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

her nose on her sleeve. “So… what are you going to do?”

I pulled my phone out. “Protect you. And make sure they never do this to anyone else.”

Call number one: David. I’d known him since college—a labor investigator for the state.

“Hypothetically,” I said, “if someone employed a thirteen-year-old for around one hundred eighty hours, promised wages, and continue reading …