Sponsors (18)
Official title: To strengthen protections against child labor violations, and for other purposes.
Introduced June 18, 2026 by Rosa L. Delauro · Last progress June 18, 2026
The bill substantially tightens protections and enforcement against child labor and increases transparency, improving safety for minors and informing policy, but it imposes significant liability, compliance, reputational, and administrative costs that could strain small suppliers, slow procurement, and require new funding to realize benefits.
Children and teenagers (especially under 16 and under 18 in hazardous occupations, plus 14–15-year-olds) will face stronger, broader prohibitions on hazardous or schooling-interfering work and clearer federal-contractor bans, reducing risk of injury/death and protecting education.
Stronger enforcement tools (expanded investigations, stop-work orders, ability to require records/tags, higher penalties) plus wage protection for workers affected by stop-work orders increase deterrence and give regulators more ability to stop and remediate child-labor violations.
Federal contracting rules require contractor oversight (training, assurances, labor-management committees), allow cancellation/reprocurement of tainted contracts, and impose successor liability, which strengthens compliance across supply chains and helps protect taxpayers and contract integrity.
Large civil penalties, expanded secondary and successor liability, joint-and-several liability, and multi-year blacklisting create substantial financial and legal exposure that could bankrupt small suppliers, chill hiring, and deter transactions or acquisitions.
New requirements (training, assurances, labor-management committees) plus expanded record demands increase compliance and administrative costs for small subcontractors and suppliers, straining limited budgets and staff.
Longer hot-goods windows, stricter purchaser safe-harbors, and prohibitions extended to all tiers risk disrupting supply chains, slowing procurement, and driving up contract prices as firms become more cautious about subcontracting or sourcing.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Tightens federal child-labor rules by raising prohibited-age thresholds for hazardous work, expanding enforcement tools, and extending obligations and liability into contractor supply chains.
Strengthens federal child-labor protections by raising age limits for hazardous work, giving the Secretary of Labor expanded authority to identify dangerous occupations and enforce prohibitions, and extending liability into contractor supply chains. It adds new investigatory and enforcement tools (longer hot-goods windows, stop-work orders, product tags), requires contractors on federal contracts to follow stricter child-labor rules, and directs the Department of Labor to collect and report annual data on work-related injuries and enforcement trends.