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It’s 3:30 in the afternoon, and school’s out — do you know where your children are?
For a surprising number of teenagers, the answer is “at work, operating dangerous equipment.” According to a nationwide study conducted by UNC, 52 percent of males and 43 percent of females between 14 and 18 who work in grocery stores and restaurants are breaking federal child labor laws — using slicers and box cutters, selling alcohol where it’s consumed.
To add to the trouble, approximately one-third of the 866 teenaged workers surveyed didn’t receive any safety training, said lead study author Carol Runyan, director of UNC’s Injury Prevention Research Center (IPRC) and professor of health behavior and health education in the School of Public Health. And those who did weren’t told what to do in case of robbery or fights in the workplace — a dangerous omission, given that the majority of these kids handle cash at work and that robbery-related homicide is responsible for up to half of youth fatalities in the retail trade.
For chidren under 16, working after 7 p.m. on school nights is illegal — but the study found that more than a third of those workers reported doing so. Some teens said they worked till after 11 p.m. Many teens also reported that they were working one or more days a week with no adult supervision. While Runyan believes parents need to be involved in making sure their children are safe at work, “Employers are the ones ultimately responsible for ensuring workplace safety and compliance with labor laws,” she said.
The study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. Collaborators on the study include: Michael Schulman, professor of sociology and anthropology, N.C. State University; Janet Dal Santo, IPRC senior research program coordinator; Michael Bowling, IPRC statistician and research associate professor, UNC department of health behavior and health education; Robert Agans, research associate, UNC department of biostatistics; and Myduc Ta, doctoral student, UNC department of epidemiology.
For more information on child labor laws, visit the U.S. Department of Labor online at www.dol.gov/dol/topic/youthlabor/safetyhealth.htm.
Writer: Colie Hoffman
Editor: Neil Caudle