Good Jobs First’s Violation Tracker collects data on labor violations

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America's Work Force Union Podcast AWF Good Jobs First

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Phillip Mattera

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Phillip Mattera, Violation Tracker Project Director and Corporate Research Project Director with Good Jobs First joined America’s Work Force Union Podcast to discuss a rise in child labor violations over the past decade and the organization's Violation Tracker.

Mattera discussed a report on the violations found by the U.S. Department of Labor regarding Child Labor. He said that over the past decade, there has been a noticeable uptick in the number of child labor violations. Mattera said he thought this was a practice America had moved past, however, the data shows otherwise.

The report's biggest violator of child labor violations was a private equity firm called Rourke Capital, with the second largest violator being McDonald’s. Rourke owns significant portions of several fast food chains, and McDonald’s, Packer Sanitation Services Inc. and Blackstone were responsible for nearly $27 million in fines from 2017 to 2023.

With these four companies and firms generating billions of dollars of revenue annually, Mattera said the penalties are not enough to make effective changes. He said that several of the children these companies take advantage of come from immigrant families. Mattera discussed how the Violation Tracker from Good Jobs First is a better way to follow these violations. The free-to-use database collects all labor violations committed by corporations nationwide, including safety, environmental and workforce violations, among others.

For more from Mattera, listen to the show above.

America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. America’s Work Force is committed to providing an accessible venue in which America's workers and their families can hear discussion on important, relevant topics such as employment, healthcare, legislative action, labor-management relations, corporate practices, finances, local and national politics, consumer reports and labor issues.

America’s Work Force Union Podcast is brought to you in part by our sponsors: AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Musicians Local 4, Alliance for American Manufacturing, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes-IBT, Boyd Watterson, Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, Communication Workers of America, Mechanical Insulators Labor Management Cooperative Trust, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 50, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 6, Ironworkers Great Lakes District Council, Melwood, The Labor Citizen newspaper, Laborers International Union of North America, The National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, North Coast Area Labor Federation, Ohio Federation of Teachers, United Labor Agency, United Steelworkers.

Good Jobs First’s Violation Tracker collects data on labor violations

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