Report: Child labor violations are on the rise in Minnesota

Child labor violations have increased significantly in Minnesota — and across the country — in recent years as a tight labor market has coincided with a surge in unaccompanied migrant children.

The number of underage workers found to be employed in violation of child labor laws increased nearly fivefold in the United States and more than twofold in Minnesota from 2015 to 2023, according to a new report from the left-leaning think tank North Star Policy Action.

The reports’ authors tallied 81 minors involved in federal child labor violations in 2023 in Minnesota, up from 66 in 2022 and 33 in 2021. They did not include violations found by state labor regulators.

One-third of the minors counted in 2022 came from just one case where investigators found children employed by Packers Sanitation Services cleaning hazardous equipment during overnight shifts at the JBS plant in Worthington, the Turkey Valley Farms plant in Marshall and the Buckhead Meat plant in St. Cloud. Altogether, federal regulators found the sanitation contractor illegally employed at least 102 minors as young as 13 years old across the country, three of whom were injured on the job.

The violations are surely an undercount of the extent of the problem — like how police only pull over a fraction of drivers who speed. In the same way, drawing conclusions about the prevalence of illegal child labor from violation data is difficult. An increase in citations could be caused by more violations, more investigations, or both.

The report’s authors, North Star Policy Action Research Director Aaron Rosenthal and Economic Policy Institute analyst Nina Mast, acknowledge the increase in citations could be from heightened enforcement. But they also point to larger economic factors at play that make an increase in child labor likely, such as the chronic labor shortage and influx of underage migrants who likely know little about their rights and have a strong financial incentive not to assert them.

One study cited in the report found a state’s child labor violations increase 10% for every 1% increase in unaccompanied minors. Minnesota has seen a surge in unaccompanied minors since 2021, largely in rural counties near slaughterhouses where they’ve been found working overnights in dangerous jobs.

The authors point out that if the rise in violations is just a reflection of increased enforcement, then the findings justify even greater investment in enforcement since the more the government looks for child labor, the more it finds.

They also note that the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division reached a 50-year low in investigator staffing, meaning any increased enforcement of child labor comes at the expense of other important worker protection cases.

The New York Times exposed the vast exploitation of migrant children at factories making name brand products for corporations like General Mills and Frito-Lay. In their effort to quickly move kids out of immigration facilities, the Biden administration and federal agencies ignored warnings that migrant children were working grueling jobs.

North Star Policy Action recommends that Minnesota lawmakers bolster labor protections for children by aligning state and federal law. For instance, Minnesota allows 14 and 15-year-olds to work in some hazardous jobs and later hours than are permitted under federal laws.

They argue this is particularly important given the potential for the Trump administration to roll back child labor laws, with Project 2025 calling for the Department of Labor to permit teenagers to work in hazardous jobs with parental consent.

The organization also advocates for the state to fund more inspectors to bolster enforcement of violations, block government contracts from going to companies with repeated child labor violations and create a youth work permit system that increases parental and employer awareness of child labor laws.

Despite the rise in child labor violations and media attention, Republicans in a number of states have moved to loosen child labor laws, arguing teenagers can benefit from the work experience while also expanding the labor pool.

In 2023, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law conflicting with federal standards that allows 14- and 15-year-olds to work later shifts and 16- and 17-year-olds to work in roofing, demolition and excavation as part of employer training. The law also allows teens over 16 to sell and serve alcohol.

In Minnesota, state Sen. Rich Draheim, R-Madison Lake, introduced a bill in 2023 to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work in and around construction sites. It did not gain traction in the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

Florida lawmakers are now weighing a bill that would eliminate restrictions on 16- and 17-year-olds from working before 6:30 a.m. or after 11 p.m., while Gov. Ron DeSantis recently suggested the state’s resorts don’t need immigrants when they can hire teenagers.

North Star Policy Action said work opportunities are important for teenagers to gain experience and earn money, but warned against allowing teens to work jobs that could compromise their health and safety. Three teenagers died working in industrial jobs in the summer of 2023 alone.

“Without proper safeguards in place, however, these opportunities can quickly turn into harmful situations that jeopardize a child’s health, disrupt their education, and undermine their future potential and career prospects,” the authors write.