Dive Brief:
- The United States Department of Labor sued a Panera franchisee, Covelli Family Limited Partnership, for allegedly subjecting children to “oppressive” working conditions, Florida court records show.
- The DOL claims Covelli employed 240 minors for longer hours than are permitted by federal law, according to the suit.
- These illegal working conditions allegedly took place from 2021 to 2023. The suit seeks a court injunction against Covelli’s practices and an award of damages deemed appropriate by the court — the court issued a consent decree in the case requiring the franchisee to pay $600,000 in penalties.
Dive Insight:
The complaint in the Panera case is only three pages long, and makes no specific assessment of damages and contains scant factual information as to the alleged violations.
But the impact of the suit isn’t small — according to Panera’s franchise disclosure document, the Covelli firm operates at least 29 Paneras across Florida’s Orlando and Tampa regions, making it a fairly major operator for the 2,200 unit chain.
The statute cited by the DOL bars companies from employing minors aged 14 and 15 for more than 40 hours in non-school weeks; more than 18 hours in school weeks; more than eight hours on non-school days; more than three hours on school days. It also restricts such employment to the hours between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. with an extension to 9 p.m. during the summer.
The suit signals that the Trump DOL, under Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer, has not completely given up the Biden DOL’s emphasis on franchisee child labor violations as a site of regulatory scrutiny. The Biden DOL ultimately increased the yearly amount of child labor citations from about $3.6 million in fiscal 2020 to about $15.2 million in fiscal 2024, federal data shows.
