‘It should never have happened’: death of boy, 16, at sawmill highlights rise of child labour in US
In late June, Jim Schuls and his 16-yearold son, Michael, woke up at 4am for their usual drive from their apartment in Florence, Wisconsin, to begin work at 5am at a sawmill. Father and son made this journey together five times a week in the summer, when Michael worked longer hours than he did in term time. His two older brothers had also worked at the same mill when they were about his age.
Their day at Florence Hardwoods – one of the largest employers in the town with a population of about 2,000 – began as normal. Jim operated a forklift outside while Michael worked alone inside the mill. Jim says he never worried because he believed “young kids were stacking lumber”, not operating dangerous machines.
According to a Florence County sheriff ’s office report, when the conveyor machine became jammed Michael stepped on to it to try to straighten the wood, but he had not pressed a safety button to turn it off. The conveyor started to move and he became caught in the machine. The teenager was trapped for 17 minutes before a supervisor, who had been operating a forklift outside, discovered him unconscious.
After freeing him, sawmill employees administered CPR and a sheriff’s deputy who responded to the incident used a defibrillator before paramedics transported Michael to hospital. However, Michael died two days after the incident. The Florence County coroner, Jeff Rickaby, told the Associated Press that an autopsy identified the cause of death as traumatic asphyxiation.
Michael’s death has had a seismic effect in Florence, the kind of town where “one person is saying something at one end of town, while a person on the other end is hearing about it before they even finish talking”, says Schuls. “Our small community is in absolute shock,” the Schuls family said on a GoFundMe page set up after Michael’s death.
It has also happened at a time of serious national debate across the US about the role of children in the workforce. Child labour violations across the
US are soaring. Earlier this year, the Labor Department reported a 69% increase in children being employed illegally since 2018. Meanwhile, a concerted effort to loosen or abolish regulations around children in the workforce is under way across the country. Republicans are pushing to loosen child labour laws in at least 16 states, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Those efforts are driven by groups such as the Foundation for Government Accountability, funded by conservative donors including Richard “Dick” Uihlein, who has also backed a group that sponsored the January 6 Capitol rally in 2021, according to Opensecrets.org.
The foundation claims that eliminating work permits for teenagers would help solve the labour shortage in the US and would not undermine health and safety protections already in place. In August, there were 1.5 job openings for every unemployed person, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This year Wisconsin Republicans introduced bills that would eliminate work permits for 14- and 15-year-olds and allow children as young as 14 to serve alcohol in restaurants, which would be the lowest age limit in the country, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
Arkansas, a Republican-led state, approved legislation this year that eliminated the requirement for children under the age of 16 to obtain permission from the state department of labor to be employed, and restored decision-making to parents, proponents said.
However, the permit process helped to protect minors because it meant a state official reviewed the application and ensured they were old enough to