NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft – National Consumers League

The National Consumers League’s Special Project on Wage Theft seeks to raise awareness about the nature of wage theft in the United States and strives to educate consumers, workers, businesses and governments about wage theft issues. Read this Q & A to learn more about what wage theft is and who it affects.

What is wage theft?

“Wage theft” is a complex and growing problem. Wage theft occurs when employers illegally underpay their workers. This happens to low wage workers as well as the middle class, especially since the two most common methods of wage theft are unpaid overtime & employee misclassification.

Who does wage theft affect?

Wage theft affects millions of blue-collar and white-collar workers each year, often forcing them to choose between paying the rent or putting food on the table. It robs the government of taxes and puts ethical employers at a competitive disadvantage.

What does the federal law say?

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and child labor standards affecting full-time and part-time workers in the private sector and in Federal, State, and local governments. Covered nonexempt workers are entitled to a minimum wage of not less than $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009. Overtime pay is set at a rate of not less than one and one-half times the regular rates of pay after 40 hours of work in a workweek.

Where can I get more information?

For more information regarding wage theft and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA),  please contact the US Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division at www.wagehour.dol.gov or the US Department of Labor Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Advisor at www.dol.gov/elaws/flsa.htm and/or call the toll-free information and helpline, available 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in your time zone, 1-866- 4USWAGE (1-866-487-9243).

 

Working more than 20 hours a week is a bad idea for teens – National Consumers League

These days, being a teenager isn’t easy. Teens’ overburdened schedules often include juggling afterschool activities, sports practice, and homework, which combined with working part time for extra spending money or to contribute to household expenses, leaves many teens feeling overworked, stressed, and stretched to the limit.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, close to a quarter of all U.S. high school students participate in the workforce.  Legislators are well aware of the hectic pace of adolescence, and most states place limits on the amount of hours teens can work, with 20 hours a week the standard limit. Despite the considerable evidence working over the 20 hour limit leads to slipping grades, increased dropout rates, and other behavioral problems, states like Missouri and Maine have recently introduced legislation that would repeal many child labor protections or increase the amount of hours teens are allowed to work.

Research has consistently shown that working over the standard 20 hour a week limit negatively affects teens in a variety of ways:

Academic & behavioral problems. Researchers from the University of Washington, the University of Virginia, and Temple University issued a recent report finding that working more than 20 hours a week during the school year leads to academic and behavior problems. [Source: Monahan, Lee & Steinberg, Child Development, January/February 2011.]

  • The more hours a student works, the more likely their grades are to be lower. [Source: Singh, Journal of Educational Research, 91.]
  • Low grades—even a small difference in sleep matters. Researchers from the College of the Holy Cross, and Brown University Medical School found that students who reported that they were getting C’s, D’s and F’s in school obtained about 25 minutes less sleep and went to bed about 40 minutes later than students who reported they were getting A’s and B’s. Even a little sleep makes a big difference! [Source: Wolfson & Carskadon, Child Development, 1998.]

Dropping out. A study published in the Sociology of Education demonstrates that working more than 20 hours each week leads to higher dropout rates [Source: D’Amico, Sociology of Education, 57]

  • Another study in the American Educational Research Journal (AERJ) reports that students who work between 1 and 15 hours per week are more likely to complete high school; however, students who work more than 15 hours each week are more likely to drop out.  [Source: Warren, LePore & Mare, AERJ, 37]

Sports & after school activities. Youth who work long hours may also be unable to take full advantage of valuable extra curricula and community activities that promote learning and school engagement [Source: McNeal 1995; Osgood 1999; Schoenhals et al. Sociology of Education, 83, 1998].

Youth work and college. Research suggests that high school student who don’t work at all or work more than 20 hours are less likely to go to college than students who work 1-20 hours. [Source: U.S. Department of Labor. Report on the Youth Labor Force. (2000).]

Lack of sleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation, more than one quarter of high school students fall asleep in class now. Four in 10 adolescents go to bed after 11:00 pm on school nights. “Almost all teen-agers, as they reach puberty, become walking zombies because they are getting far too little sleep,” observes  Cornell University psychologist James Maas, PhD, one of the nation’s leading sleep experts.

  • The National Institutes of Health (NIH) have identified adolescents and young adults (ages 12 to 25 years) as a population at high risk for problem sleepiness based on “evidence that the prevalence of problem sleepiness is high and increasing with particularly serious consequences.” (NIH, 1997) [source: National Sleep Foundation web site]
  • One of the major recommendations from the National Sleep Foundation’s research report Adolescent Sleep Needs and Patterns: “Child labor laws [are needed] to restrict the number of hours and the time of day that adolescents are permitted to work.”

Driving deaths. Sleepiness can contribute to injuries and deaths related to lapses in attention and delayed response times at critical moments, especially while driving. Drowsiness or fatigue has been identified as a principle cause in at least 100,000 police-reported traffic crashes each year, killing more than 1,500 Americans and injuring another 71,000, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA, 1994). Young drivers age 25 or under are involved in more than one-half of fall-asleep crashes. [Source: National Sleep Foundation web site].

According to a report in Forbes, 49% of fatal crashes happen at night, with a fatality rate per mile of travel about three times as high as daytime hours. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, fatal crashes involving alcohol-impaired drivers occurredfour times more at night than during the day (37 percent versus 9 percent). If Maine allows teens to work till 11:00 as proposed legislation would allow, the number of teens killed or injured in drunk-driving accidents will increase.

Workplace injuries. Each year, about 230,000 teens are injured at work. Longer and later hours will increase the likelihood of an injury because of the correlation between fatigue and injuries. [Source: NIOSH]

Workplace violence. According to the 2009 National Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, 521 Americans were murdered in the work place. An estimated 2 million Americans are the victims of workplace violence each year. Teens tend to work in jobs that elevate their risk for workplace violence—service and retail jobs that involve exchanging money and dealing with the public. Working till 11:00 would increase the chances that teens will be working alone or closing up, exposing them to additional risk.

