Call center in Utah in violation of child labor laws: 1,479 children cheated out of wages

SALT LAKE CITY — Children as young as 13 were manning phone banks for a company that does market research and political surveys from call centers in seven states, including Arizona, federal investigators said Tuesday.
Children that young can't legally be employed except on farms.
The U.S. Department of Labor fined Orem, Utah-based Western Wats for hiring three 13-year-olds and for working an additional 1,479 children more than three hours on a school day or more than eight hours on a weekend day, among other violations. Those children were all 14 or 15 years old.
The $550,000 penalty was among the highest of its kind ever assessed against a U.S. company, officials said.

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Investigators found that Western Wats sometimes paid children less than the $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage, although those violations appeared to be an oversight and the company agreed to pay about $5,000 in back wages, Dunbar said.

"We did not find that it was a willful violation," she said.

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"It's hard to tell the age of an employee just by looking," Dunbar said.