Child labor violations, injuries rise in Maine, report shows
With more Maine employers hiring younger workers to meet growing staff shortages, child labor violations and work-related injuries are both rising, a report by the Maine Department of Labor shows.
During the second quarter of this year alone, the department completed investigations into violations by a dozen employers, and continued to see an upward trend in the number of violations involving youth workers.
The violations include employing youth workers without a work permit, working outside of hourly restrictions for their age and working in hazardous occupation not allowed under the law, which in some cases led to serious injury. In one case, a 14-year-old was injured while driving a company logging truck at 4 a.m.
"Most Maine employers comply with the nearly identical state and federal legal restrictions designed to protect the health, safety and education of our minors,” said Michael Roland, director of the department’s Bureau of Labor Standards.
“However, we have also been observing a marked increase in the numbers of work permits denied, violations of child-protective labor laws, and most disturbingly, in reported injuries to minors in Maine's workplaces,” he said.
Details of the investigations, including employer names, citation letters and settlement agreements, are available here.
Jessica Picard, a spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Labor, said that not all of the cases have settlement agreements.
She also said that if a settlement agreement is in place, those are monitored for the next two to three years for continued compliance. In cases without a settlement agreement, a follow-up visit typically occurs within a year to ensure compliance.
Injuries sharply higher
The department said the rise in injuries among young workers is “most concerning.”
Reports of injuries to minors in Maine workplaces have doubled over the past decade, from 162 in 2012 to 325 in 2022, according to workers’ compensation data cited in the report.
Other violations include employing youth workers without a work permit, employing them outside of the hourly restrictions for their age and assigning them to hazardous job not allowed by the law, leading to serious injury in some instances.
Employers' need for younger workers nationwide has sparked a spike in applications for minor work permits.
In Maine, applications for minor work permits jumped by nearly 75% between 2017 and 2022. And so far in 2023, the Maine Department of Labor has received over 4,700 work permit applications. Of those, about 200 have been denied because the applications were for hazardous occupations.
MEMIC's take
In response to the MDOL report, Tony Payne, a spokesman for Portland-based workers' compensation provider MEMIC, noted that three-quarters of injuries among young people ages 14 to 19 are occurring among older teens age 18 and 19 as proof that Maine isn't going back to the days of youngsters working in mills.
“If Maine’s labor shortage is being solved by hiring kids in their teens, employers need to be absolutely certain that the work is both legal and appropriate,” he said. “No injury is acceptable so they also need to assure that those kids are well-trained and closely supervised.”
Information resources
In Maine, young people age 14 and older can work within certain boundaries in place to ensure that a job does not interfere with the health or education of the minor. Those restrictions include minimum ages for employment, work permits, hours of work and prohibited occupations, according to this Maine Department of Labor webpage. The site offers an overview of resources for schools and students.
A separate site offers an overview of Maine laws governing the employment of minors along with workforce resources for schools and students.
Anyone who has questions about labor laws, or thinks his or her rights have been violated, should contact Maine Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Standards at 207-623-7900 or via this online portal.
MEMIC also offers an online employer resource page addressing strategies and procedures for hiring younger workers.
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