U.S. Says Sears Violated Child Labor Laws
An extensive Labor Department investigation found hundreds of violations of child labor laws at Sears, Roebuck & Co. stores, primarily involving teens running machinery considered too dangerous for their age.
Sears has agreed to pay a $325,000 fine, conduct periodic audits and implement a corporate-wide training program for managers. Parents of teenage employees also will be given information on child labor and safety laws.
“I hope other retailers see this as a wake-up call,” Labor Secretary Alexis M. Herman said in a conference call to reporters Friday. “We are stepping up our enforcement action on child labor.”
Sears admitted no wrongdoing in the deal. About 5% of its 200,000 employees are under 18, said spokeswoman Jan Drummond. She said Sears was concerned about the allegations and hoped its new program of training and audits will “make this a truly compelling place to work.”
Herman said the Labor Department’s wage and hour division routinely investigates retailers because they are more likely to hire young workers. About 60% of all employees under 18 work in retail.
At Sears, investigators looked at personnel records dating back two years at 71 of the retailer’s 825 stores. Violations were found at 44 locations, including Westminster--the only California store cited.
The bulk of the cases involved 16- and 17-year-olds operating power-driven paper balers, freight elevators and forklifts--all considered too hazardous for employees younger than 18.
Also, a few 15-year-olds were found to have worked more hours than permitted under federal laws.
In many cases, Herman said, managers were not aware that their assignments violated labor law. “Time and time again we find that employers do not know the law in detail,” she said. Herman would not comment on possible investigations of other retailers, but it did say the Labor Department was seeking self-monitoring agreements similar to that reached with Sears. “We’ve never had a corporate-wide, comprehensive agreement like this,” she said. “We see this as a more creative enforcement strategy.”
A study by the National Research Council last fall found that teens are twice as likely to be injured on the job as adults.
About 70 teen workers are killed each year, and 100,000 are injured seriously enough to visit an emergency room, said Marianne Brown, director of UCLA’s Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program.
She said prohibited work such as operating balers accounts for 41% of all on-the-job fatal injuries for teens.
The announcement comes just as the summer job market is beginning to heat up. A looming labor shortage makes it all the more likely that teenage workers will be asked to perform jobs that should only be done by adults.
