I am preparing to introduce legislation from the prior session (HB 1714 – R. Mackenzie) that will strengthen our Child Labor Act to provide stronger penalties in the law for unscrupulous employers who take advantage of the most vulnerable children – and to provide cross reporting requirements that will notify other appropriate authorities in specific situations.
 
During the last few years, due to a lack of immigration enforcement, staggering numbers of unaccompanied migrant minors entered the United States.  Those who are apprehended by immigration officials are turned over to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and placed with sponsors in the United States while their immigration cases are adjudicated.
 
In a 2024 report, the HHS Office of Inspector General found that, of the 448,820 unaccompanied minors who were transferred to the custody of HHS between 2019-2023, HHS lost track of over 32,000 of these minors who did not appear for their immigration hearings, and – the number may be far higher, because 291,000 did not yet receive notice to appear for a hearing as of May 2024.
 
As all this played out, both the US Department of Labor (USDOL) and the PA Department of Labor and Industry (L&I) have announced significant increases in child labor investigations and violations.  According to media reports, many unaccompanied minors – sometimes 12 or 13 years old – have been found by USDOL cleaning slaughterhouses at night, working in factories and doing other dangerous prohibited occupations.
 
So, federal authorities lost track of tens (or perhaps hundreds) of thousands unaccompanied minors, and many of them are being exploited in illegal child labor situations.  This is a far more serious problem for federal and state child labor authorities than the minor recordkeeping violations that L&I’s labor law investigators routinely assess on many well-meaning businesses and volunteer fire companies.
 
I believe that employers who know they are taking advantage of vulnerable children – including unaccompanied minors – should be L&I’s enforcement focus, and our statute should reflect that. Any violation of child labor laws is not appropriate, but some violations can be much more serious and dangerous to the child than others. We should amend our state laws to better protect any at-risk child who is the subject of a child labor violation – and more strictly penalize the employers who would take advantage of a vulnerable child.
 
Therefore, my bill will make several amendments to the Child Labor Act:

• A violation of the act will be a second-degree misdemeanor if the violation 1) was willful, and 2) the employer knew or should have known that the child was without proper parental care and control. This will provide harsher penalties for employers who knew of the child’s vulnerable situation – and took advantage of that child.
• The Department of Labor and Industry will be required, when applicable, to cross-report to appropriate federal authorities and child welfare authorities.
• To provide more information on the status of child labor law enforcement in PA, an annual report will be required to detail the nature of violations, the locations, and the industries where violations are most frequently occurring.

All child labor violations should be taken seriously, but we should be providing stronger penalties in the law for the most serious violations and working to ensure the safety of all children.  I hope that you will join me as a cosponsor.
 

Statutes/Laws affected:
Printer's No. 0833: P.L.1209, No.151