Activists gather near the Hearthside Foods packaging facility on March 6 in Bollingbrook, Ill. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
By Helaine Olen, The Washington Post, March 22, 2023
“A self-supporting and self-respecting democracy can plead no justification for the existence of child labor,” wrote Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937, as he sent the legislation known as the Fair Labor Standards Act to Congress. With the bill, which also established a national minimum wage, lawmakers condemned the ghastly practice of children toiling on factory floors to the past.
But American child labor is making a comeback. Underage children are operating fryers in restaurant kitchens and assembling parts at auto plants. Last month, when the New York Times published a blockbuster expose on how some of the nation’s mostprominent companies depend on subcontractors who illegally employ migrant children, it brought attention to an ongoing horror. The Economic Policy Institute recently crunched Labor Department data and discovered an almost 300 percent increase in child labor violations since 2015.
Yes, politicians from both parties are decrying the growing problem of child migrant labor. But whether children should work more hours in dangerous jobs appears to be settling in as a partisan issue. Republicans in statehouses nationwide are racing to make it easier for companies to hire youngsters. This isn’t just an attempt, as proponents claim, to address post-pandemic worker shortages while freeing teens to earn pocket money. It is part of an ongoing campaign to roll back worker protections.
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