Underage Workers in New England’s Seafood Processing Industry

The FRONTLINE Dispatch

GBH

News

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 14 December 2023

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Journalists with The Public’s Radio, a station serving Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts, spent two years investigating teen labor in the local seafood processing industry.

Their investigation, supported by FRONTLINE’s Local Journalism initiative, reveals flaws in systems designed to protect migrant teens, who’ve arrived at the U.S. southern border in unprecedented numbers in recent years.

The investigative team interviewed migrant teens and their families, and uncovered that the U.S. Department of Labor was investigating at least two New Bedford, MA, seafood processors, as well as a Rhode Island staffing agency, for possible child labor, overtime pay, and anti-retaliation violations.

In this episode of The FRONTLINE Dispatch, reporters Nadine Sebai and Nina Sparling from The Public’s Radio join FRONTLINE editor-in-chief and executive producer Raney Aronson-Rath to discuss their findings.

Sebai and Sparling say they sought to illustrate the complexities of what happens to underage migrants after they arrive on the nation's southern border — especially the challenges they face. Sebai says, "We've all seen... the waves of kids migrating to the border, unaccompanied minors coming to the border. But they actually end up somewhere in the U.S.”

For more, read and listen to The Public Radio’s investigation “Underage and Unprotected,” supported by FRONTLINE’s Local Journalism Initiative.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	In recent years, an unprecedented number of unaccompanied minors have arrived at the U.S. border.
0:08.0	A recent investigation reveals how some of these minors end up working underage and unsafe jobs.
0:15.0	I just cut my hands off a lot mostly.
0:18.0	It's very, very hard.
0:20.0	Journalist Nadine Sabai and Nina Sparling are reporters with the public's radio, a station serving
0:26.1	Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts.
0:30.0	Together with Frontline, they spent two years investigating child labor and the local seafood processing industry.
0:37.0	They learned that the federal government had begun investigating the labor practices of at least three local companies.
0:44.8	Nathaniel, who was now 15, said that on some days he worked from six in the morning to six at night.
0:51.7	They spoke with migrant teens working underage and uncovered
0:55.2	flaws in the system that government agencies rely on to protect them from child
0:59.9	labor. I'm Rainy Errenson Roth, editor and chief and executive producer of Frontline, and this is
1:06.4	the Frontline Dispatch. The Frontline Dispatch is made possible by the Abrams Foundation
1:16.0	committed to excellence in journalism and by the Frontline Journalism Fund
1:20.0	with major support from John and Joanne Hagler.
1:23.0	Support for Frontline Dispatch comes from the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center,
1:28.0	dedicated to providing compassionate care and cancer specialists who are experienced in the cancer you have.
1:32.0	When you hear the word cancer, their team is ready. cancer you have.
1:33.0	When you hear the word cancer, their team is ready.
1:35.0	Learn more at Mass General.org
1:38.0	slash cancer.
1:39.0	Naidine and Nina,
	...

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