When a bill in the Massachusetts legislature is “sent to study,” that typically means it’s dead.
Such is the fate of House Bill 1744, “An Act to prevent child labor exploitation and trafficking,” a New Bedford legislator’s attempt to prevent companies like his city’s seafood processing plants from employing minors.
In January, State Rep. Christopher Hendricks filed the bill in response to an investigative series by The Public’s Radio, which chronicled the lives of teenagers working for several of the city’s largest seafood companies. The series offered an up-close look at a national issue: migrant teenagers who, unable to secure legal work permits, obtain false identification to work in dangerous jobs with grueling hours.
Hendricks’ bill sought to clear up a legal gray area by definitively outlawing anyone under 18 from working in Massachusetts’ seafood processing or packing facilities, many of which are concentrated in New Bedford, the nation’s highest-grossing fishing port.
The bill would also have increased the minimum fine for child labor violations in Massachusetts from $500 to $20,000. Hendricks said stricter penalties would force employers to take more responsibility for solving a child labor problem he said has lingered on the waterfront for over a decade.
“A $500 fine for a multimillion-dollar corporation isn’t going to do anything,” Hendricks said in an interview in May. “Now they have an incentive to do their own due diligence.”
But the bill never passed. This summer, a committee of lawmakers reviewed the legislation, held a brief hearing on the bill, and took no action.
By default, the bill was “sent to study” after 90 days.
“Pursuant to House Rule 27, this bill has been sent to study after the Committee’s 90-day window to act expired, and the Committee continues to review the provisions of this proposal,” Talia A. Quinn, research director for the Joint Committee on the Judiciary, said in an email. “The Committee will continue to work with their colleagues on this issue.”
In a recent interview, Hendricks said the Judiciary Committee is the busiest in the State House, which limits how much legislation its members can substantively consider each session.
“For every guy like me, there’s another 25 that are trying to get meetings with them on their priorities,” said Hendricks, a New Bedford Democrat first elected in 2018. “That’s just the nature of the committee.”
Helena DaSilva Hughes, an immigration advocate well-known in Hendricks’ district, said the bill’s failure to make it out of committee saddened her. The nonprofit she runs, the Immigrants Assistance Center, provides counseling to migrant teenagers, including some who have worked illegally in the city’s seafood processing plants.
“Because it didn’t pass, it gives an open door for these employers to keep doing what they’ve been doing,” Hughes said, “even though some of these kids are working in terrible conditions.”
Hendricks said he plans to meet with committee chairman Michael Day, a Democratic state representative from Stoneham, to listen to the committee’s concerns about the bill. Hendricks said he suspects it’s the 40-fold increase in fines for employers caught employing minors. Day did not respond to a request for comment.
“If it’s an easy compromise,” Hendricks said, “then we’ll refile it.”
The earliest opportunity to do that would be January 2027.
