Child labor laws have been in place in one way or another since 1847 and have continued to be put in place to make the laws into what they are today. Attached to this report is an image of the current poster that employers must keep visible in the workplace regarding child labor laws. With that being said, many employers in the Lake Region area take advantage of having younger employees. They do this through things like overworking employees, not providing lunch breaks, not paying employees for extra time worked, and threatening to fire employees if they complain about working too many hours. My personal experience at my current job has not necessarily been bad in terms of following the child labor rules, but my employers have broken the law multiple times. I have worked during online school days, over the legal limit and hours, and have not been provided lunch breaks in the past. Now that I’m 16, the laws have changed so some of those things have become legal. However, because I worked hours illegally, I had to change the numbers on my timesheet. Overall, it just feels wrong to do. I love my job a lot though, so I feel that if I had issues with the job itself, my coworkers, or employers, I would be upset, but I’m not. To gather some more evidence, I sent out an email to the entire student body containing a survey asking questions about how they have been treated at work in terms of their employees violating or following Maine’s Child Labor Laws. Of the 104 students who answered the survey, 71.8% or 74 students have or had a job during the school year or summer. Of these students that were/are employed, 26.5% percent or 27 students said that their employers have or do violate child labor laws. One student said, “I was scheduled to work above 50 hours in one week and was forced to work those hours, my employer then threatened to fire me if I complained”. Another student said, “When I was 14 I worked 8-hour shifts with no breaks in a 90° kitchen. Someone also threw a frying pan at me.” A student also said, “I would work later than I was supposed to and they would have me check off my time card so I wasn’t getting paid for over hours.” When asked whether or not the people surveyed thought that taking advantage of minors in the workplace is an issue in the area, 35.2 percent of the participants said yes and 40 percent said maybe. When interviewing a student at Lake Region, she said, “I never get breaks and my manager made me do her job. We also never clean and we eat while we work.” When interviewing another student, she said, “Tony would have me stay after hours and wouldn’t pay me, she just had me fill out a little sheet.” Both of these are examples of exploiting child labor laws. So as you can see from the survey, my own experiences, and my classmates' experiences, taking advantage of younger employees in the workplace is an issue within our community. With around 75 percent of the students surveyed either acknowledging or agreeing that there is an issue with following child labor laws in the area, it’s clear that this must be addressed either person to person or at large. I think the best way to tackle this issue may be uncomfortable for some. If you’re a minor, talk to your employer about violations you have experienced to bring it to their attention and stick up for yourself. - Student Writer Work Cited Child Labor Laws - Maine. https://www.maine.gov/labor/posters/childlabor.pdf. Comments are closed.
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