Work help teens gain valuable experience, teaches them much needed skills, and provides necessary spending money—but a few simple rules should be followed. First, teen workers should select a job that is not unusually dangerous (see NCL’s “Five Worst Teen Jobs” report for guidance in selecting the proper job). The student workweek should be limited to 20 hours or less and should not go past 10 p.m. on a school night. Students should never work alone or without supervision and should receive job safety training and discuss job safety with their employer and their parents. Safe and healthy youth work experiences don’t just happen–teens, parents, and employers must work together to make them happen.

State child labor laws under attack – National Consumers League

A century ago, the National Consumers League helped write and enact the first child labor laws in states across the country. Today, advocates are dismayed at efforts in two states to roll back protections for working youth.

The League was formed in 1899 and co-chairs the Child Labor Coalition (CLC) the 28-member coalition (www.stopchildlabor.org), that works to maintain and improve standards and protections for children working both in the United States and abroad.

In February, Missouri Republican State Senator Jane Cunningham introduced legislation, SB 222, that would all but repeal the child labor law in the state of Missouri, eliminating the prohibition on employment of children under age 14.

The Missouri legislation:

• removes the restrictions on the maxium number of hours and time of day during which a child may work;

• repeals the requirement that a child ages 14 or 15 obtain a work certificate or work permit in order to be employed;

• allows children under 16 to work in any capacity in a motel, resort, or hotel where sleeping accommodations are furnished; and,

• removes the authority of the director of the Division of Labor Standards to inspect employers who employ children and to require them to keep certain records for children they employ. It also repeals the presumption that the presence of a child in a workplace is evidence of employment.

Recently Maine has joined Missouri as states considering changes to child labor law. Proposed legislation in Maine—now under consideration in the state Senate—would extend hours for teen workers, allowing them to work 24 hours a week during the school year—instead of the current 20—and allowing them to work till 11:00 p.m. instead of the current 10:00 p.m.

A second law under consideration by the Maine legislature would eliminate any cap on the number of hours a 16-year-old may work on a school day. The bill, introduced by Representative David Burns (R – Whiting), would abolish minimum wage protections for high school students under 20 – limiting their income to just $5.25 per hour in the first six months.

The Missouri House has just approved a new budget that would terminate all of the state’s investigators who look into child labor and minimum wage complaints. In 2010, those investigators discovered more than $450,000 violations of child labor laws in Missouri and recovered more than $700,000 for workers from minimum and prevailing wage violations.

“Labor crusader Florence Kelley would be rolling over in her grave,” said NCL’s Sally Greenberg. “This is a new low. There are important historical reasons for the enactment of these basic protections for our young workers. And when they are enforced, these laws do the job, which is to punish those who hire underage workers or pay them a low wage or ask them to do dangerous jobs. These laws work but they must be enforced. Without the threat of investigations into violations of the law, there will be flagrant violations and young workers run the risk of suffering injury or even death on the job.”

NCL believes that Americans support the bedrock principle that children should not be exploited economically, that we need to ensure that our children are treated fairly and allowed to flourish in school.

100 years later: The triangle shirtwaist fire’s continued legacy – National Consumers League

The deadliest industrial disaster in New York City history was over in less than half an hour, and upon its 100th anniversary, historians and labor rights advocates are honoring the young workers lost to the tragedy and the changes in American labor law it sparked. This month, labor advocates are commemorating the anniversary of the fire and examining how life has changed for the American worker.

A Look Back & A Look Ahead: The status of worker health, safety & rights in the 100 years since the historic fire

In a matter of minutes, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire of March 25th, 1911 claimed the lives of 146 garment workers, many of them immigrant, teenage girls.

The scene was truly horrifying: panicked workers fled to factory exits only to find them locked.  Surging crowds bottlenecked at narrow exit doors that only opened inward. Desperate to escape the flames, workers flung themselves out eighth and ninth story windows and down an empty elevator shaft. Many of those who made it to the flimsy, poorly designed fire escape were thrown to the ground when it melted from the heat and collapsed.

Today, the Triangle Factory disaster is remembered as a pivotal moment in American history that led to the transformation of New York’s labor legislation and served as a model for the entire nation. The incredible number of workers who died during the devastating fire was exceptional, but, at the turn of that century, dying at work was not an uncommon occurrence. By one estimate, more than 100 Americans died on the job every day during the hyper, unregulated industrial years of the early 20th century. However, unlike other workplace disasters that were followed by shock and outrage but quickly forgotten, the Triangle fire marked an important turning point in the way the way the country thought about a worker’s right to safety.

Following the fire, forward-thinking citizens, politicians, and organizations immediately began working for permanent changes in worker safety laws.

  • The National Women’s Trade Union League (NWTUL) was at the forefront of pushing legislative changes. The NWTUL sent out a questionnaire to factory workers that documented the deplorable conditions workers were forced to endure, and sent the results to local papers. The NWTUL formed the Citizen’s Committee for Public safety and urged the state legislature to form a Bureau of Fire Prevention
  • Facing pressure from the NWTUL and continued public outcry, the New York legislature created the New York State Factory Investigating Committee which passed legislation requiring that all doors open outwards, sprinkle systems be installed in certain factory buildings, no doors could be locked during working hours, and made fire drills mandatory for buildings without sprinklers
  • With the lessons learned from the Triangle fire, the New York City Fire Department was able to identify more than 200 factories with safety issues that could lead to a similar disaster
  • The American Society of Safety Engineers, committed to protecting people, property, and the environment, was created eight months after the fire.

Among those who worked tirelessly to prevent such a disaster from ever happening again was NCL Executive Secretary, Frances Perkins.  At the time of the fire, Perkins was having tea a few blocks away and reached the factory in time to witness garment workers jumping to their deaths. Perkins was instrumental in reforming working conditions, especially for women and children, as executive secretary to the Committee on Safety of New York. Perkins’ work after the fire marked the beginning of a lifetime dedicated to advocating for workers. In 1933, President Roosevelt appointed Perkins as his Secretary of Labor, making her the first woman in the United States to hold a Cabinet position—a position she held for 12 years.

A century later, the legacy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire remains as relevant as ever. While it may be tempting to look back at the shameful working conditions of the time as simply a thing of the past, in light of today’s recent oil and mining disasters, as well as the union busting going on across the country, how much progress has the worker truly made in the last 100 years?

