Punching In: Child Labor Law Violators Facing New Heat From D.C.

Monday morning musings for workplace watchers.

Child Labor Concerns Ramp Up|Teachers’ Union Targets Social Media, AI

Rebecca Rainey and Diego Areas Munoz: As the US Department of Labor continues to find minors working with dangerous equipment or at hours that are banned by federal law, the agency is flexing some of its most powerful enforcement tools in legal actions against companies exploiting illegal child labor.

The division currently has more than 800 child labor investigations underway, a DOL spokesperson told PI.

Shut it down: At the end of September, a federal district court ordered the owners of 14 Subway locations in Northern California to sell or shut down their businesses by Nov. 27 and pay employees nearly $1 million in back wages and damages for child labor and other wage violations. The restaurants allowed children as young as 14 and 15 to operate dangerous equipment and work hours that are illegal under federal law.

The agency “insisted on” requiring the owners to sell or shut down the operation to resolve the case, according to a press release.

Hot goods: The DOL also used its “hot goods” provision in a recent child labor case, barring a group of Southern California poultry processors from shipping any of its products made using child labor or by staff working in violation of federal labor laws.

The “hot goods” enforcement tool under the Fair Labor Standards Act makes it illegal “to ship goods in interstate commerce that were produced in violation of the minimum wage or overtime requirements of the FLSA or that were produced in or about an establishment where a child labor violation occurred in the past 30 days,” according to the DOL.

Facilities operated by The Exclusive Poultry Inc., Valtierra Poultry LLC, and Meza Poultry LLC allowed minors to work in facilities prohibited for kids under federal law, use sharp knives to break down poultry, and work beyond the hours permitted by the FLSA. The operators also failed to pay overtime wages, and threatened workers who raised concerns, the agency said.

On the Hill: As the number of alarming child labor cases grows, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have offered up legislative solutions to raise penalties against businesses that exploit child labor.

But pressure is growing on lawmakers to go further. The DOL released new statistics earlier this month showing that the number of children working in violation of the law increased by nearly 50% over the past year, and President Joe Biden has requested $100 million for child labor enforcement as part of an emergency supplemental request.

A bipartisan group of Senators including Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) introduced the “Child Labor Accountability Act of 2023” last week, legislation that would triple the amount of time the DOL has to trigger its “hot goods” provision in an investigation. Currently, the agency has 30 days to seek a court order to block the shipment of “hot goods” or products produced in violation of federal labor laws. The bill would expand that period to 90 days, while also requiring the DOL to submit an annual report to Congress on its child labor work.

A separate bicameral bill introduced by Democrats last week would go slightly further than other proposals that have been floated so far by allowing minors to sue their employer if they are seriously injured on the job. The legislation would also raise penalties for child labor violations, and would allow the secretary of labor to label goods made with child labor and issue stop work orders in cases of child labor violations, among other protections.

While House Republicans haven’t backed efforts to go beyond just stiffening fines for child labor violations. Could the new set of data and the momentum on the Senate side prompt some movement? We’ll see.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, arrives at a Senate bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Insight Forum on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023.

Photographer: Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg

Ian Kullgren: American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten has been labeled enemy No. 1 for the right. But conservatives who believe she’s the “most dangerous person in the world,” as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo once said, might be surprised to find Weingarten shares a similar skepticism for social media companies and the Silicon Valley billionaires who run them.

At a Center for American Progress forum last week, Weingarten said teachers unions need to take a greater role in figuring out “how to deal with fighting social media companies fixated on addicting our kids to devices.”

While it’s not the same as the purported political censorship conservatives care about, Weingarten shares a deep suspicion of social media, and worries it’s a leading cause of a loneliness epidemic making it harder for kids to succeed in school.

“There’s a holistic strategy here,” Weingarten told PI after the panel, noting how isolation at technology-driven homes bleeds into the classroom. “If you actually take on all of those social-emotional issues, you’re not going to get to the learning issues.”

“You see the things that are done for profit that create addiction,” she said.

In addition to the specter of social media, AFT has also been working to tackle artificial intelligence. The union announced a partnership this month with GPTZero, a platform that can identify if students have used AI on assignments. Part of the goal is to train students how to spot disinformation.

In a July report, AFT called on social media companies to make changes for kids’ mental health, including limiting infinite scrolling and push notifications. Their response?

“Crickets,” Weingarten said.

We’re punching out. Daily Labor Report subscribers, please check in for updates during the week, and feel free to reach out to us.