The tragedy that occurred at a sawmill in Wisconsin in June didn’t have to happen, like most industrial mishaps. Actually, it was never appropriate for Michael Schuls, a high school student who passed away a few weeks before turning sixteen, to be attempting to unjam a stick stacker machine at Florence Hardwoods.

The Department of Labor came to this conclusion, announcing on December 19 that the mill where Schuls was fatally injured would be fined almost $1.4 million. Following an inquiry, the agency’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration discovered that Florence Hardwoods had allowed Schuls and other juveniles to undertake equipment maintenance without the necessary safety procedures or training.

Florence Hardwoods refutes the agency’s claims that it allowed minors to maintain and operate hazardous equipment without the necessary safety precautions or training. “We never purposefully placed minors in danger,” the business said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch.

However, the death of the high school football player is not an unusual occurrence. Rather, it is a reflection of the growing number of kids and teenagers in the United States who are breaking federal regulations meant to safeguard minors by working in dangerous jobs intended for adults. In fiscal 2023, the Labor Department launched 955 investigations and discovered child labor offenses, a 14% increase from the previous year. Approximately 5,800 children worked illegally in the year that ended on September 30. This is an 88% increase from 2019.

Michael Schuls, seen here with his Florence High School football team, died July 1, 2023, from injuries he suffered while working at Florence Hardwoods. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined the Wisconsin sawmill $1.4 million after determining that it had failed to train teenage and adult workers to safely operate dangerous equipment.
GOFUNDME
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 57 children 15 years and younger died from injuries sustained at work between 2018 and 2022; 68 teens ages 16-17 died on the job during the same five-year period.

“This is happening now”
In the 1990s, federal watchdogs looking into reports of employers using underage workers would typically find teens working overly long hours in malls, movie theaters and grocery stores; in the worst cases, minors would be discovered in grueling jobs like farming or construction.In certain instances, juveniles were seen working hard in vocations like construction or farming.

However, inspectors have seen an increase in minors working in potentially hazardous jobs in recent years. Young workers can now be found, among other places, in manufacturing factories and meat processing facilities, where their jobs may involve cleaning the blood and other remnants off the slaughterhouse floor using harmful chemicals.

“This isn’t a third-world country; this is an issue facing the United States in the twenty-first century. This is now taking place in the United States. “We have very young minors using dangerous equipment and doing serious, hazardous jobs,” a Labor Department representative told CBS MoneyWatch.

The alarming increase in child labor, which evokes memories of the 1920s and 1930s when American children as young as ten were employed, is being caused by a number of factors.Younger people were typically employed in industrial settings, on farms, and on the streets.

Since many children come in the United States without a parent, the current surge of migrant youngsters escaping violence and poverty in Latin America has created a labor pool for companies eager to take advantage of them. Over 10,500 unaccompanied minors were under the Department of Health and Human Services’ custody as of December 1.

Moreover, several states are taking steps to loosen their laws against child work. As per the Economic Policy Institute’s latest research, since 2021, legislation reversing child protections has been presented or passed in at least ten states. The proposal for legislation is “part of a coordinated campaign backed by industry groups intent on eventually diluting federal standards that cover the whole industry,” according to information released bythe think tank that leans left.