Conservative campaign rewriting child labor laws | The Gazette

When Iowa lawmakers last week gave final approval to roll back certain child labor protections, they blended into a growing movement driven largely by a conservative advocacy group.

The measure, which Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said she will sign into law, is among several the Foundation for Government Accountability is maneuvering through state legislatures.

The Iowa bill, which underwent several revisions, allows 16- and 17-year-olds to participate in some jobs currently banned for minors like construction and manufacturing, if granted an exemption by state officials as part of an approved educational or apprenticeship program that does not interfere with their “health, well-being, or schooling.” A parent must also grant permission for the work.

Fifteen-year-olds could perform “light” assembly work, provided it is not on a machine or in an area with machines, and 16- and 17-year-olds would be able to serve alcohol in restaurants with parental permission and adult supervision.

Dangerous industries like mining, logging and meatpacking could not employ minors.

Reynolds dismissed criticisms from Democrats that the bill allows some teens to work in dangerous situations, including demolition.

“I can't even really understand all the hoopla about it,” Reynolds told reporters. “ … People are perplexed, I mean literally perplexed, at why we would care if kids want to work or not. It's not a mandate.”

The Florida-based foundation and its lobbying arm, the Opportunity Solutions Project, have found remarkable success among Republicans to relax regulations that prevent children from working long hours in dangerous conditions. And they are gaining traction as the Democratic Biden administration is scrambling to enforce existing labor protections for children.

The FGA achieved its biggest victory in March, playing a central role in designing a new Arkansas law to eliminate work permits and age verification for workers younger than 16. Its sponsor, Republican state Rep. Rebecca Burkes, said in a hearing that the legislation “came to me from the Foundation (for) Government Accountability.”

“As a practical matter, this is likely to make it even harder for the state to enforce our own child labor laws,” said Annie B. Smith, director of the University of Arkansas School of Law's Human Trafficking Clinic. “Not knowing where young kids are working makes it harder for (state departments) to do proactive investigations and visit workplaces where they know that employment is happening to make sure that kids are safe.”

That law passed so swiftly and was met with such public outcry that Arkansas officials quickly approved a second measure increasing penalties on violators of codes the state just weakened.

In Missouri, where another child labor bill has gained significant GOP support and is advancing in the legislature, the FGA helped a lawmaker draft and revise the legislation, according to emails obtained by the Washington Post.

The FGA for years has worked to shape policy at the state level, fighting to advance conservative causes such as restricting access to anti-poverty programs and blocking Medicaid expansion.

But in February, the White House announced a crackdown on child labor violators in response to what activists have described as a surge in youths — many of them undocumented immigrants — working at meat packing plants, construction sites, auto factories and other dangerous sites. The administration's top labor lawyer called the proposed child labor laws “irresponsible” and said they could make it easier for employers to hire kids for dangerous work.

“Federal and state entities should be working together to increase accountability and ramp up enforcement — not make it easier to illegally hire children to do what are often dangerous jobs,” Labor Solicitor Seema Nanda said. “No child should be working in dangerous workplaces in this country, full stop.”

Congress in 1938 passed the Fair Labor Standards Act to stop companies from using cheap child labor to do dangerous work, a practice that exploded during the Great Depression. But today those rules, which restrict the hours and types of work that can be performed by minors, are not strictly enforced, and the issue has become more polarizing since the pandemic began.

The Labor Department has seen a 69 percent increase in minors employed in violation of federal law since 2018, officials reported. Between 2018 and 2022, federal regulators opened cases for 4,144 child labor violations covering 15,462 youth workers, data shows.

On the surface, the FGA frames its child worker bills as part of a larger debate surrounding parental rights, including in education and child care. But the state-by-state campaigns, the group's leader said, help the FGA create openings to deconstruct larger government regulations. Since 2016, the FGA's Opportunity Solutions Project has hired 115 lobbyists across the country with a presence in 22 states, according to the nonpartisan political watchdog group Open Secrets.

“The reason these rather unpopular policies succeed is because they come in under the radar screen,” said David Campbell, professor of American Democracy at the University of Notre Dame. “Typically, these things get passed because they are often introduced in a very quiet way or by groups inching little by little through grassroots efforts.”

