The Senate confirmation vote Monday for President Donald Trump's labor secretary pick, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, is coming along with a reintroduction of the Senate's bipartisan Preventing Child Labor Exploitation in Federal Contracting Act.
The bill, first introduced in 2023 by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., seeks to bar companies from federal funding if they are violating child safety laws.
"Companies that illegally employ children should not be rewarded with lucrative federal government contracts that make corporations millions," Hawley, who raised the issue in Chavez-DeRemer's Senate confirmation hearing, wrote in a statement. "This bipartisan legislation would hold companies accountable for engaging in child labor exploitation and rightfully ensure offenders face consequences."
As Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency are digging into federal contracts, this bill leverages the multibillion dollar federal procurement contracts to hold corporations accountable for the exploitation of child workers. The bill would prohibit federal agencies from contracting with companies that have violated federal child labor laws or employ vendors that have failed to address child labor infractions.
The bill requires organizations to disclose child labor violations by the company or any subcontractors in the past three years and requires the labor secretary to list companies ineligible based on those violations.
"More than 85 years ago, our country passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which in part declared that the exploitation of children in the workplace is unacceptable," Booker wrote in a statement last year, when a Democrat-led Senate failed to bring it forward. "Nearly a century later, our country is plagued by a scourge of child exploitation in factory floors, dangerous meat processing plants, restaurants and other workplaces across the country.
"The flagrant, ongoing violations of federal law are unacceptable, and we must do more to ensure our federal labor laws hold employers accountable when they put children in dangerous situations that jeopardize their well-being, safety and potentially their lives."
"I am proud to have worked with Senator Hawley to put forward a proposal that says — at a bare minimum — employers exploiting children should not be rewarded with federal contracts."
Hawley also introduced another bipartisan labor bill before Chavez-DeRemer's confirmation vote, the Faster Labor Contracts Act, which was endorsed by the Teamsters labor union.
The legislation would ensure that when workers vote to unionize, a labor agreement ultimately becomes a reality. Booker; Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich.; Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio; and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., are co-sponsors.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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