Labor Department Not Effectively Fighting Child Labor Violations, Witnesses Tell House Labor Subcommittee

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

WASHINGTON, DC -- The U.S. Department of Labor is failing to effectively enforce the nation’s child labor laws, witnesses told a House labor subcommittee today.

“Unfortunately, all the laws and labor protections in the world won’t help if we do not adequately enforce our child labor laws,” said U.S. Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), chair of the House Workforce Protections Subcommittee. “It is clear that the Bush administration is not focused on enforcing the laws already on the books.”

According to a study by the National Consumers League, the number of child labor investigations decreased dramatically during the Bush administration: The number of child labor investigations conducted by the Labor Department in 2006 was at the lowest in at least a decade.

“Much more can and must be done to better protect our young people from hazards and dangers they confront in the workplace,” said Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumers League. “Child labor law is no longer a high priority for the Department of Labor.”

According to research by the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, a coalition of migrant and seasonal agricultural nonprofit and public agencies, approximately 400,000 children under the age of 18 work in the fields to help support their families. While there are numerous restrictions on what dangerous job functions underage workers may perform, there are few protections if those children happen to work in agriculture.

“[Federal labor law] actually permits children as young as 12 and in rare instances as young as 10 to work in agriculture,” said David Strauss, executive director of the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs. “I’m not talking about family farms, where sons and daughters of the farmers learn the business. I’m talking about working farms that employ large numbers of workers who aren’t related to the owners.”

Agricultural child labor rules have remained largely unchanged since signed into law in 1938. At that time, a quarter of all American lived on farms and the majority of the agricultural work was performed on the family farm. Unlike counterparts in other industries, minors working in agriculture are still permitted to log in more than 40 hours a week without overtime pay.

“Children at age 12 would [are] not allowed to work making copies in an air-conditioned office or cleaning floors at a local store,” said Norma Flores, a former migrant farmer who began working when she was 12 years old. “Yet today in America, children can legally work in harsh conditions out in the farm fields for wages sometimes below minimum wage. Exploitation of children, regardless if it’s done legally or illegally, needs to stop today.”

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