In my experience in the occupational health and safety (OHS) field at the federal level in Canada over two decades, I came across numerous examples of young people, often 13 to 17 years old, who were killed or injured on the job. In both Canada and the U.S., labour standards legislation prescribes that young people of certain ages cannot work in employment where risks to health and safety are high — such as mining, construction, agriculture, oil and gas, roofing, meat processing, commercial baking, forestry, etc., etc. Normally, to work in higher risk jobs, persons must be 18 or older and require more OHS training and supervision than older workers. This is the law. However, U.S. federal law still allows those 12 and older to work on farms for unlimited hours, as long as there is no conflict with school. For general nonfarm work, federal law sets 14 as the minimum age and restricts work for children under 16 to eight hours a day.
Regardless, there continue to be cases where child labour is still seen in certain industries, particularly where the exposure to hazards and safety risks are clearly part of the work. For example, in 2011 American public health experts and federal labor officials sought to bar teenagers under 16 from the tobacco fields, citing the grueling hours and the harmful exposure to nicotine and other chemicals. However, their efforts have been continuously blocked. Opponents of such use of child labour noted that Brazil, India and some other tobacco-producing nations already prohibit anyone under 18 from working on tobacco farms. American agricultural organizations argued that the proposed federal rule would hurt family farms and make it harder for young people to learn farming skills. The Obama administration withdrew the the proposal in April 2012 after encountering intense opposition from farm groups and Republican lawmakers. At the time, some big tobacco corporations however said they strongly opposed the illegal use of child labour. Philip Morris International bans its growers from using workers under 18, a measure that goes well beyond American law. Some labour contractors, however, evidently have flouted this requirement without the growers’ knowledge.
This past week, the New York Times published an article which investigated the number of migrant children ending up in dangerous jobs that violate child labour laws — including in plants that make products for well-known brands like Cheetos and Fruit of the Loom and belong to companies supplying Hearthside Food Solutions, Walmart, Target, PepsiCo, Ben & Jerry’s, Whole Foods, Ford and General Motors. Many of these children, 13 to 17, are falling through wide cracks in the regulatory system. The Times noted that the growth of migrant child labour in the U.S. over the past several years is a result of a chain of wilful ignorance. Companies ignore the young faces in their back rooms and on their factory floors. Schools often decline to report apparent labour violations, believing it will hurt children more than help. And the Department of Health and Human Services, responsible for ensuring sponsors will support these children and protect them from trafficking or exploitation, behaves as if the migrant children who melt unseen into the country are doing just fine. Too many people are turning a blind eye!
Some of these children will actually die on the job. For example, the Times reported that recent deaths included a 14-year-old food delivery worker who was hit by a car while on his bike at a Brooklyn intersection; a 16-year-old who was crushed under a 35-ton tractor-scraper outside Atlanta; and a 15-year-old who fell 50 feet from a roof in Alabama where he was laying down shingles. Over the years, I found numerous examples of young people (13 to 17) in Canada being killed while in higher-risk employment. Many more have been injured on the job, often seriously.
Of equal concern is that the evident use of migrant children by scurrilous businesses has led to increased child trafficking in the U.S. Traffickers bring in migrant children illegally, give them fake I.D.s and find them businesses willing to turn a blind eye and employ them. This is all being done despite the knowledge and oversight of several federal, state and local authorities. Finally, after several media investigative sources raised this issue, the Biden administration just announced a wide crackdown on the labour exploitation of migrant children, including more aggressive investigations of companies benefiting from their work and the larger companies that have child labour in their supply chains. In addition, Congress needs to increase penalties for child labour violations, which may now be occurring in the thousands. Federal investigators have long complained that the maximum fine for violations — about $15,000 per occurrence — is hardly enough to deter child labour. It’s about time that something concrete may be done!
FROLITICKS 