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Arkansas Governor Sanders Signs Law Loosening Child Labor Laws, Allowing Children Under 16 To Work
Advocates for children argue that this law could open the door for these companies to bend the rules and hire children as young as 13 to work in factories.
Arkansas is scaling back on some child labor protections after Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a new law to make it easier for children under 16 to find employment. Washington Post reports that the Youth Hiring Act bill eliminates a requirement that children under 16 obtain an employment certificate before starting a job. This certificate displays the child’s age, describes the work they will do, and gives written consent to their parent.
This measure comes less than a month after the Department of Labor fined a company for employing children as young as 13 to clean “razor-sharp saws” with “caustic chemicals” at two Arkansas meat-packing plants.
“Gov. Sanders believes protecting kids is most important, but doing so with arbitrary burdens on parents to get permission from the government for their child to get a job is burdensome and obsolete,” a spokesperson for the governor said in a press release. “All child labor laws will still apply, and we expect businesses to comply…
