Imagine exploiting children for labor and robbing them of their childhood. And then only paying a 1.5m fine.
Who gets that money btw? I'm 99% sure - not the children.
Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine
111–120 of 190 posts
Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine
#112"Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the department assessed PSSI $15,138 for each minor-aged employee who was employed in violation of the law. The amount is the maximum civil money penalty allowed by federal law." Wow, I knew that labor laws in the US were toothless but to have it spelled out like this is so depressing. A max penalty of ~15k per violation, just bravo team, bravo.
??? - $15k per violation is still quite a bit of money. This is an order of magnitude more expensive than the pennies they saved by looking the other way. The point of the fines is not to force the company into insolvency - if anything, the DOL would rather incentivize companies into compliance with labor laws than squash them and spread bad practices into harder-to-monitor industries.
$15k/yr is about $7.5/hr based on a 40-hr work week for 50 weeks. If each child on average only worked 15-hr weeks for two years, that's $10/hr. So it definitely doesn't seem like the fee would be "order of magnitude" more expensive than hiring adults. Assuming the kids got paid $7.25/hr... which seems high given that this is an already-illegal penny-pinching operation... that could easily be $10 cheaper than typical adult factory wages. (I know people working for around $18/hr in factories in Ohio a handful of years ago.)
Obviously the exact math is unknown, but I don't think your claim is fair at all. It seems very likely and even probable that the company still ultimately saved money compared to hiring adults at a competitive wage.
Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine
#113this is why food is cheap people. I used to drive corn and pea combines in high school, and in the farming community it's not uncommon to have kids driving tractors as well (granted this is usually a family run farm). It's likely that the people working in the factories there knew the kids or families and made an exception to allow them to start early (still technically illegal I know). it's not child slave labor, it…
Helping out on the family farm is in its own category, in my opinion. For one thing, the parents are probably actually supervising. So they are probably taking some measures to ensure the child is not dismembered. Most parents do have a strong interest in making sure their children aren't wounded or killed. It becomes a different question when we're talking dozens of kids working in a corporate meat processing plant.…
> Helping out on the family farm is in its own category, in my opinion.
Also in the DOL's opinion
Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine
#114"Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the department assessed PSSI $15,138 for each minor-aged employee who was employed in violation of the law. The amount is the maximum civil money penalty allowed by federal law." Wow, I knew that labor laws in the US were toothless but to have it spelled out like this is so depressing. A max penalty of ~15k per violation, just bravo team, bravo.
??? - $15k per violation is still quite a bit of money. This is an order of magnitude more expensive than the pennies they saved by looking the other way. The point of the fines is not to force the company into insolvency - if anything, the DOL would rather incentivize companies into compliance with labor laws than squash them and spread bad practices into harder-to-monitor industries.
> This is an order of magnitude more expensive than the pennies they saved by looking the other way.
That depends on how long they expect to get away with it.
If you can pay a minor $25k/yr to do a job that would otherwise cost you $35k/yr, as long as you expect to get "caught" less frequently than every 18 months you're coming out ahead financially.
Realistically... I don't know what the actual cost savings are here, nor how frequently people get caught. Based on how often I see these reports in the press versus how often I'm personally aware of it happening, it seems like the chances of having to pay the fine at all are very, very low.
Two of the locations mentioned in the article are near enough to me that I know people who work at the facilities in question. They're rife with people working under false documentation. They get "raided" fairly often, but... well, these are small communities, and let's just say that it's amazing how often some people get sick and can't make it to work on the same day that law enforcement makes a "surprise" visit.
Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Presumably the children in question lied about their age when they signed up. That’s not true though. The company knew exactly what they were doing and still they went ahead and doubled down on it. Excerpt from article: “Our investigation found Packers Sanitation Services’ systems flagged some young workers as minors, but the company ignored the flags. When the Wage and Hour Division arrived with warrants, the adul…
Probably. They did just lose a big court case. But if I ask "how old are you?" in an interview and reject anyone who says "17", then all the interviewees are going to say "18". Kids are pretty dumb but they can figure this stuff out. I'd be happy to claim 10 years of Kubernetes experience if I thought it would give me an advantage in the job market, no question. The children in question are already violating local la…
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Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Both major parties support this system. Can this also be more simply stated: Americans support this.