Young farmworker shares lessons on hard life in fields – National Consumers League

Meet Samantha Guillen, a child farmworker since age 6, who is helping advocates fight for increased protections for our youngest child laborers in the fields.

One of the great things about doing child labor advocacy is that you get to meet extraordinary young people who have overcome many obstacles associated with child labor and see a responsibility to help prevent other children from following their path. NCL staff recently had the opportunity to meet one of those young people—a young woman who has been toiling in the fields for the last dozen years—at a congressional briefing organized June 22 by advocates working to protect child farmworkers.

Samantha Guillen, 18, told briefing attendees that she began working in the fields when she was just six years old. Her family, she said, has done migratory farmworker for generations. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and asparagus are among the crops the Guillen family has harvested, although her father developed a bad back from harvesting asparagus and the family has decided to avoid that physically demanding crop.

Samantha, who is still a farmworker today, has pretty strong feelings about agricultural labor: “I hate it. I hate this job,” she told briefing participants. She explained how you start in the early morning when it’s freezing cold. Many kids do not have jackets but work in the cold anyway, she added. When it rains, you keep on working. When the sun get’s high, it’s boiling hot, she explained. Her family sometimes works from 4:30 a.m. until 3:00 p.m., without breaks. “They want you working all the time,” she explained.

The workers, Samantha said, often must eat right in the fields without sanitation facilities to wash their dirty hands, something that has always bothered her. Water and toilets are often far away.

The pay is paltry. She’s lucky to earn $200-300 every two weeks, Samantha said.

“As for my education, it was very, very hard,” said Samantha. As a migrant she moved a lot, often going back and forth from Texas to Washington State. “It was always pieces of school,” she said. “I was always the new kid. I was failing my classes.” But she kept at it and eventually got through and graduated near the top of her class and is now about to enter college. Many of the kids she worked with weren’t so lucky. “Tons of my friends dropped out,” she said. Nationally, roughly two out of three farmworker children drop out of high school.

Advocates, including the members of the Child Labor Coalition, which is co-chaired by the National Consumers League, are fighting to increase the age at which children can legally work for wages in agriculture. They don’t think it’s right that 10- and 12-year-olds can work 10-12 hour days in near-100 degree heat. Most kids can’t work in an air-conditioned office until they are 16, they note. The Children’s Act for Responsible Employment (CARE) would end child labor exemptions for agriculture so that kids like Samantha receive the same protections as other children.

By lending her voice, Samantha is hoping to help protect future generations of farmworker children. If you would like to learn more about the plight of farmworker children, please check out Fields of Peril, a new report from Human Rights Watch.

Teens, avoid these jobs in 2010 – National Consumers League

It’s that time of the year. Teenagers are starting to think about their summer jobs. Where will they work? What kind of work will they do? What will it pay?

2010’s Five Worst Teen Jobs 

  1. Traveling Youth Sales Crews
  2. Construction and Height Work
  3. Outside Helper: Landscaping, Groundskeeping and Lawn Service
  4. Agriculture: Harvesting Crops
  5. Driver/Operator: Forklifts, Tractors, and ATV’s

In 2008, approximately 2.3 million adolescents aged 15 to 17 years worked in the U.S. Unfortunately, the global recession has impacted teen hiring here in the U.S. and jobs are particularly hard to come by for teens these days. According to the New York Times in April 2010, the U.S. economy lost 8.2 million jobs in the previous two years and the teen unemployment rate had risen 26 percent, compared to 9.7 percent for the nation at large. Increasingly, teens are competing with more experienced adults for jobs. The National Consumer League (NCL) worries that the difficulty in finding jobs will lead teens to take jobs that are too dangerous for them.

Jobs for teens are an important part of youth development, providing both needed income and teaching valuable work skills, but we urge teenage workers to ask an important question: Will the job I take be a safe one? The wrong choice could harm you or even kill you.

Each day in America, 14 workers die. In 2008, 34 workers under 18 died in the workplace.

Teenagers are particularly vulnerable to accidents both in normal life and at work. Accidents are the leading cause of death for children between the ages of 10 and 19. In fact, more youth between 10 and 19 die from injuries than die from all other causes combined.

The last six months have seen a number of gruesome news stories about teen work deaths:

  • A 14-year-old in Poquoson, Virginia who was working for a lawn care company was killed instantly when he was pulled into a wood chipper last November;
  • A 17-year-old doughnut shop worker fell into a normally-covered cesspool and drowned in Smithtown, New York this March (authorities believe the cover got knocked off during snow plowing); and
  • The body of 18-year-old Jennifer Hammond—last seen six years earlier selling magazines door-to-door—was discovered in Saratoga County, New York. Hammond was the apparent victim of a homicide.

Could these deaths have been prevented? Two of the jobs mentioned above are on our list of “Worst Jobs for Teens” that we recommend teenagers avoid. The 14-year-old killed by the wood chipper, Frank Gornik, was too young to be legally working with potentially deadly equipment like a wood chipper. Better knowledge of the law, which requires a worker to be 18 to work with a wood chipper, may have prevented his death.

 Deaths from Driving

The most common way for a teen worker to die is in a traffic accident. According to one recent study on unintentional injuries, seven in 10 accidental deaths result from car crashes. In 2008 data from the federal government, 43 of 97 deaths of workers under 19 came in transportation accidents.

We encourage young workers to look for jobs in which they do not drive, are not regularly driven by others or are not driven great distances. When in a car, young workers should wear their seat belt. They should ask that their driver not be distracted by using a cell phone, eating, or other disruptions. They should insist that they drive at safe speeds. According to several studies, the perception that driving in rural areas is safe is very misleading. Rural crashes are more frequent and more severe on a per capita or per mile basis. One report estimated that some rural counties are 100 times more dangerous than many urban counties.

Restaurants, Grocery Stores & Retail Stores

In terms of raw numbers, retail establishments, restaurants, and grocery stores are three of the largest employers of teen workers.

