Summary

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Monday

Reid Maki
Director of Child Labor Issues, National Consumers League


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Reid Maki: Well, employers are citing a labor shortage Uh, but we really don't think that they should be balancing a labor shortage on the backs of teen workers You know, we think that they should be raising wages We think that, um, compre comprehensive immigration reform could supply adequate workers for these jobs that most Americans don't want to take Yeah, we've lost 3 16 year olds this summer One in a sawmill in, in Wisconsin, one in a landfill in Missouri and one in a poultry plant in Mississippi tra really horrific tragic deaths Well, we don't really understand why it's happening now because, you know, we've seen the consequences of, of what happens when law, labor law, child labor law is not enforced, you know, um, over 100 kids in meatpacking plants Uh, I think you're absolutely right about the, the bill that would allow kids to, you know, to serve alcohol at 14 Do we really want to, uh, you know, to balance that with sexual harassment training? If, if we have to provide sexual harassment training to our 14 year olds, something is horribly wrong I think that they're ending up those unaccompanied minors are ending up in some of the worst jobs And, you know, we do know that there's been a huge increase in the number of unaccompanied minors over the last four years You know, last year there were over 100 and 30,000 of these kids and they are extremely vulnerable I think that they have no idea how horrific these jobs are Some of these jobs, like in the meatpacking plants that they, you know, they take a job there and they, they walk in, they, I don't think they have any idea like how, how bad the conditions are going to be Well, we really, I think, you know, the current, um, the, the Biden administration is doing a pretty good job of, of, in trying to enforce the laws, but they're, they're a bit handicapped in that they don't have enough, uh, inspectors for, for the task at hand We think that they have about 800 inspectors for the entire country That's about, uh, each inspector having to, um, you know, to basically cover 200,000 workers and we think that they probably need twice as many inspectors So, you know, we, we've been working with Congress trying to get more inspectors to help them do that, that important job

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CHILD LABOR LAWS SHORTAGE TEENS TEENAGERS