B.C. child labour law among laxest on continent

There’s been a tenfold increase in work-related injuries reported by children aged 12 to 14 in the past five years — a period that coincides with the Liberal government having turned British Columbia into the laxest child-labour jurisdiction in North America.

It’s not just the youngest workers whose injury rates are climbing. Statistics for all child labourers 15 years old and younger have been trending upward.

Since 2004, children have been legally able to work up to 20 hours a week during the school year and up to 35 hours a week when school is out. Children under 12 can work as well, but they need to have a permit from the B.C. Employment Standards Branch.

Employers can pay them less than older workers. It’s called a training wage.

And while the majority of injured kids work in the service industry, some of the injuries are in industries that you might not think could employ children — construction, oil and gas processing, wood and paper mills, and plastics production.

What the government did in 2004 was allow any child aged 12 to 14, with the consent of one parent, to work anywhere except underground mines and bars, doing almost anything except serving liquor and setting off explosives.

Just how many children 15 and younger are working is difficult to determine. Statistics Canada doesn’t collect data on them since B.C. is the only province with no restrictions on children under 16 working.

So First Call, a coalition of child and youth advocates, looked at injury statistics collected by WorkSafe BC.

That data showed that 42 children aged 12 to 14 were injured badly enough in 2008 that WorkSafe accepted their claims. In 2005, there were only four claims.

Of the injured, 56 per cent worked in the hospitality industry.

But eight per cent of the children worked in construction, eight per cent in agriculture, and four per cent in manufacturing including wood and paper products.

The picture changes slightly for injured 15-year-olds. Hospitality industry employees filed 46 per cent of the claims, while retail workers accounted for a third.

But 14 per cent of the claims were for kids working in construction or in the manufacture of everything from food and beverages to metals, minerals, paper, petroleum and plastics.

Although First Call was unable to conclusively determine whether the tenfold increase for the youngest workers also meant a tenfold increase in the total number of workers, the report’s author, Helesia Luke, noted the correlation between increased numbers of workers and increased injuries has been well documented by WorkSafe BC.

So, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that there are now 10 times as many kids working in B.C. as there were just five years ago.

However, Luke says the statistics could also mean that there are simply more injuries, which suggests that there may not be sufficient supervision of these young workers to keep them safe.

A 2005 survey of child labourers published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, for example, noted that nearly a quarter of the 12- to 14-year-olds said they were not supervised while working even though the regulations require the presence of adult supervision.

It’s troubling that B.C. children are being injured and even suffering possible lifelong disability or impairment when they are so young.

The B.C. government ignored the International Labor Organization’s minimum age standard that has been agreed to by 153 countries (Canada is not one of them) that children shouldn’t work until at least 15 or until after they have completed compulsory schooling.

The government didn’t consult child and youth advocates when it was considering lowering the standards to this bare minimum. They warned that it leaves children open to exploitation, injury and it may interfere with them finishing high school. To learn more about First Call, click here.

dbramham@vancouversun.com