Superior Grocers fined for violating child labor laws

The Superior Grocers supermarket chain was assessed $79,200 in fines Tuesday for allowing 16- and 17-year-old employees to operate heavy machinery in violation of child labor laws.

U.S. Labor Department investigators found 40 workplace violations for the workers operating scrap-paper balers, paper box compactors, power-driven hoists and forklifts, said Deanne Amaden, a spokeswoman for the agency.

“It’s not just that their employees were 16 and 17, it was that these younger workers were using machinery -- heavy machinery,” she said.

Attorney Jason Kearnaghan, representing the grocery chain, said that parent company Super Center Concepts Inc. of Santa Fe Springs would contest the fines. He declined to comment further.

The penalty was paltry compared with multimillion-dollar fines assessed against other companies in recent years for workplace violations.

But Amaden said the maximum fine allowed in child labor cases is $11,000 per violation, and that’s usually for incidents involving fatalities.

She said the fines would still have an effect. “In today’s business climate any kind of fine would be something any company, I think, would like to avoid,” she said.

Superior Grocers operates 33 supermarkets in Southern California. The violations took place at stores in Chino, Compton, Corona, Cudahy, Huntington Park, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Lynwood, Montebello, North Hollywood, Ontario, Pacoima and Santa Ana.

nathan.olivarezgiles

@latimes.com