Death of child worker draws attention to weakening of labor laws

JACKSON, Mississippi – The death of a 16-year-old boy who worked in a Mississippi poultry plant has renewed concerns about the safety of child workers.

More than that, it has also brought into focus attempts by some lawmakers to weaken child labor laws.

Duvan Pérez, an immigrant from Guatemala, was fatally injured while cleaning equipment at a poultry plant in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

His death has raised questions about whether the company complied with child labor laws.

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits employers from hiring anyone under 18 in such plants.

Pérez’s death occurred less than two weeks after another 16-year-old boy was killed while working at a sawmill in northern Wisconsin.

Since 2021, lawmakers in 14 states have introduced bills to soften child labor laws.

These bills would allow younger children to work longer in more dangerous industries.

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has argued that these deregulation efforts are driven by corporate desire to increase exploitation.

“The trend reflects a coordinated multi-industry push to expand employer access to low-wage labor and weaken state child labor laws in ways that contradict federal protections,” EPI researchers Jennifer Sherer and Nina Mast wrote earlier this year. 

“And the recent uptick in state legislative activity is linked to longer-term industry-backed goals to rewrite federal child labor laws and other worker protections for the whole country.”

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division have opened investigations into the fatal incident at the Mar-Jac Poultry plant—the facility’s second in two years.

“How many more children must die?” AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler asked Wednesday. 

“Any lawmaker who wants to undermine child labor laws, in 2023, is a disgrace.”