into child labor, but sadly, you know, in a way it's connected.

Absolutely.

And I would say that, you know, labor trafficking of children is sadly alive and well in our country.

And we don't have good data on it.

We don't have good data on labor trafficking in general.

I think it's hugely underreported.

And we especially don't have good numbers of of children who are being labor trafficked.

And I think that, you know, human trafficking, labor trafficking, the laws require force, fraud or coercion, and children just don't have the capacity to make those good decisions.

Right, right.

Or to even know when they're being exploited.

Sometimes, you know, we and an adult tells you to do something.

You think that's what you have to do when you're a kid.

So certainly the exploitation of children is incredibly easy to do.

And I think many times they don't it's not even identified as as exploitation or labor trafficking, especially in the private sphere, like with domestic servitude or child care.

Some of those kinds of things where, you know, we know that kids are being herded into those, like they're just expected to do that and they're not oftentimes not paid at all.

Reed, is this, are there increases in violations?

I did read that part of that these numbers that we're seeing in terms of violations is that just a renewed focus on enforcement.

Do you have any sense of that?

Yeah, so I think there's both.

And the numbers from our perspective have increased exponentially.

So since 2018, we've seen a 69% increase in child labor violations in the work we do, which has, you know,kind of shined a light on the problem, which is, you know, we've focused more in on it in what we're doing.

And where we're choosing to do our work.

So it sounds like even with with increased enforcement, there's more reporting, but it sounds like one of the reasons for the increased enforcement is this idea that it may have been increasing over the past few years, which begs the question, what?

Why is this increasing in the United States if you know, in the last few years, who wants to take a stab at that?

I would like to say I don't personally I don't know if it's increasing or if we're actually getting better at identifying it.

I do know that since 2015, there's been an increase in efforts to decrease the the laws against child labor, to make them more lenient in order to fill a need in the work space, the workforce, right?

Like, oh, we don't have enough people to fill these jobs.

And my argument is really for the adults and that's the adult problem.

And why are we putting that on children?

Why are we looking to children to solve a problem that's created by adults?

Go ahead, Max.

Let me add this.

I think part of the problem is perceptual in America.

When we think of of kids working, I think many people think about a paper route, which is one of the types of jobs that are that are allowed or we think of other jobs that we might have had is kids mowing lawns, that sort of thing.

But the type of child labor that that we're talking about here in terms of, you know, cleaning up packing plants is something very much different.

of what actually is happening So I think it's going to take more people gaining awareness And I do have the feeling that the problem is is increasing because of the the worker shortage.

And I think this is is is driving it.

You know, the the states that have loosened the regulations, some of the lawmakers have said, well, this is really restoring parental rights in many cases.

That's not what drive, what's driving.

And I think I think it's the the worker shortage, which is which is driving the loosening of these laws.

And some of them are are kind of wild.

Iowa, for example, has loosened the law so much that a 16 year old can bartender Now, I don't know about you, but I really don't want a 16 year old asking me, well, what's it going to be?

What will you have?

That's hard for me to wrap my head around.

And that's just one example of the problem.

But I think it's a slope.

I think it's a very dangerous slope.

Loosening the child labor laws anywhere that it may lead to further abuses of children.

And so so yeah, it's not the it's not the paper routes or the working for your parents, the type of thing that we're really worried about.

What I'm worried about is immigrant children being exploited in situations similar to those with the PSSI case.

And can I just add to that that, you know, we're talking about kids working 30 hours a week.

You know, like you said, the paper I had a paper that was like an hour, hour and a half every morning we're talking about kids are working 30 or more hours a week, whether that's documented or undocumented.

And that means that they're not spending time being kids.

It means they're not spending time on their education.

They're not spending time on athletics or arts.

And that creates a greater difference between classes.

Right.

Like upper class folks, kids aren't working 30 hours.

There's a kid that is working in a meatpacking plant.

How many hours a week is having a much different childhood experience than someone who's playing for the football team?

Right.

That's where they're spending their time.

And I think that that gulf is not beneficial to us as a culture.

And I think that America many, many years ago decided that it did not want to go in that direction.

And that's why people are are concerned that, you know, this is a backslide, not just in laws, but a backslide in sort of what Americans wanted to do now, quickly, if a Kansan is is upset and thinks maybe I know this person's a kid.

I don't even know if they should be working here or boy, they seem to work a lot of hours.

What should that person do or how are these laws enforced?

Yeah.

So we actually have a toll free number that people can call and make complaints and bring bring awareness to these situations.

And we can ask some follow up questions to see if the type of work that kids are doing is allowed or not allowed and things like that.

1-866-4US-WAGE That's the number four and then US-WAGE And those phones are manned Monday through Friday.

Most working hours.

Well, thank you.

That's a that's a great way to end the program.

Reed, Sharon and Max, thank you all for joining us today.

That's all the time we have for this episode of IGI.

If you have any comments or suggestions for future topics, send us an email at issues at KTWU.org.

If you would like to view this program again or any previous episodes of IGI, visit us online at.

watch.ktwu.org I'm Dr. Bob Beatty.

Thanks for watching.

This program is brought to you with support from the Lewis H. Humphries Charitable Trust and from the Friends of KTWU.