Iowa's Republicans Continue to Push Child Labor

Building on a 2023 law, Iowa Republicans are once again taking aim at child labor protections in the Hawkeye State. Governor Reynolds at the time claimed that the law provided “tailored, common sense labor provisions” so that young adults could build a work ethic.

The law lowered the minimum age for kids to work in certain industries, such as manufacturing and childcare; increased the hours they could work in a day, and extended the cutoff time for work. This isn’t something where a 16 or 17 year old could work at Walmart until 9pm; now kids as young as 14 can work in industrial freezers. Many of these “updates” from 2023 conflict with federal law.

Child working hours between school year and outside of school year. Taken from Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals, and Licensing

Allowing kids to work is fine. It’s a great way to earn money for college, Christmas, or social activities. No one will argue that. The main job for kids and teens, however, is to learn and to become educated. Turning to 16-year-olds to solve the lack of people who want to bartend or work in a factory is not a solution; it is a bailout for capital.

Labor unions and Democratic lawmakers are spearheading the resistance to a slew of new proposed rules coming out of the Department of Inspections, Appeals, and Licensing on February 12th. Governor Reynolds and the entirety of Iowa’s Congressional delegation (all of whom are Republicans) have asked the U.S. Labor Department to reduce the penalties given to businesses for violating the law and exploiting kids.

There are over twenty other states with weaker child labor laws that the Federal Government. When a state law is weaker than the a federal law, the federal law supersedes state law, thanks to the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. It should also be noted that seven states actually strengthened child labor laws in 2024, so this isn’t a one-sided argument.

One of these states, South Dakota, has Nathan Sanderson leading its Retailers’ Association. According to Mr. Sanderson, Iowa is being treated “unfairly” and is ground zero for a crusade against business. This is a pretty stupid stance to take considering the U.S. DOL issued fines of $6300 and $119,000 to restaurants in Texas and Alabama, respectively. Perhaps he should keep an eye on his own industry, as grocery stores alone had over a 50% increase in child labor violations between 2013 and 2023. The maximum fine that the U.S. DOL can impose without death or injury is only $15,000 per instance, something that clearly isn’t deterring habitual offenders.

UAW members at the “Kids Are Not For Sale” 2023 rally at the Iowa Capitol. Credit: KGAN

In response, Iowa’s proposed new rules governing child labor fines look like a gift to bad businessmen:

• reduction of maximum fine amount from $10,000 to $2500

• fine reduction up 35% based on size of business

• an additional 15% reduction if there was a “good faith effort” to comply with the rules

• an extra 10% reduction if they hadn’t had any violations within the last five years

I wonder what message that sends to the meatpacking plant who illegally hired over two dozen kids to clean in dangerous, overnight shifts. They were fined over half a million dollars. Are these the sort of folks that Republicans are trying to protect?

The party determined to “save” kids from “wokeism” or “DEI” has made their views plain: children are only as dollar signs. Economic assets.

The fight to ban exploitative child labor should’ve won out with the passage of the Fair Labor and Standards Act in 1938. Unfortunately, like so many battles our grandparents and great-grandparents fought, we will have to win them again, not even a century later.