July 2025 – Stop Child Labor – The Child Labor Coalition

The United States has extremely relaxed labor laws, which have contributed to the injury and death of countless children. Below is a list of documented cases of minors who were injured or killed due to inadequate labor protections and enforcement between 2023 and 2024.

2023

At Florence Hardwoods, a Wisconsin lumber mill, a 16-year-old worker died in a tragic accident involving a wood-stacking machine. OSHA cited the company with 47 violations and proposed $1.4 million in fines, while the U.S. Department of Labor found multiple child labor violations, including minors operating hazardous equipment.
https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2024/04/25/work-safety-advocates-list-wisconsin-lumber-mill-where-teen-died-among-unsafe-employers/

In Mississippi’s Mar‑Jac Poultry plant, 16‑year‑old Duvan Thomas Pérez, an undocumented immigrant working under a false identity, died cleaning machinery. OSHA issued just $212,646 in fines and 17 citations; a penalty critics say is woefully insufficient against the company’s profits.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/12/immigrant-child-laborers-killed-factories-osha

A 16-year-old boy, Michael Schuls, was killed in June 2023 while working at Florence Hardwoods, a sawmill in northern Wisconsin. He became trapped in a wood-stacking machine while attempting to clear a jam and died two days later from traumatic asphyxiation. Despite his age, Schuls had been working late hours in violation of federal child labor laws.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/20/republican-child-labor-law-death

In February 2023, Packers Sanitation Services Inc. (PSSI), a Wisconsin-based company providing sanitation services to meatpacking plants, was found illegally employing over 100 minors, some as young as 13, in hazardous jobs. These minors were assigned to clean up dangerous equipment such as back saws and head splitters using caustic chemicals during overnight shifts at 13 meatpacking facilities across eight states, including Nebraska, Minnesota, and Kansas. Investigators found that at least 3 children were injured.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/17/business/packers-sanitation-child-labor

“A 13-year-old who was burned with caustic chemicals while working for Packers Sanitation Services in Nebraska told investigators the accident occurred during a shift that lasted from 11 p.m. to 5 or 7 a.m., a direct violation of multiple federal laws.”
https://pestakeholder.org/news/large-investors-challenge-blackstone-over-child-labor/

“After 14-year-old Marcos was hurt at Perdue, bosses reported a severe injury to OSHA. But officials let the company do a self-inspection and never visited. They closed the case before Marcos was even out of the hospital, with no fines and without realizing the worker was a child.”
https://x.com/hannahdreier/status/1704238596310319369

“A 17-year-old working for a meat processor in western Michigan lost his hand in a grinder.”
https://x.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1689282045686546432

2024

On May 28, 2024, 16-year-old construction worker, John Aaron Garcia, died in Magnolia, Texas, after the timber frames of two houses under construction collapsed during a sudden storm.
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/local/2024/05/31/489309/u-s-department-of-labor-investigating-after-16-year-old-dies-in-magnolia-house-construction-collapse/

A 15-year-old working a roofing job in Alabama died after falling 50 feet.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article285204887.html

16-year-old employee at a manufacturing facility in Meadville, Pennsylvania. The minor worker suffered a fingertip amputation while operating machinery.
https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20250512

Statement on the lack of reporting in today’s current political climate:

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) under the current administration has failed to consistently report or highlight many causes of child place work injuries and deaths. With more than 4,000 minors found working illegally last year, many in hazardous conditions, advocates argue that silence from the DOL amounts to complicity. No child should be harmed while trying to support their family, and these injustices must be documented, reported, and addressed with transparency and urgency.

By Alyssa Bredefeld

In 2022, teen drivers accounted for 9.1 percent of all motor vehicle accidents, with 3,212 fatal crashes among teens ages 16 to 19. This elevated crash rate is attributed to risky driving behavior, such as speeding, use of handheld cellphones, rapid accelerations, and abrupt braking. These behaviors are further exacerbated by peer pressure. When driving with a peer in the car, the risk of an accident is dramatically increased. According to the American Psychological Association, the teenage brain has a heightened sensitivity to rewards, making teens more likely to engage in risk-taking. Psychiatrist Jay N. Giedd of the National Institutes of Health explains that “brains don’t fully develop until age 25 and that teenagers tend to depend on the part of the brain that mediates fear and other gut reactions, the amygdala, when making decisions.”

Despite the known dangers of teenage driving, the Department of Labor reports that one of the most common child labor violations is allowing minors to operate or assist with motor vehicles. This type of work is prohibited under Hazardous Occupations Order No. 2 (HO 2). An exception is made for 17-year-olds who may drive on the job if certain criteria are met: driving during daylight hours, holding a valid state license, and spending no more than 20% of their work time behind the wheel. This order is in place to reduce the risk of serious injury or death among working minors.

With the return of the Trump administration and the appointment of Lori Chavez-DeRemer as Secretary of Labor, Project 2025’s proposal to allow minors to engage in hazardous work may become a reality. The initiative stated that teens want to do hazardous jobs and urged the Department of Labor to “amend its hazard-order regulations to permit teenage workers access to work in regulated jobs”. This could lead to the reversal of Order HO 2, allowing teens under the age of 17 to drive at work. Protections that prevent minors from driving at night could also be removed, despite data showing that most teen accidents occur during nighttime hours. Several widely cited studies have indicated that minors who work over 20 hours a week have lower academic performance and an increased risk of dropping out. Removing limits that restrict driving hours could increase driver fatigue and harm educational progress.

Project 2025 fails to consider that although children may be attracted to dangerous jobs, their understanding of the risks and consequences associated with a job is often skewed. If this order is reversed, we can expect an increase in preventable death and injury among children behind the wheel.

This push to weaken protections comes at a time when child labor violations are already on the rise and investigators severely understaffed. In 2024, the Department of Labor found 4,030 children employed in violation of labor laws — a number that excludes thousands of violations that go unreported every year. Child labor has a long historical significance in the United States, but since the introduction of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, the country has made improvements in barring children from exploitative labor. If protections are overturned, it will be even more difficult to understand the harm caused by hazardous labor, as these instances will no longer be classified as violations. The U.S. is dangerously close to backsliding into the past. Let’s leave occupational driving to adults and keep our teenagers safe

Sources

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2926992/

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/insurance/teen-driving-statistics.html

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/34-child-labor-motor-vehicles

https://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/brain

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/data

https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

Alyssa Bredefeld is a 2025 summer intern. She is currently studying Allied Health Sciences and Human Rights at the University of Connecticut.