Many teens work in restaurants are at risk of burns and other kitchen-related injuries. In some states, restaurants rank first in the number of youth work injuries, although the injuries are often less severe than in many of the occupations cited in this report. Fryers, meat slicers, knives, compactors, and wet, greasy floors can all combine to form a dangerous work environment.

At times, teenagers work in what is typically a safe environment but do unsafe tasks. For example, grocery stores employ a lot of teen workers and for the most part they provide a safe work environment. However, when workers are rushing or are improperly trained accidents can happen. Workers under 18 are allowed to load trash compactors—found in most grocery stores—but they are prohibited from operating them because of a number of gruesome accidents that have occurred to users in the past. Safety specialists worry that improperly trained youth will not obey the law. Similarly, minors—unless they are working in agriculture–are not allowed to drive a forklift, but young people will sometimes get behind the wheel anyway.

Last year, a woman, barely 18, working in a grocery in Indiana, lost her hand trying to clean a grinder in a grocery store. In April, a New York supermarket was cited for illegally employing a 17-year-old to slice deli meat in violation of child labor hazardous orders.

Retail stores may seem like a safe environment but teens can get hurt lifting boxes, cutting boxes open, crushing boxes, and falling from ladders.

Mall and grocery parking lots are often the site of car accidents and can also be dangerous for young workers.

Nearly all work places hold some danger. Our goal is not to paralyze teen workers with fear but to get them and employers to minimize the risks involved. 

Workplace Violence

Restaurants and retail establishments also hold risks of workplace violence. According to 2008 federal data, 17 workers between the ages of 16 and 19 died from workplace violence.

In January, an Illinois teenager was beaten and sexually assaulted after being abducted from the sandwich shop where she worked alone at night. In some inner cities, young fast-food workers have reported routinely having to deal with gang members who come in to harass and rob them.

Teen workers should not be asked to work alone at night. Employers should discuss security procedures with employees in detail. The Illinois teen who was abducted had become aware that a suspicious person was watching her but did not call the police. She texted her concerns to her boyfriend who rushed to the workplace. He arrived too late to prevent the abduction

Causes of Injuries

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the causes of workplace injuries typically fall into these seven categories:

  • Unsafe equipment;
  • Stressful Conditions;
  • Inadequate safety training;
  • Inadequate supervision;
  • Dangerous work that is illegal or inappropriate for youth;
  • Trying to hurry; and
  • Alcohol and drug use.

The most common causes of death for the 97 young workers (under 19) who died in 2008:

  1. transportation accidents;
  2. contact with objects and equipment;
  3. violent acts;
  4. exposure to harmful substances or environments,
  5. falls;
  6. getting caught in or crushed by collapsing materials; and
  7. drowning or submersion.

Of those 97 youth deaths, in 34 cases the worker was under 18. Of those 34 deaths, 23 involved 16- and 17-year-olds and 11—or 32 percent—involved workers under 16. If parents are thinking that employers would only permit older teens to do dangerous tasks and that younger teens are safer, the statistics do not support that logic.

Males are much more at risk than females. Only one in every 14 adult workers who died at work was a women. Of the 5,071 workers who died in 2008, 1.9 percent were 19 or under.

Many youth involved in workplace accidents are fortunate enough to escape death but receive serious injuries. In 2007, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) estimates that there were 48,600 work-related injuries and illnesses among youth 15 to 17 years of age that were treated I hospital emergency departments. NIOSH believes that two out of three injury victims do not go to the emergency room and that the real number of injured workers is about 146,000—or 406 every day.

The National Consumers League issues the 2010 Five Worst Teen jobs to remind teens and their parents to help youth workers to choose their summer jobs wisely. Summer jobs can contribute a lot to a child’s development and maturity and teach new skills and responsibilities but the safety of each job must be a consideration.

Many teens lack the experience and sense of caution needed to protect themselves from workplace jobs. In government speak, “young workers have unique and substantial risks for work-related injuries…because of their biologic, social, and economic characteristics.” They are reluctant to refuse to do tasks because they are dangerous or to ask for safety information.

We ask parents to be involved in their teen’s job hunting and decision making, helping them to select safe employment. An important first step in the process is for parents and teens to acquaint themselves with the laws that protect working teens. Read what a teen worker can and cannot do at www.youthrules.dol.gov. The site provides information for young workers in each of the fifty states.

Other practical advice for parents:

Be involved
Before the job search begins, make decisions with your teen about appropriate employment. Set limits on how many hours per week he or she may work. Make sure your child knows you are interested in his or her part-time job.

Check it out
Meet your teen’s supervisor, request a tour of the facilities, and inquire about the company’s safety record. Ask about safety training, duties, and equipment. Don’t assume the job is safe. Every workplace has hazards.

Talk, talk, talk – and listen, too
Ask questions about your teen’s job. Ask teachers to give you a heads-up if grades begin to slip. Frequently ask your teen what she or he did at work and discuss any problems or concerns.

Watch for signs
Is the job taking a toll on your teen emotionally or physically? How is your child’s performance at school? If there’s a loss of interest in or energy for school or social activities, the job may be too demanding.

Our tips for teen workers follow:

Know the Legal Limits
To protect young workers like you, state and federal laws limit the hours you can work and the kinds of work you can do. For state and federal child labor laws, visit Youth Rules.

Play it Safe
Always follow safety training. Working safely and carefully may slow you down, but ignoring safe work procedures is a fast track to injury. There are hazards in every workplace — recognizing and dealing with them correctly may save your life.

Ask Questions
Ask for workplace training — like how to deal with irate customers or how to perform a new task or use a new machine. Tell your supervisor, parent, or other adult if you feel threatened, harassed, or endangered at work.

Make Sure the Job Fits
If you can only work certain days or hours, if you don’t want to work alone, or if there are certain tasks you don’t want to perform, make sure your employer understands and agrees before you accept the job.

Don’t Flirt with Danger
Be aware of your environment at all times. It’s easy to get careless after a while when your tasks have become predictable and routine. But remember, you’re not indestructible. Injuries often occur when employees are careless or goofing off.

