Child

August 17, 2023

(Terrence Collingsworth / Associated Press)

Inside the front section of yesterday’s newspaper was an article on a lawsuit asking the US government to enforce the 1930’s era law that requires the government to ban products created by child labor from entering the US.  The nonprofit group International Rights Advocates filed the suit as Customs and Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security were ignoring the extensive documented evidence of child labor in cultivation of cocoa headed for major US based chocolate companies.  These companies had already agreed in 2001 to stop using the child sourced cocoa by 2005 (they did not) and now say they will eliminate the worst forms of child labor in their supply chains by 2025.  A 2019 study found 790,000 children, as young as 5 years, were working the Ivory Coast cocoa plantations.  Ivory Coast officials have said they are taking steps to eradicate child labor, but blocking the imports to US companies would devastate the nation’s economy.

When I looked online, I found the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25, 1938.  This was among 121 bills signed by the president 9 days after Congress had retired from session to avoid pocket vetoes.  The law had faced corporate and judicial opposition and had been altered and rewritten by Congress for the last year.  The final form of the act applied to industries whose combined employment represented only about one-fifth of the labor force.  FLSA banned oppressive child labor and set the minimum hourly wage at US$.25, and the maximum workweek at 44 hours.  The act became effective on October 24, 1938, effectively banning the use of child labor under the age of 16 years.

Child labor violations have been on the rise in the US since 2015 after steadily declining for years.  In 2015 the federal Wage and Hour Division found 1,012 minors employed in violation of child labor laws, with an average of 1.9 violations per case.  That number grew more than triple to 3,876 in 1922 and averaged 4.6 violations per case.  Most violations occur in places where it is appropriate for minors to work.  That means teenagers are working too many hours at a grocery store or operating a fryer and staying too late at a fast-food chain.  The US generally has good child labor laws, except for agriculture where minors as young as 12 can work long hours and agriculture’s hazardous-occupation orders are not as strict.  While child labor violations can affect minors of all backgrounds, Reid Maki, director of child labor advocacy for the National Consumers League, says “a lot of the kids we see working in exploitative situations tend to be from immigrant families. . . and Latino,” often harvesting fruits and vegetables.

Thoughts:  One of the central allegations of the lawsuit is that while the chocolate company defendants did not own the cocoa farms, they “knowingly profited” from the illegal child labor.  According to the submissions, the defendants’ contracted suppliers were able to provide lower prices than if they had employed adult workers with proper protective equipment.  Saving a few pennies on your favorite bar of chocolate should not come at the cost of exploiting a child and destroying any possible future they may have.  That is true in the US, and for US company’s supply chains abroad.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.