President Trump’s pick to lead the United States Department of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, will soon oversee the federal government’s response to labor rights issues across the US. One of her key priorities should be taking action to end hazardous child labor.
In recent years, investigative reports from around the US showed children working harrowing overnight shifts in slaughterhouses and using wildly dangerous machinery in auto body plants. These were not isolated incidents. In October 2024, the Department of Labor reported that child labor violations had increased by 88 percent since 2019.
My colleagues and I have researched hazardous child labor on US farms and interviewed children working exhausting 12-hour shifts in the heat, exposed to toxic pesticides and other dangers. While hiring children to perform hazardous work at meatpacking plants and on factory floors is illegal, most of the dangerous child labor we saw on farms still is not.
Under US labor law, children of any age can work on small farms. At 12, children can work on any-sized farms with parental permission as long as they do not miss school. At 16, children can do jobs considered hazardous on farms, when in every other sector, you must be 18 to do hazardous work.
Under the Biden administration, the Department of Labor stepped up child labor enforcement, which takes time and resources. With the Trump administration slashing federal personnel and budgets, these efforts could be hampered. Besides, enforcement does little to help when the laws are too weak to protect children from danger.
The Trump administration’s cruel immigration agenda will further marginalize children involved in hazardous child labor. Most child farmworkers we interviewed were the children of immigrants. Other investigations found unaccompanied migrant youth at risk. Immigration raids fuel a climate of fear that enables workplace exploitation and makes reporting abuse risky, frightening, and highly unlikely, especially for a child.
The US Congress has an important role in the fight to end child labor. In good news this week, Senators Cory Booker and Josh Hawley reintroduced bipartisan legislation aiming to hold companies with federal contracts accountable for child labor in their operations. Congress should pass this bill and strengthen legal protections for children involved in child labor.
Children’s health, lives, and futures are at stake.