No need to speculate, there's a lot of polling data on this. Broadly speaking, Americans want A) work visas for immigrants who're here now (75% agree), B) immigration status checks by employers (84% agree), and C) stopping illegal immigration immediately (77%+ agree). A) Would you favor or oppose each of the following as part of legislation to address the issue of illegal immigration? How about -- Expanding the numbe…
I-9 requires you to check the immigration status for work authorization. The debate is whether you should be required to try to do it a way where that actually means anything. Democratic process in most states resists doing it in a way that actually does anything.
To note, I am for completely open borders but even I can tell you that states not using e-verify and just requiring an I-9 is almost hilariously comical attempt at checking immigration status, as there's little authentication against fake info let alone stolen identity.
Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine
#117I got my first job at 15. Is that no longer legal? Is the issue here the specific conditions?
Still happens. It's easier now than it was when I was younger. At 14 I had to get a work permit. Now I would not, the employer just has to report stats to the state.
Our restrictions are also graduated. There's even a sub-14 category, though it's pretty limited. Then there is 14-15, which has the usual restrictions (no hazardous jobs, limited hours per day, no conflicts with school schedule). And then 16-17, which has no limits on hours per day or school scheduling conflicts.
Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
??? - $15k per violation is still quite a bit of money. This is an order of magnitude more expensive than the pennies they saved by looking the other way. The point of the fines is not to force the company into insolvency - if anything, the DOL would rather incentivize companies into compliance with labor laws than squash them and spread bad practices into harder-to-monitor industries.
$15k/yr is about $7.5/hr based on a 40-hr work week for 50 weeks. If each child on average only worked 15-hr weeks for two years, that's $10/hr. So it definitely doesn't seem like the fee would be "order of magnitude" more expensive than hiring adults. Assuming the kids got paid $7.25/hr... which seems high given that this is an already-illegal penny-pinching operation... that could easily be $10 cheaper than typical…
At the time of the suit they only found 31 child workers. After an audit going a few years back they found 103 total. No word on how how many hours worked but it's fair to say the average stint was for less than a few months.
They got off pretty light, but having seen how tight payroll can be in food manufacturing, I don't think anyone at the company is patting themselves on the back for paying a $1.5 million fine for a couple of lousy part time cleaners.
Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine
#119Did the company make more than $1.5M in additional revenue due to employing those 100+ kids (plus the others that are likely to have never been identified)?
Given the fine is a fixed amount per violation, it's not unreasonable to assume the company's management did the math and found child labor + fine is more profitable than adult labor.
Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine
#120There are millions of undocumented workers in the US using fake identities to get jobs. Both major parties support this system. Some Republican interests enjoy the access to dirt-cheap labor. Some Democratic interests want immigrants to be able to find jobs despite it being illegal to employ them. So we end up with a system where employers have no easy way to verify that an employee is who they say they are and has a…
Immigration is one of the areas that such blatant lying happens by partisans. We do have defacto open borders. A good segment of Dems politicians and activists try to cover this up. They also misrepresent temporary "humanitarian" visas as being temporary. They are never temporary and always get extended. On the other side is the lack of enforcement on the employer side which a good segment of Rs ignore. Cut off incen…
Approximately 2.7 million arrests have been made at the border since Biden became president. Of those, roughly two thirds were immediately removed from the US under Remain in Mexico/Title 42.[1] Many of the remainder were immediately taken into immigration detention, faced removal proceedings, and were themselves eventually removed from the country (as are many who were not initially arrested at the border).[2] It is unclear to me how this constitutes 'de facto open borders'.
[1]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/title-42-immigration-border-bid...
[2]https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/us/politics/us-border-arr...