A field assistance bulletin has been issued by the U.S. Department of Labor discussing the guidelines it will follow to determine when an assessment of child labor civil money penalties is appropriate, as well as the amounts of the penalties it will assess.

The guidelines draw heavily on the child labor civil money penalty process the Wage Hour Division developed over the past 25 years, and include 2008 amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act made by the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which increased the maximum child labor civil money penalties from $11,000 to $50,000 for any child labor violation that causes the death or serious injury of any employee under the age of 18, and provides that such penalties may be doubled for repeated or willful violations.