Lawmakers in Minnesota and Ohio have considered proposals this year allowing teens to work more hours or in more dangerous occupations, such as construction. A bill in Georgia would prohibit the state government from requiring a minor to obtain a work permit. Wisconsin legislators last week introduced a bill to allow children as young as 14 to serve alcohol in restaurants.

The FGA-backed measures maintain existing child labor safety protections “while removing the permission slip that inserts government in between parents and their teenager's desire to work,” Nick Stehle, the foundation's vice president, said in a statement.

“Frankly, every state, including Missouri, should follow Arkansas's lead to allow parents and their teenagers to have the conversation about work and make that decision themselves,” wrote Stehle, who is also a visiting fellow at the Opportunity Solutions Project. The FGA declined to make Stehle available for an interview.

It's one of several conservative groups that have long taken aim at all manner of government regulations or social safety net programs. The FGA is funded by a broad swath of ultraconservative and Republican donors — such as the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation and 85 Fund, a nonprofit connected to political operative Leonard Leo — who have supported other conservative policy groups.

The youth hiring or employment bills, as they are often titled, represent growing momentum among conservatives who contend that parents and not government policy should determine whether and where 14- and 15-year-olds should work.

Making it easier to hire 14-year-olds

The employment rate among 16- to 24-year-olds is down compared with previous years, according to federal statistics.

Supporters of the child worker proposals say they reduce red tape around the hiring process for minors. A spokeswoman for Republican Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said her state's law relieved parents of “obsolete” and “arbitrary burdens.”

“The main push for this reform didn't come from big business,” Stehle, the FGA vice president, wrote in an essay for Fox. “It came from families like mine, who want more of the freedom that lets our children flourish.”

Child welfare advocates and some business leaders said the new legislation could endanger children on the job and entice others to leave school to join the workforce. Those risks are especially acute for undocumented minors who arrive in the United States without their parents — and are more vulnerable to illicit labor trafficking.

Randy Zook, president of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce, said his state's law is “a solution looking for a problem.”

The work permits — more than 2,700 of which were issued by Arkansas officials in 2022, according to state government data — required proof of age, parental permission and an employer's signature. They left an “important paper trail ” of where children were employed and reminded businesses of the rules, said Laura Kellams, from the Arkansas Advocates For Children And Families.

“This wasn't burdening parents or children who want to work,” Kellams said. “This wasn't burdening business that followed the law. It would only be a burden to an employer who didn't want to follow the rules about work hours and the types of work that kids that age are able to do.”

Funded by conservative political network

The FGA and Opportunity Solutions Project frequently maintain that state and federal regulators are holding back the size and quality of the U.S. workforce. The FGA has called for reforming home-based business laws, fast-tracking permitting processes, cutting social safety nets and creating other incentives to work.

A January 2022 white paper previewed talking points that lawmakers would go on to use while discussing the legislation. The paper called teenagers “a critical source of labor,” and linked the conservative backlash to pandemic-era education policies to alleged overreach by school officials charged with protecting children in the workforce.

“Now is the time for state lawmakers to eliminate unnecessary hurdles to teenage work and leave the decision-making to parents,” the paper declares.

Shortly after publishing the paper, the groups were in contact with a leading state legislator to implement that policy agenda. In May 2022, Opportunity Solutions Project lobbyist James Harris forwarded two draft child worker bills to Daniel Wilhelm, the chief of staff to Republican Missouri state Sen. Andrew Koenig, chair of the chamber's committee on education and workforce development, according to emails obtained through open records laws.

Koenig introduced the measure as one of the first bills filed for the Missouri legislature's 2023 session. Harris then testified in support.

In an interview, Harris said child labor protections in many states are based on “atrocious labor practices” of a century ago.

“Maybe there was a time and need for a lot of that,” he said. “Today's work environments are the safest they've ever been.”

Tarren Bragdon, a former Maine state legislator, founded the FGA in 2011 with a focus on cutting social safety net and anti-poverty programs. It quickly tapped into conservative political fundraising networks and grew from $50,000 in seed funding to $4 million in revenue by its fourth year, according to tax filings.

In 2020, the most recent year for which the FGA and its funders' full financial disclosures are available, more than 70 percent of its $10.6 million in revenue came from 14 conservative groups.

The foundation had identified Arkansas, Missouri and Iowa among its “super states” where it planned to increase its presence.

Tom Barton of The Gazette Des Moines Bureau contributed.