Feds launch crackdown on child labor.

In response to a dramatic spike in child-labor violations, the Biden administration has launched a wideranging push to compel employers to obey the laws restricting children's work hours and kinds of work they can perform.

Among the initiatives: a Department of Labor-led interagency task force to combat child-labor exploitation and a nationwide strategic enforcement plan.

Since 2018, the U.S. Department of Labor has seen a 69% increase in children being employed illegally. In fiscal year 2022, the DOL found 835 companies it investigated employed more than 3,800 children in violation of labor laws.

The maximum civil monetary penalty under current law for a childlabor violation is $15,138 per child.

A grisly example

On Feb. 17, the Labor Department settled one of the largest childlabor cases in its history against a Wisconsin company that provides laborers to clean meat-packing plants.

Packers Sanitation Services has paid $1.5 million in penalties after the DOL's Wage and Hour Division found the company employed at least 102 children--from 13 to 17 years old--in hazardous occupations and had them working overnight shifts at 13 meat-processing facilities in eight states. The children were working with hazardous chemicals and cleaning meat-processing equipment including back saws, brisket saws and "head splitters," which do exactly what one might imagine they do in a slaughterhouse.

Hundreds of investigations

The DOL currently has over 600 child-labor investigations underway. Employers can expect greater scrutiny from a variety of federal departments. The DOL, the Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services...