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West Virginia lawmakers focused on the state’s workforce challenges have prioritized passing a bill this session to remove work permit requirements for 14 and 15-year-olds.
The measure would replace the existing permit, which requires school approval, with a simple age certificate from the state Division of Labor and written parental consent.
Nationwide, other states are rolling back protections for child workers as they try to expand their workforces due to worker shortages.
“This bill will make it easier for teenagers seeking job opportunities in the state to begin learning valuable skills,” said Sen. Rollan Roberts, R-Raleigh, on the Senate floor before passing the bill.
But labor advocates say eliminating those permits weakens protections for young workers and could set a dangerous precedent for child labor rights in the state, opening the door for exploitation.
“In my professional experience, I’ve never heard one single complaint about the process in place for 14 and 15-year-olds to obtain a permit,” said Josh Sword, president of the West Virginia AFL-CIO. “I have no idea where this is coming from.”
The legislation passed the Senate unanimously and is now in the House Government Organization Committee, which passed a similar bill last year. Chair Chris Phillips, R-Barbour, said he supports the Senate’s bill and plans to pass it later this session.
Roberts, chairman of the Senate Workforce Committee, said the committee’s goal this session is to get more people into the workforce and raise the state’s labor force participation rate.
“I deal with kids every day and with work permits,” said Roberts, who runs a private school in Beaver. “This bill will make it easier for kids who want to work.”
West Virginia’s troubled child labor history
In the late 19th century, companies employed children because they could handle small tools and work in tight spaces, especially in dangerous coal mines.
Businesses had no oversight and often hired children as young as eight years old, said Chuck Keeney, a history professor at the Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College.
“Companies took advantage of that by bringing kids into the mines,” he said. “It became their lives before they ever had a chance to make any of their own choices.”
Families in poverty relied on working children to support them. Young workers would also be paid much less and miss school to work up to 10 hours a day, six days a week.
The Monongah coal mine explosion in 1907 was the worst mining disaster in the country’s history and killed over 300 people. It also claimed the lives of children who were working, Keeney said.
“Companies simply would not register the kids,” he said. “There was never a record of their employment or work history.”
In 1938, the federal Fair Labor Standards Act created the 40-hour work week, a national minimum wage and child labor protections.
The law restricted the number of hours teenagers could work at a time, required kids to be at least 14 to get a job and banned teens from working with dangerous machinery or hazardous chemicals.
Across the nation, child labor protections are being weakened
Today, most states require work permits for minors, much like West Virginia. States are left to enforce those as the federal law does not require them.
However, since 2021, 31 states have introduced legislation to weaken them,
If the bill passes, West Virginia will join five other states that only require age certificates and not work permits. Seven other states have removed both protections, like Arkansas, which does not require any permit or age verification.
In 2023, the state rolled back its previous protections for child labor, despite a 266% rise in violations from 2020 to 2023.
Nina Mast, a policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, said these protections are important for young workers. She said permits keep employers compliant with state labor laws, inform parents of the job duties and create a dedicated paper trail for enforcement.
“It’s not a burdensome process,” she said. “It creates some work for the employers, schools and labor agencies, but it’s worth it.”
States that required children to get work permits had 15% fewer workplace violations between 2008 and 2020, according to a University of Maryland study.
She said that in West Virginia, a big issue is the lack of civil penalties for child labor violations. She said violations usually result in an employer paying a small fine to the state’s labor agency.
“There’s really no penalty for breaking the law,” she said. “When you remove the work permit system, there’s no accountability.”
Last year, federal officials found over 4,000 children were illegally employed, a 31% increase since 2019.
They also issued $15 million in penalties to employers who violated the laws, an 89% increase from the year before.
To fix West Virginia’s workforce challenges, the state should raise wages and improve employee benefits to incentivize people to fill positions, Mast said.
Sword, the labor leader, said lawmakers should instead focus on workplace safety, PEIA security and child care for workers.
“If legislative leaders are trying to address the state’s workforce issue by removing protections so teens can be exploited, then we’re in big trouble,” he said.
Reach reporter Tre Spencer at tre@mountainstatespotlight.org
