The US Department of Labor has decried a national surge in child labor as the agency has found thousands of violations and is currently investigating the death of a 16-year-old boy from Guatemala, Duvan Tomas Perez, who was killed on the job at a slaughterhouse this month in Mississippi, the New York Times reported.
Two other 16-year-olds have died on the job in the US this year. Michael Schuls was killed on 29 June while working for a sawmill in Wisconsin. He was attempting to unjam a wood stacking machine when he was caught and pinned by the conveyor belt. Will Hampton died in Missouri on 8 June while working at a landfill when he was pinned between a tractor trailer rig and its trailer.
The department has noted it is currently pursuing more than 700 open cases and already found 4,474 children working illegally since the beginning of the fiscal year, a 44% increase over the previous year.
On 25 July, the Department of Labor announced child labor violations found at 16 McDonald’s franchises in Louisiana and Texas, affecting 83 minors.
The McDonald’s locations were found to have permitted 14- and 15-year-olds to work longer hours than legally permitted and perform job tasks that children under the age of 16 are prohibited from performing. The department assessed penalties against two franchise operators for the violations.
The investigation follows a May 2023 announcement of child labor violations found at McDonald’s locations in four states involving over 300 children at 62 restaurant locations.
In February 2023, the Department of Labor announced a new interagency taskforce to combat child labor exploitation amid recent surges in violations, nearly a 70% increase in violations since 2018, and an influx of migrant children from Latin America without parents.
The update from the Department of Labor comes in the wake of increasing pressure from members of Congress for government agencies to address the increase in child labor violations.
During a hearing on Wednesday, congressional members questioned the health and human services secretary, Xavier Becerra, over surges in child labor, accusing the agency of failing to protect migrant children from exploitation.
“There are some terrible things that are wrong,” the California Democratic congresswoman Anna Eshoo said.
House Democrats launched a taskforce last week aimed to fight child labor amid recent surges in cases and requested the Government Accountability Office conduct an audit and investigation into the extent of the problem.
Bills introduced in Congress in April 2023 would increase civil penalties against employers for child labor violations.
Amid a nationwide surge in child labor violations, Republican lawmakers in states such as Arkansas and Iowa passed legislation earlier this year to scale back child labor laws, expanding the scope of work and hours of work 14- and 15-year-olds can perform.
