OAN Staff Abril Elfi
4:55 PM – Monday, March 10, 2025
Senators Josh Hawley and Cory Booker have reintroduced a bill that aims to prevent child labor exploitation.
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On Monday, Senators Hawley (R-Mo.) and Booker (D-N.J.) reintroduced a bill that would require companies seeking federal contracts to disclose child labor violations by the company or any subcontractors during the prior three years.
The legislation would also require the labor secretary to compile a list of companies that are ineligible for federal contracts — based on violations that occurred.
“Companies that illegally employ children should not be rewarded with lucrative federal government contracts that make corporations millions,” Hawley said. “This bipartisan legislation would hold companies accountable for engaging in child labor exploitation and rightfully ensure offenders face consequences.”
The reintroduction came around the same time as the confirmation vote for Lori Chavez-DeRemer, President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as labor secretary, took place. Chavez-DeRemer served as mayor of Happy Valley, Oregon, from 2011 to 2019. On Monday, the Senate officially confirmed Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) to lead the Department of Labor.
The push also comes after a number of U.S. companies have been caught illegally employing children, even in dangerous jobs, as investigations from NBC News and The New York Times have reported.
“A cleaning company has been fined $171,000 after federal investigators found 11 children working a ‘dangerous’ overnight shift at a meat processing plant in Iowa,” NBC News reported.
According to the outlet, many of those children who were illegally employed had been unaccompanied migrants who entered the United States in recent years.
Companies like Perdue Farms and JBS have been forced to pay fines after being caught illegally employing migrant juveniles in their slaughterhouses. Additionally, other U.S. corporations have maintained that they are working to remove all forms of child labor from their supply networks.
“Right now in America, big corporations are exploiting children in workplaces where federal law says they shouldn’t be in the first place,” Booker said in a statement. “Children are cleaning dangerous machinery in factories, handling toxic chemicals, working exhausting shifts in meat processing plants, and more, all in flagrant violation of the law.”
“Federal contracts must not be used to drive profits for corporations that continue to jeopardize our children’s safety and well-being,” he added.
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