Child-Labor

Iowa Attorney General Files Criminal Complaint Against Agriprocessors for 9,311 Child Labor Violations, Revealing Systematic Use of Minors as Young as 14 in Dangerous Meatpacking Operations with Harsh Chemicals and Power Equipment

2008-09-09 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 7/10

On September 9, 2008, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller filed a criminal complaint against Agriprocessors Inc. and five company officials for 9,311 child labor law violations that occurred from September 9, 2007, through May 12, 2008, at the company’s Postville meatpacking plant. The magnitude …

Agriprocessors Inc. Abraham Aaron Rubashkin Sholom Rubashkin Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller Iowa Department of Labor labor-exploitation child-labor corporate-impunity regulatory-failure workplace-safety

Fair Labor Standards Act Passes Over Fierce Business and Southern Opposition to Minimum Wage and Child Labor Ban

1938-06-25 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 9/10

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) on June 25, 1938, establishing a federal minimum wage of 25 cents per hour, a maximum 44-hour workweek, and banning oppressive child labor—but only after more than a year of fierce congressional opposition from business …

Franklin D. Roosevelt Frances Perkins Hugo Black U.S. Congress Southern Democrats +1 more labor-rights minimum-wage child-labor new-deal corporate-resistance

Supreme Court Strikes Down Federal Child Labor Tax as Unconstitutional

1922-05-15 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

The Supreme Court rules 8-1 in Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co. (the Child Labor Tax Case) that the Revenue Act of 1919, which imposed a 10 percent excise tax on profits of companies employing children under age 14, violates the Tenth Amendment. Chief Justice William Howard Taft declares the tax …

William Howard Taft U.S. Supreme Court U.S. Congress Drexel Furniture Company judicial-capture labor-suppression corporate-power supreme-court child-labor

Supreme Court Strikes Down Federal Child Labor Law in Hammer v. Dagenhart

1918-06-03 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act of 1916 on June 3, 1918, in Hammer v. Dagenhart, ruling 5-4 that the federal law exceeded federal authority and represented an unwarranted encroachment on state powers to determine local labor conditions. Justice William R. …

U.S. Supreme Court Justice William R. Day Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. supreme-court child-labor labor-rights judicial-capture progressive-era

Keating-Owen Child Labor Act Passed, First Federal Child Labor Restriction

1916-09-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 7/10

Congress passed the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act in September 1916, the first federal statute to impose restrictions on child labor. Also known as Wick’s Bill, the law prohibited the sale in interstate commerce of goods produced by factories that employed children under 14, mines that employed …

U.S. Congress President Woodrow Wilson labor-rights child-labor progressive-era regulatory-enforcement