My Mother Refused to Pay My 13-Year-Old for Six Weeks of Work. Forty-Eight Hours Later, the Labor Board Knocked.

so tightly my knuckles ached. “What they did is criminal.”

She hiccuped. “Criminal?”

“Criminal,” I repeated. “Wage theft. Child labor violations.”

“Like… in movies? Where the cops show up?”

“Maybe not with flashing lights. But there are laws about this. You can’t just hire a kid, work her to exhaustion, promise her money, and then shrug it off.”

Maya wiped continue reading …