Trust Your Instincts
Following directions and having respect for supervisors are key to building a great work ethic. However, if someone asks you to do something that feels unsafe or makes you uncomfortable, don’t do it. Many young workers are injured — or worse — doing work that their boss asked them to do.

One safety expert suggests that if a job requires safety equipment other than a hard hat, goggles, or gloves, it’s not appropriate for minors. 

Five Worst Teen Jobs 

Many specific jobs pose potential dangers to young workers. The five jobs named on NCL’s list of “five worst teen jobs” have proven to be especially dangerous based on anecdotal evidence and federal statistics.

Traveling Youth Crews Performing Door-to-Door Sales

The startling discovery of the remains of a long-missing 18-year-old girl, Jennifer Hammond, in October 2009, served as a painful reminder that traveling door-to-door sales jobs are very dangerous. A Littleton, Colorado native, Hammond, had last been seen six years earlier in a mobile home park in Milton, New York. She failed to show up at a designated pickup spot two hours later. Six years later, a hunter found her remains in a forest in Saratoga County, New York.

Parents should not allow their children to take a traveling sales job. The dangers are too great. Without parental supervision, teens are at too great a risk of being victimized. Traveling sales crew workers are typically asked to go to the doors of strangers and sometimes enter their homes—a very dangerous thing for a young person to do.

Frequent crime reports involving traveling sales crews suggests that the environment they present is not a safe one for teen workers. And with 44 percent of young worker fatalities coming from vehicle accidents, NCL urges teens not to accept any job that involves driving long distances or for long periods of time.

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) warned consumers in May 2009 that deceptive sales practices are common in door-to-door sales—the group had received 1,100 complaints in the prior year. “Experience tells us that customers aren’t the only victims of [these scams],” said Michael Coil, President of the Better Business bureau of Northern Indiana, “the young salespeople are also potentially being taken advantage of by their employers and forced to work long hours, endure substandard living conditions and have their wages withheld from them.”

Unfortunately, young sales people are also vulnerable to violence acts by crew leaders. The New York Times reported in October 2009, that “two young people working as itinerant magazine salesmen” in Lakewood, Washington were beaten with baseball bats and golf clubs after they told their bosses they wanted to quit. The victims, whose names and ages were not identified in the article, were hospitalized and their six assailants arrested.

“The industry’s out of control as far as violence,” Earline Williams, the founder of Parent Watch, one of the groups that follows the industry told the Orlando Sentinel in a December 2009 article that reported the beating of Brian Emery, a sales crew member called “The Kid” by his colleagues [Emery’s age was not reported]. New to traveling sales, Emery, told deputies that his team members gave him $12 to buy beer but became enraged when he bought the wrong brand. Two men were charged with beating Emery, one of whom broke a beer bottle across his face in the incident which took place in Osceola County, Florida.

In May 2008, police in Spokane, Washington investigated a 16-year-old’s claim that she was held as a captive worker by a door-to-door sales company. She escaped after the sales crew leaders beat up her boyfriend because he wasn’t selling enough magazines.

Many youth desperate for work are lured in with promises that they will earn good money, travel the country, and meet fun people selling door-to-door. One young man was told that the experience would be like MTV’s Road Rules.

The reality is often far different. Many salesmen work six days a week and 10 to 14 hours a day. Unscrupulous traveling sales companies charge young workers for expenses like rent and food that requires them to turn over all the money they ostensibly make from selling magazines or goods. When they try to quit or leave the crew, they are told they can’t. Disreputable companies have been known to seize young workers’ money, phone cards, and IDs and restrict their ability to call their parents. Drug use and underage drinking are not uncommon. A New York Times report in 2007 found that crew members often make little money after expenses are deducted. On some crews, lowest sellers are forced to fight each other or punished by being made to sleep on the floor.

Few of the magazine sales teams do background checks on their workers, Phil Ellenbecker, told the Orlando Sentinel. Ellenbecker runs an industry watchdog group based in Wisconsin that has tracked about 300 felony crimes and 86 deaths attributed to door-to-door vendors. “It’s not uncommon to get recently released felons knocking on your door trying to sell you magazines,” said Ellenbecker.

One salesman who spent 10 years on crews and eventually became a crew manager told the Indiana Student Daily newspaper, “I regret a lot of stuff I did….I’d become this monster. Lying to kids, telling them how good the job was, and it wasn’t a good job at all.”

A tough economy has made it tougher to sell magazines and according to Earline Williams of Parent Watch, that has meant more violence on crews and more sales employees abandoned. “It’s gotten meaner,” she told NCL. 

Among the possible dangers of working on traveling sales crews:

Murder: In addition to the suspected murder of Jennifer Hammond in 2003, other relatively recent murders:

  • In November 2007, Tracie Anaya Jones, 19, who was a member of a traveling sales crew, was found dead of stab wounds. Originally from Oregon, Jones was last seen working in Little Rock Arkansas before her body was found 150 miles away in Memphis, Tennessee. Her killing remains unsolved and was featured on America’s Most Wanted Web site.
  • In Rapid City, South Dakota in April 2004, a 41-year-old man wa

Farmworker advocates building CARE momentum – National Consumers League

Advocates have been working for years to improve the working conditions for young farmworkers in the United States. In recent months, the CARE Act, the domestic priority for NCL’s Child Labor Coalition, has been gathering steam. In all, 73 groups, representing a diverse cross-section of interests, have stood up and said it’s time to end the injustice of child labor in U.S. agriculture.

During its 111-year history, the National Consumers League (NCL) has often played the role of “convener,” bringing groups together to work to protect American workers and consumers. A prime example of this work is the Child Labor Coalition (CLC), which is made up of 24 groups committed to fighting abusive child labor here in the United States and around the world. The CLC’s domestic priority is protecting the children of migrant and seasonal farmworkers who often work long, back-breaking hours in the fields at very young ages because of loopholes in U.S. child labor law.

The CLC, the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP), and the Children in the Fields Campaign partners are engaged in the Children in the Fields campaign to end those exemptions by passing the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment (CARE), which currently has 75 cosponsors in the House of Representatives. In the last six months, campaign partners have had great success in attracting other groups to engage in the battle to pass CARE.

