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From 2022 to 2023, child labor violations in the US reached their highest level in about two decades. Recent studies have found that young workers face high levels of workplace violence, and that the exploitation of young workers can include wage theft and harassment, among other things.
“Young workers can end up in precarious situations that open them up to exploitation by unscrupulous employers,” Sapna Mehta, former senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), tells Teen Vogue.
Meanwhile, the work experiences of many teenagers get shrugged off as being part of “starter jobs,” as if the experiences one has at work in early life don’t matter as much. But that’s often far from reality: Says Andrew Rock, master’s student at UCLA and co-author of a recent report on the experiences of young workers in California from the UCLA Labor Center, in many instances young employees aren’t just working for extra money, but “have very real responsibilities and are facing real challenges.”
Between increased vulnerability and dismissive attitudes about early-career jobs, young people might have trouble navigating difficult or exploitative working conditions (something that could be further complicated as Republicans attempt to roll back child labor regulations). “It’s important for young workers to know that they have protected rights under the law," Mehta says, “and that employers do not have a right to retaliate against them for exercising their rights.” Some experts note that there is state-by-state variance in these protections, and sometimes even variance depending on the kind of job you have.
Below, experts address some of the major issues facing young people at work — and cover what to know about your rights.
What Labor Protections Exist for Young People?
Some workplace experiences depend on the kind of job you have. In general, says Mehta, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) establishes youth employment standards, including setting the minimum age for employment at 14 years old for non-farm jobs, restricting hours people under age 16 can work, and prohibiting people under age 18 from being employed in certain occupations; the FLSA also guarantees workers a right to a minimum wage, she adds.
But these rules can get fuzzy. “Many teenage workers are employed in restaurants where they are designated as ‘tipped employees,’ and, as a result, only paid the tipped minimum wage, which is just $2.13/hour at the federal level,” Mehta explains. “Employers are supposed to make up the difference between the tipped minimum wage and the full minimum wage if a worker’s tips don’t bring them up to minimum wage, but there are so many stories of employers just pocketing workers’ tips.”
An amendment to the FLSA allows employers to pay younger workers — those under the age of 20 — lower wages during their first 90 days of employment: $4.25 an hour, Mehta notes. (These “sub-minimum wage provisions” can also impact full-time students who work and disabled workers, all groups the Department of Labor says can be paid less than the federal minimum wage.) Some states and localities require young workers to be paid higher wages, she adds, so it is worth researching minimum wage laws in your location. According to Mehta, there are also limitations on the types of work young employees can perform.
For young immigrant workers, the same federal and state protections apply — but these workers are often put in more vulnerable positions. Says Wendy Cervantes, director for immigration and immigrant families at CLASP, “In many of the cases we heard about this past year, we know that both poverty and immigration-related fears put youth in very dangerous working situations, some of which were life-threatening.”
Mehta points out that labor laws in the US are rooted in an “ugly legacy of slavery,” explaining that farm work, historically performed by enslaved people and then immigrant labor, is largely excluded from child labor protections. “This creates a dangerous loophole that allows children to work at younger ages, for longer hours, in hazardous conditions," she says, "and for less than the minimum wage if they are working in agriculture settings.”
Reporting Sexual Harassment at Work
Teenagers are protected from sex discrimination, including sexual harassment, by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Some harassment can be explicit and easy to identify and report; sometimes, however, harassment can be more insidious, or conditions at your job might make it hard or uncomfortable to report.
Your first step in handling harassment at work is to know the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) definition of harassment: It includes unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature, and offensive remarks about a person’s sex.
Depending on your job, though, harassment protections may not apply to you. “If you're a teen and you work for a small business or you're freelance, you don't have those same protections under the law,” says Susan Stewart, professor of human resource management and organizational behavior at Western Illinois University, who has researched young workers and sexual harassment. Stewart notes that teenagers in “freelance” employment, such as babysitting or mowing lawns, might be especially susceptible to sexual harassment due to the unsupervised nature of that work.
