Chung Champions Safety for Children in the Workplace

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – A new measure backed by state Rep. Sharon Chung, D-Bloomington, will create new child labor protections to keep children safe and free from exploitation in the workplace, and was signed into law today.

“Children entering the workplace for the first time shouldn’t have to be warned against potential exploitation, and parents of those children should be able to count on robust protections for their kids,” Chung said. “This measure is about giving Illinois’ kids the necessary safeguards to prevent mistreatment, so our kids are free to contribute to their communities safely and fairly.”

Senate Bill 3646 creates a new child labor law to keep children safe and free from exploitation in the workplace. In addition to reorganizing old regulations for clarity, it adds many new requirements, such as limitations on how many hours minors can work during a school week and mandating that adults are present to monitor their work at all times.

Chung also led the passage of Senate Bill 1782, which requires online content creators who feature children under the age of 16 to put money earned from their content into a trust account for the children and report certain information on the content to the Illinois Department of Labor.

“Historically, we have seen how kids are taken advantage of, often by wage theft or in ways which put them in physical danger, if there aren’t adequate legal guardrails to ensure that they get the compensation owed to them for doing the work they were hired to do,” Chung said. “I’m not going to stand by while this very clear threat to the safety of some of the most vulnerable in our community exists.”