First, campaign members sought the support of the farmworker community. In all, 12 farmworker organizations have signed on. The United Farm Workers of America and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, two of the oldest and most revered farmworker unions have endorsed CARE. Advocacy groups including Farmworker Justice, Student Action with Farmworkers, the National Farmworker Alliance, the Migrant Legal Action Program, the Farmworker Association of Florida, and the National Farmworker Ministry all agree that CARE will help protect farmworker children.

Farmworker educational groups like the National Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Association and the National Association of State Directors of Migrant Education have endorsed CARE because they know that child labor at early ages often leads young workers to drop out of school. Advocates estimate that as many as two out of three migrant children do not complete high school and end up trapped in low-wage farm work.

Some of the country’s largest unions see CARE as badly needed to protect young workers from exploitation. The AFL-CIO, Change to Win, the American Federation of Teachers, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Communications Workers of America, the National Education Association, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, and the Laborers’ International Union of North America, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union are among the unions and union coalition that have endorsed CARE.

American Rights at Work, Interfaith Worker Justice, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement and the International Labor Rights Forum are among the groups that fight for workers rights and support the passage of CARE. These groups realize that child labor not only endangers the health and education of young workers, it undercuts adult wages and the ability to advocate for better working conditions.

Poverty reduction groups like the Center for Community Change, Oxfam America, and Results have endorsed CARE because they realize that child labor contributes to the generational poverty that traps farmworker families.

For many groups, arduous child labor at such young ages raises civil rights and justice issues. Alliance for Justice, the Leadership Council on Civil and Human Rights, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Human Rights Watch (HRW)—one of the major Children in the Fields Campaign partners–have all endorsed CARE. HRW is among the rights groups that have raised the issue of whether the U.S. might be in violation of the international child rights agreement, Convention 182, because child labor in U.S. agriculture represents a “worst form” of child labor. In the coming months, HRW will release an extensive research report that examines the plight of child farmworker in the U.S.

Many of the nation’s leading Latino Rights organizations have expressed strong support for CARE. NCLR–the National Council of La Raza, the League of United Latin American Citizens, MANA–A National Latina Organization, the Latino Advocacy Council of Western North Carolina,  the Hispanic Federation, and the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute are among CARE supporters who realize that U.S. labor law unjustly impacts Latino youth. In 1938, when the U.S. passed the Fair Labor Standards act and the agriculture exemptions became law, many child workers were African-American. The NAACP has also formally endorsed CARE. The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Asian American Justice Center have added their endorsement to the campaign as well.

Anti-gender discrimination groups like the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, and Pride at Work have asked Congress to say “no” to de facto discrimination by passing CARE.

Faith-based organizations have added their voice to the Children in the Fields campaign. The United Methodist Women, the United Methodist Church—General Board of Church and Society, and the North Carolina Council of Churches are among CARE supporters.

Child rights and child welfare supporters include First Focus Campaign for Children, the International Initiative to End Child Labor, Maine’s Children Alliance, and Kentucky Youth Advocates. The National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, the National Foster Care Coalition, the National Collaboration for Youth, United States Student Association, Voices for Ohio’s Children, and Media Voices for Children.

Many of the children working in the fields are girls and several groups concerned about the rights of women have also asked Congress to pass CARE, including the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, the National Organization for Women, the American Association of University Women, Dialogue on Diversity, and Legal Momentum—formally the Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Although the CARE Act would preserve a family farm exemption that allows the children of growers to continue to work on family farms, the grower community has been slow to embrace the CARE Act. Industry groups like the American Farm Bureau are officially neutral on the bill. Only one brave farmer, Swanton Berry Farms, has stood up and said that employing children to work for wages at the age of 12 is wrong. Bon Appetit Management Company, a catering company that believes in sustainable agriculture has also endorsed CARE.

A variety of other groups have endorsed our campaign, including Calvert Group Ltd., one of the nation’s largest socially-responsible asset management companies and Galen Films, the producer of the documentary film Stolen Childhoods, which contains a powerful segment on children working in U.S. agriculture. The Ramsay Merriam Fund, a long-time supporter of the CLC, the Public Education Network, and the La Fe Policy Research and Education Center of San Antonio have also publically asked Congress to pass CARE.

In all, 73 groups have stood up and said it’s time to end the injustice of child labor in U.S. agriculture. If your organization would like to join our campaign, please write to Reid Maki at reidm@nclnet.org for additional information. If you support an organization that you would like to endorse CARE, please contact it and ask it to lend their voice to the protection of America’s most vulnerable child workers by endorsing CARE.

Door-to-door sales: Questions for jobseekers – National Consumers League

Considering a job in door-to-door sales? Teens looking for potential work may need help distinguishing legitimate door-to-door sales opportunities from dangerous traveling sales crews.

Teens interviewing for a new sales job should ask the following questions to determine whether the opportunity is legitimate or dangerous:

  • Will I be an employee or an independent contractor?
  • What will be withheld, if anything, from my pay (e.g., taxes, social security, living or travel expenses)?
  • What is the work?  What is expected of me?
  • What are the working conditions?  Ask about hours, travel, and living arrangements.
  • Do I get any time off?  How much and when?
  • Will I have to travel away from home?  Where will I be going?  How can family and friends reach me?
  • Where will I sleep each night?  Who will arrange sleeping accommodations – me or the company?  Who will pay for these accommodations?
  • How will my living expenses while traveling be handled;
  • How will I generate income, how it will be calculated, and how often will I receive my pay?  In what manner will I be paid (i.e., by cash, corporate check)?  Will I receive a statement with my pay that shows income earned and deductions?  How will commissions, bonuses, and regular pay be calculated?
  • Is there a training period?  If so, how long does it last?  Will I be paid while I’m in training?
  • Will I be paid for sales meetings and how often are they held and for how many hours?
  • Will an experienced sales agent or trainer come with me for my first few sales calls?
  • Can I be fined for not showing up at sales meetings or making friends with other salespeople?
  • Will I be working in an area that requires door-to-door salespeople to obtain licenses or post bonds?  If so, do I have to file the application and pay the fee or will the company do this for me?
  • Who does the driving?  Must drivers meet any requirements?
  • What is the time period of the contract?
  • If things don’t work out and I decide to quit before the contract period ends, is there any penalty for me, and who will pay for my transportation back home?

