The New York Times reveals how and how much children work in the US
The US Department of Labor says that since 2018 there has been a 69% increase in the illegal employment of children in the country and more and more US states, under pressure from lobbyists and Republican lawmakers, instead of protecting minors from exploitation make it legal. The New York Times article
In February, the Labor Department announced it had discovered 102 teenagers working in hazardous conditions for a company that cleans meatpacking equipment at plants across the country, in violation of federal standards. The minors, between the ages of 13 and 17, worked with dangerous chemicals and cleaned chest saws and head splitters; three of them sustained injuries, including one with caustic burns. writes the New York Times .
Ten of these children worked in Arkansas, six of them at a factory owned by the state's second largest private developer, Tyson Foods. Instead of taking immediate steps to raise standards and prevent further exploitation of children, Arkansas went in the opposite direction. Earlier this month, Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed into law a law that effectively makes it easier for companies to put children to work. The bill removed the requirement for children under 16 to obtain a state work permit before being employed, a process that required verifying their age and obtaining permission from a parent or guardian.
Arkansas is leading the way in a concerted effort by business lobbyists and Republican lawmakers to roll back decades-old federal and state rules to protect children from abuse. Echoing this philosophy, bills are being passed in at least nine other states that would expand children's working hours, lift restrictions on hazardous occupations, allow them to work in establishments that serve alcohol, or lower the minimum wage. state for minors. The Department of Labor says there has been a 69% increase in the illegal employment of children since 2018.
The response of these states is not to protect children from exploitation, but to make it legal. Voters in these states may be in favor of deregulation, but they may not know that companies can use these laws to make children work harder, reduce their wages and put them at risk.
Sanders, a former press secretary to President Donald Trump, made clear his contempt for the protective role of government in his January inaugural address. “As long as I am your governor, the meddling hand of big government creeping out of Washington DC will be stopped cold on the Mississippi River,” he said. “We will remove the bureaucratic and hyper-regulatory tyrants from your shoulders, from your wallets and from your lives”.
Lawmakers in these states have come under heavy pressure from industry groups who value the flexibility of teenage employees and say more children are needed in the workforce to compensate for labor shortages. One of the main lobbying organizations pushing these bills in several states is the National Federation of Independent Business, a conservative group that supports Republican candidates and has long opposed most forms of regulation, as well as Affordable Care. Act. He has issued press releases commending lawmakers for passing laws that allow businesses to hire more children for more hours, and takes credit for supporting these efforts.
The Arkansas governor's spokesperson said in a statement that the work permit requirement is "an arbitrary burden on parents," but opponents have noted that many working children do not have parents or guardians to look after their interests. . In the case of the cleaning company, many of the child laborers were unaccompanied minors who had recently arrived across the southern border, according to their lawyers. Soon they won't even have state approval for their employment or working conditions.
The real target of these cuts isn't the after-school jobs at the corner hardware store; they will have a far greater effect on a workforce that includes many unaccompanied migrant children who work long hours to make or package products sold by large companies such as General Mills, J. Crew, Target, Whole Foods and PepsiCo. As a recent New York Times investigation documented, children are employed extensively across the country in grueling and often dangerous jobs for some of the biggest names in American retail and manufacturing. (Many of these companies later told the Times they would investigate any illegal practices and try to put an end to them).
Hundreds of children described in the Times report were working in violation of federal labor rules, which prevent child workers from performing a long list of hazardous jobs and prohibit children under 16 from working more than three hours a day or after 7 p.m. school days, unless they work on a farm (children under 14 are prohibited from working in all but a very few jobs).
Many of the minors have arrived unaccompanied from Latin American countries and may not know when their employment violates the law. A 13-year-old who was burned with caustic chemicals while working for Packers Sanitation Services in Nebraska told investigators the incident occurred during a shift that lasted from 11pm to 5 or 7am, a direct violation of several Federal laws. The Labor Department has imposed a $1.5 million fine on the cleaning firm, which is owned by Blackstone, one of the largest private equity firms in the world.
Despite evidence that more and more children are being exploited and harmed in this way, state legislators are passing laws that defy federal standards. They invite a court to challenge them and, in fact, challenge the Department of Labor to prosecute them, knowing that the Department is often understaffed to prevent violations of federal law. The Ohio Senate, which earlier this month passed legislation extending working hours to children under 16, in violation of federal standards, also passed a resolution urging Congress to do the same.
One of the worst bills, introduced by Iowa Republicans, would allow 14-year-olds to work in industrial freezers, meat coolers and industrial laundries, and 15-year-olds to lift heavy items off shelves. The proposal is supported by, among others, the Federation of Independent Businesses, the Food Industry Association of Iowa and Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group backed by Charles Koch, the industrialist who has backed many national efforts to deregulate businesses.
If states don't play a vital role they've played for a century — protecting workers from abuse — the federal government will have to step up its efforts to do so. Following the publication of the Times investigation, the Biden administration announced a slew of new efforts to crack down on illegal child labor, many of them holding promise as possible deterrents.
The Labor Department said it will step up investigations into business violations, not only by children's direct employers, but also by larger companies that contract with these employers or use children in their work. supply chain. In many cases, large companies use contractors or staffing agencies to hire the children and then claim they have nothing to do with the abuse. Some of these agencies close and reopen under new names as they are fined, said Meredith Stewart, senior supervising attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Companies that hire them should be held accountable. The Department also has the authority to confiscate any product made using illegal child labor, including through the use of contractors. Seema Nanda, the department's chief legal officer, said in an interview that she will use this authority aggressively, in addition to all other litigation tools available.
The administration also said it will do more to coordinate the protection of children, particularly those who migrate across the border unaccompanied by a parent and who receive little supervision once they leave immigration reception centers. In some cases, as the Times reports, HHS has lost contact with designated sponsors and the children themselves, leaving them vulnerable to sex trafficking or other types of criminal exploitation.
The administration does not have all the tools to do the job well. Because its budget was kept low by Congress, the Wage and Hour Division lost 12 percent of its staff between 2010 and 2019, and Nanda's office lost more than 100 attorneys, so the Labor Department it does not have enough investigators to effectively prosecute illegal child labor practices. Also, under current law, the maximum fine for a labor violation by a company is $15,138 per child.
Comprehensive immigration reform would be the best insurance to ensure migrant children get the protections they need. If families can stick together, children will be less vulnerable to abuse and better able to seek legal protection.
The administration has asked Congress to increase funding for law enforcement in its current budget and to toughen sanctions. Neither demand will likely be met, and immigration reform seems a long way off. Protections against "oppressive child labor," however, have been part of American legislation since the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938; the dismantling of these safeguards now puts young lives at risk.
(Excerpt from the foreign press review by eprcomunicazione )
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/il-new-york-times-svela-come-e-quanto-i-bambini-lavorano-negli-usa/ on Sat, 08 Apr 2023 06:18:05 +0000.