State Investigates Child Labor Violations in Tacoma Mills
Labor Commissioner Blackman moves to enforce the state's new age-limit law following reports of children working in local factories.
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Olympia—A complaint has been lodged with Labor Commissioner Blackman against two Tacoma factories for violation of the new child labor law. The factories complained of are a sash and door factory and a planing mill. The complaint alleges that the factories are employing children under fifteen years of age. The age limit is fourteen years, but as there is nothing to show how much under fifteen the children mentioned are, Mr. Blackman has concluded to make an investigation of the charges. Another complaint has reached the labor commissioner from a small town in Eastern Washington, where the publisher of a newspaper is keeping his twelve-year-old son out of school to work in a printing office. In a separate case in Puyallup, children did not receive employment directly from the proprietors but were required by their parents, who worked by the piece, to assist them. Although Mr. Blackman considers this a violation of the law, he did not think immediate prosecution advisable, and notified the parents that the children must cease work.
“The children did not receive employment directly from the proprietors of the factory but were required by their parents, who worked by the piece, to assist them.”
Early 20th-century Washington labor laws were notoriously difficult to enforce, with businesses frequently shifting the burden of child labor onto parents working on a piece-rate basis—a practice that mirrors contemporary concerns regarding gig work and the exploitation of familial labor in unregulated settings.
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