Why are the answers to these questions so important?  The answers can help you spot bad practices, which often go hand-in-hand with traveling sales crew scams.  Most traveling sales crews report to a crew chief, who decides where and when they will work and maintains accounts for the entire crew.

Former salespersons on traveling sales crews have reported that they never received or saw a statement of their individual accounts and therefore never knew how much money, if any, they were making.  They were given a daily or weekly “allowance” by the crew chief, who based the payments on their accounts.  This allowance had to cover food, clothing, and personal expenses, but they had no way of knowing if the accounts were accurate or how much they could expect to receive at the end of each day or each week.

Don’t allow yourself to be rushed or pressured into signing up. Remember, they need you more than you need them.  Watch out for claims that they only have room for one more person and you have to say “yes” immediately or lose out.  If you are unsure of the offer, take the time to discuss the pros and cons with relatives and friends and call your local Better Business Bureau, state attorney general’s office, state department of labor, or the Direct Selling Association to see if they have received any complaints about the company.

Teen death highlights danger of machinery work – National Consumers League

A few days before Thanksgiving in a small Virginia town called Poquoson, Frank Gornik, 14, was removing storm debris for his uncle’s company. The boy, a freshman in high school, fed branches into a wood chipper. He used a shovel to help force the branches and that shovel was grabbed by the machine and—in an instant—swallowed the boy and killed him.

Each year, 35-40 teens die similarly unimaginable deaths in workplace accidents—tractor rollovers, work-related car accidents, drownings in grain silos. Here at the National Consumers League, we try to monitor these deaths to prevent them from occurring. A decade ago, the number of working teens who died on the job was about double what it is today. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, federal and state departments of labor, nonprofit organizations and employers worked together to help bring the number of deaths down, but we must keep working to reduce that number even further.

Sadly, although it was a freak accident, Gornik’s death was preventable. The boy was much too young to work with such deadly equipment. Over the years, state and federal officials have realized that teens lack the judgment and experience to operate some hazardous machinery and require workers to be 18 to use them (although some exemptions are made for agriculture). Because of their ability to inflict massive and instantaneous damage, wood chippers are among the proscribed machines. Under the Bush administration, the U.S. Department of Labor refused to enact NIOSH-recommended changes to the “hazardous orders” regulations that would have improved teen worker safety protections. It is our understanding that under Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis’ leadership, the department is working to update those regulations and close some current exemptions that allow teens to perform dangerous work.

Although Gornik had his share of sadness— according to local newspaper reports, he lost both parents in a two-year stretch between 2005 and 2007—he was remembered by many fellow students for his ready smile and helpfulness. He was a very popular student who played sports and made the honor roll, and the Poquoson community continues to grieve his loss.

It’s hard to make any sense of an unspeakable tragedy like this, but the lessons learned from the accident that took Frank Gornik’s life might prevent similar deaths. Each year, NCL publishes a report—“The Five Worst Teen Jobs”—about dangerous job for teens, hoping that parents, employers, and young workers will carefully consider which jobs they take and what tasks they perform at work. It’s vital that employers learn state and federal child labor and safety laws, and it’s vital that young workers think about their own safety and know that they are able to say “no” to any job task that is dangerous or against the law.

Slaughterhouse in Iowa takes advantage of child labor – National Consumers League

Immigration officials raided the Agriprocessors kosher meat plant in Postville, Iowa, uncovering health and safety violations and illegal, dangerous employment of minors. NCL sent our child labor expert Reid Maki to Postville report on a community still reeling.

Since the immigration raid on the Agriprocessors kosher meat plant in Postville, Iowa last May, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which maintains a seat on the board of the National Consumers League (NCL), has diligently been trying to alert the nation that minors were working in the plant, which it had been trying to organize (along with an Agriprocessors plant in Brooklyn) since 2005. Because of its child labor work, the staff at NCL took great interest in the possibility of child labor at the plant.  In late August, the state of Iowa announced the findings of its child labor investigation, concluding that 57 minors, aged 14 to 17, were employed illegally in the slaughterhouse under working conditions rife with health and safety violations. With dozens of articles about the working conditions and child labor at the plant in the national media, including extensive coverage in the New York Times, Sally decided that the story was too big for NCL not to take action, given our history of advocacy on child labor, sweatshops, and worker rights. The nightmarish working conditions seemed eerily similar to those NCL’s founders fought 100 years ago.

I flew out for a two-day visit to do our own investigation.

Immigration Raid Nearly Destroys Town

Three months after the raid in May, the families of primarily Guatemalan workers who were detained were still reeling. I visited St. Bridget’s Catholic Church where I found a long line of women, about 30 in all—mostly indigenous people from Guatemala— patiently waiting for help. Unable to work—their husbands in prison—the women were facing deportation with only the church standing between them and starvation.

The church was paying their rent, utilities, and food bills. Many wives had not even been told what penal facility their husbands were being held in. They could only hope and pray that they—and their children (many of whom were born in the United States and are citizens of this country)—someday, somehow will be reunited with their husbands. I had extensive conversations with members of the clergy. One priest had been in the plant and confirmed the unsafe, unsanitary conditions that have been suggested by the fines levied by the state of Iowa. 

Accomplished with assault rifles and a helicopter, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid clearly cost the federal government several million dollars to perform. Only the future will determine whether it deters future illegal immigration. But by threatening to charge the workers with aggravated identity theft and forcing them to agree to a five-month prison sentence, ICE had been overzealous in the minds of many advocates in Postville and beyond. The workers were processed for arrest at a livestock facility in Waterloo—the National Cattle Congress—leaving many advocates to wonder if ICE viewed the workers as less-than-human.

