The year is 2023 and we as a country are somehow talking about child labor laws again.
Several states, most notably Arkansas, have passed or are considering bills that loosen restrictions on minors getting jobs. To be clear, these laws mostly apply to 14- and 15-year-olds as those younger, for the most part, are not allowed to work under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, and states typically don’t require permits for 16- and 17-year-olds to get a job. Some of the state laws under consideration violate that federal law, setting up potential future legal challenges.
These bills are being touted as a way to help with the nationwide labor shortage. But if we have to turn to teens in the workplace as our solution, we’ve entirely missed the point.
None of this is to say there’s no value in minors having jobs. It’s a way for them to learn or reinforce a number of important life skills: showing up on time, managing a set of tasks over a period of time, working alongside others with different work habits, dealing with difficult people, etc.
Working a job, proving to yourself that you can handle the responsibilities, is an amazing confidence builder for teens seeking more independence from their parents, setting themselves up for success in any kind of post-high school education they pursue and jobs they’ll hold as young adults. It can help them figure out what they want to do later in life; conversely, it can also help them figure out what kind of jobs or degrees they don’t want as they get older.
On top of all that, there’s absolutely satisfaction in getting a steady paycheck, whether it’s to grow savings, have spending money or take care of necessities.
But you have to remember the reason the legal protections were put in place in the first place: To protect minors from harm and other forms of exploitation.
Now, I’m not a legal expert, and I certainly don’t play one on TV. I reached out to labor and employment attorney Andria Ryan, a partner at Fisher Phillips, to talk about these new bills, what they mean and how employers in hospitality should carefully proceed in light of their adoptions.
The first thing to understand is that individual states create most of the laws regulating minors in the workplace, Ryan said. The federal government doesn’t control work permits, but it does have rules about the types of jobs and responsibilities that minors can’t do because they’re too hazardous. In hospitality, for example, minors aren’t allowed to operate a deli meat slicer you’d find in a restaurant kitchen or drive on public roads for their jobs.
The federal government also restricts the hours that 14- and 15-year-olds can work to outside of school hours, but not for those 16 and older.
Other than that, it’s mostly up to the states.
What’s the problem? Once again, remember that these laws were put into place to protect children from hazardous jobs and general exploitation because of the obscene number of children who were hurt or killed working in mining, manufacturing and other industries.
You may think we’re well past that as a nation, but you’d be wrong. A New York Times investigation found migrant children working in slaughterhouses, construction sites and factories across the U.S. Many were taking on hazardous responsibilities barred by federal law, in excess of the permitted working hours on school days.
Working in a hotel is certainly different than working at a slaughterhouse, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t inherent dangers for minors there as well. The dangers that exist for adults working in hotels also exist for minors, perhaps even more so, because of how young they are and the experience they lack.
Think of the problems with sexual harassment within the workplace. Over the years, conditions have improved thanks to changing mindsets and better on-the-job training and education, but it still persists. Specifically for hotels, think about the push for housekeepers to carry panic buttons. The number of housekeepers who felt unsafe just doing their jobs cleaning rooms was so high, the American Hospitality & Lodging Association and major hotel brands worked together to create the 5-Star Promise program that includes having housekeepers carry these personal safety devices with them.
Outside of the dangers of sexual harassment and assault, think about how easy it would be for young employees to feel pressured into doing a task they are not legally allowed to do. Imagine a kitchen that is short-staffed where a 15- or 16-year-old employee is asked to use the meat slicer for some sandwiches as they’re just trying to keep up with the lunchtime rush. That employee either is unlikely to know they aren’t supposed to use it, or if they are, because they’re so young, they may not feel comfortable standing up to an adult supervisor over their workplace protections.
Even beyond physical threats to safety, think about how a young employee may not know they’re being taken advantage of through hours or pay because they don’t know wage and hour laws well enough. Or, again, maybe they do, but they just don’t have the self-confidence yet to push back against an adult trying to take advantage of the power differential. Such problems would already exist for 16- and 17-year-olds, but the issue is exacerbated further when the employees are 14 and 15 years old.
If you are going to hire minors to work at your hotels, for whatever reason, Ryan shared some advice on what you should do to protect both yourself and these vulnerable employees.
First, specify in writing to supervisors and managers who oversee minors the hours that these minors are legally allowed to work as well as the duties the minors cannot do. It must be clear to the supervisors and managers what they cannot ask these employees to do.
“I would make it a directive that they’re accountable for it — I would discipline a supervisor or manager who doesn’t comply with it,” Ryan said.
The human resources and payroll departments would be best-positioned to check the hours worked through auditing their time records, she said.
Ryan said she has preached to the industry for years that minor employees are vulnerable, and they need to be treated as such.
“They need to be watched over, and we need to pay attention to what they’re saying and doing and who’s talking to them and who’s looking at them funny,” she said. “It’s a little paternalistic, I guess, but so be it. They’re minors.”
You can reach me at bwroten@hotelnewsnow.com as well as Twitter and LinkedIn.
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