In general, young people in their first jobs are more susceptible to experiencing harassment in the workplace, according to the EEOC. Stewart names several key reasons young workers might be targets: Being newer to the workplace and working less than full-time can mean being unsure about workplace expectations and reporting mechanisms; sexual harassment workplace trainings are rarely aimed at part-time workers, who are often young; power imbalances and age differences between teenage workers and adult supervisors, or teenagers supervising teenagers at work and peer sexual harassment, can also be factors.
Says Stewart, “There's a lot of spillover from behaviors that teens encounter in high school into the workplace, and they have to really understand that it's illegal in the workplace. Sort of what they might see as just generally teasing or texting, it changes once they venture into a work setting.” (That includes an adult supervisor connecting with you inappropriately via text or social media, not just peers.)
Stewart points to several steps you can take:
- Much of the training geared toward adults suggests confronting the harasser, but Stewart notes some people might not feel comfortable doing that. If you do, though, she explains, the confrontation is meant to stop the behavior right there: “Hey, that joke is not funny,” or “Hey, I don’t appreciate that.”
- After you’ve documented the incident — if you feel comfortable doing so — and asked your harasser to stop, you can report the behavior to your supervisor (as long as they are not the harasser) or to the HR department. Talk to someone you trust, Stewart says, like a friend, a parent, a teacher, for advice and support.
In addition, RAINN has sexual harassment resources, including a hotline you can call, and Equal Rights Advocates has a section on knowing your rights in regard to sexual harassment at work.
Wage Theft & Overwork
One 2017 study found that young workers account for almost one-third of reported minimum wage violations, but because so much wage theft goes unreported, actual numbers could be higher. According to the Center for Public Integrity, wage theft can look like employers forcing workers to do tasks after clocking out, refusing to pay the amount promised, not paying overtime, or paying less than minimum wage.
Mehta tells Teen Vogue that teenagers in non-farm jobs should make sure they’re being paid at least the state minimum wage for all hours worked, and they should receive overtime pay at time-and-a-half when they work over 40 hours per week. In addition, Mehta suggests, keep an eye on your city or state’s fair scheduling and paid sick day laws: “Fair scheduling laws usually require employers to provide workers with their schedules at least two weeks in advance and require employers to take employee input when creating schedules.”
Young workers who realize they aren’t being fairly compensated can start by reaching out to the US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, and looking at a list of state minimum wages. Mehta also shares resources from A Better Balance that outline city/state paid sick day laws, and city/state fair scheduling laws.
If you believe something is happening in your workplace that impacts your safety and pay, Mehta says, young workers can reach out to the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, which investigates wage theft and child labor violation complaints, by phone or online “The name of the complainant, the nature of the complaint, and whether a complaint exists remain anonymous to employers,” says Mehta. If something harmful or illegal is happening, she adds, workers can seek assistance from a reputable worker center, community-based organization, or legal services clinic.
How Can Unionization Support Teen Workers?
Says Vivek Ramakrishnan, a PhD candidate in sociology at UCLA and co-author with Rock of that recent report by the UCLA Labor Center, “A lot of the traditional pathways we assume are available to workers that we know can lead to higher pay, better wages, more job stability — like unionization and apprenticeships — are not really being afforded to young workers in the same ways they were maybe 50, 40 years ago.”
But there is good news: Gen Z is considered to be the country’s most pro-union generation, and unions can unquestionably be of benefit for young workers. Especially for young workers who are working while trying to meet their educational requirements, Ramakrishnan says, unions can provide job stability and predictable hours and scheduling around other responsibilities, like schoolwork.
Says Rock, “These narratives around young people in ‘starter jobs’ or doing sort of superfluous work, or just work to get them through, can often function to lower young people's bargaining power and reduce the power that they have in the workplace. Unions can obviously help with giving them back that power.”
Rock notes that there are resources from unions and labor-friendly legislators who might help in unionizing your workplace. “I think consulting those resources is a really good first step for young workers, while also being cognizant that this is real life, and there are real consequences, so they should know their rights before they make public their interests of working with other workers in their workplace.” He adds that the AFL-CIO, the Department of Labor, and apprenticeship.gov can be good resources too. You can read more from Teen Vogue about your rights to unionize here.
To learn more about your rights as a worker, additional resources include Youth@Work, youngworkers.org, OSHA’s section for young workers, and YouthRules.gov.
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