The approach ICE took in the courts certainly raised questions about whether the workers received a fair day in court. Essentially, ICE told them that they should plead guilty to intentionally using false Social Security Numbers—the workers were merely using numbers to work, not to commit fraud and steal funds—for which they would be sentenced to five months in prison. If they decided to fight the charge, they would be held indefinitely in jail until their trial date (there would be no opportunity for bail because they were deemed to be in the country illegally). They would then be charged with aggravated identity theft. If found guilty, they would likely receive a stiffer sentence and then be deported. The workers, who had very little time to discuss the case with their federally-appointed attorneys, decided they had little choice but to plead guilty.  They were “tried” in court in groups of five or six. Attorneys and judges were provided with scripts by ICE prosecution teams. As Erik Camayd-Freixas, an interpreter for the immigrants who was hired by ICE, has noted in an important essay about the raid, the men were “caught between hopelessness and despair”. Many wept in fear of what would become of their families while they were imprisoned. Despite their guilty pleas, the workers, argued Camayd-Freixas, were most likely innocent. They did not seem to understand what a Social Security Number was or how the numbers got on their applications so in Camayd-Freixas’s view they could not “knowingly” have used the fake numbers—criteria of the charge. 

One supervisor at Agriprocessors has pled guilty to falsifying paperwork and knowingly hiring undocumented workers. Another awaits trial. However, ICE has not gone after the owners of Agriprocessors who benefited the most from the illegal labor. Agriprocessors is still open for business, although its output has been diminished. Plant managers are struggling to find workers. In their desperation, they are importing a group of impoverished Micronesians who are allowed to work in the United States under treaty agreements. Local radio personality Jeff Abbas fears that the workers will be little more than indentured servants, trapped halfway around the world from their island homes.

The ICE raid has clearly devastated the town of Postville, removing a third of the population of 2,500 people overnight. Businesses have had to close. Others are trying to hang on. The schools are wondering how they can absorb the loss of state funding that accompanies such a massive drop in enrollment. Some have wondered if the town will survive the raid. If not for the church’s assistance, the workers’ families would have faced hunger and homelessness.

Child Labor

Despite a gag order placed on the child laborers by their attorney, one of the reporters I met during my visit was able to take me to the home of a 16-year-old who had worked in the plant up until the raid. She would not talk to me because of the gag order but her brother, Esteban, 18, had worked in the plant two years ago when he was 16. He was willing to talk.

Esteban told us that he worked long 12-hour days cutting cow legs. He showed us a nasty scar on his elbow where he had stabbed himself accidentally while cutting meat. His supervisors at Agriprocessors quickly bandaged up his wound and told him to go back to work. He said cuts were common because the line of moving meat went so quickly. 

State labor law prohibits minors from working in the slaughter and packing areas of plants because the labor is deemed too dangerous for minors. His employers knew he was underage but didn’t care, said Esteban, whose hourly pay was $6.25. His employer required him to purchase the knives that he used in the plant at a price of $60 and then they took out another $80 for gloves. He was routinely shorted a few hours of work in every paycheck. The plant refused to pay him and his mother, Veronica, for the overtime work they performed. The supervisors would tell them that “if they didn’t like it, they didn’t have to work there,” said Veronica.

According to a New York Times report published August 6, another youth, Elmer, said that when he was 16 working in the plant, a supervisor kicked him, causing a knife to cut his elbow. Elmer reported that he worked 17-hour shifts, six days a week. His life consisted of nothing but work and sleep, he testified in an affidavit. “I was very sad,” he said, “and I felt like a slave.” 

“It was no big secret that kids were working at the plant,” Jeff Abbas of Postville’s KPVL radio station told me.

Plant management denied knowingly hiring minors. Getzel Rubashkin, the grandson of Agriprocessors’ founder, told NCL that the underage hirings were the result of paperwork errors and not any intent to employ minors.

Many of the young workers—mostly from Guatemala—were undocumented. Because of their age, ICE officials who raided the plant in May did not detain and charge them with identify theft as they did the adults detained.

Despite fears, the raid did not destroy the state’s child labor investigation, which ultimately revealed a problem that American consumers should consider far more serious than the employment of a few hundred undocumented immigrants: the employment of nearly 60 children in one of America’s most dangerous work places.

For the National Consumers League the discovery of such a large group of children working in slaughterhouse raises the possibility that minors may be working in other meat packing houses. 

Unfortunately, according to a hearing in the House of Representatives held this summer, the U.S. Department of Labor has only one labor inspector for every 10,000 businesses. One witness, Kim Bobo, the director of Interfaith Worker Justice (and a speaker at our June centennial conference on Muller v. Oregon), told representatives that if the ratio of investigators to businesses that existed in 1941 held today, we would have 34,000 investigators. Instead, there are fewer than 750.

One might also speculate that if the Agriprocessors plant had been unionized, the child labor violations would have been prevented and the plant’s awful track record on health and safety violations would have been mitigated.

 Our next advocacy steps

  • We have submitted an op-ed to several newspapers, including the New York TimesUSA Today, and The Christian Science Monitor, discussing Postville and using it as an argument for doubling the number of federal child labor investigators.
  • We will ask U.S. DOL by letter to conduct a targeted investigation of meatpacking around the nation.
  • We have communicated our concerns to Iowa’s Senator Tom Harkin, with whom we work closely on child labor issues.
  • NCL also plans to continue efforts to get the Department of Labor (DOL) to increase the number of jobs that are defined as “hazardous” —and prohibited—for teenagers. Despite strong recommendations to enhance these “hazardous orders” from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and NCL’s Child Labor Coalition, DOL has dragged its feet on improving the “Hazardous Orders” and refused to act to protect working children.
  • NCL will also pursue strengthening state child labor laws. I recently attended the national convention of the Interstate Labor Standards Association, a gathering of the state officials who enforce child labor laws, to help further that purpose. We are also conducting a review of state labor laws to help us target those states whose laws need the most improvement.
  • On September 23, Sally Greenberg is scheduled to testify before the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections on behalf of the Child Labor Coalition. Sally will push for an increase in the number of federal child labor investigators and prod U.S. DOL to implement NIOSH’s recommendations to improve the Hazardous Orders and further protect working children. NCL is working with congressional staff to organize the hearing and ensure that the “Children in the Fields” issue and the Postville issue are highlighted during the hearing.