A regional cafe which employs children as young as 11 to make jams and relishes has been criticised amid a push for a national minimum age for child workers, but others have defended the cafe against social media uproar.
The federal government is considering a recommendation to make the minimum working age 15, or 13 for “light work”, with some exemptions for those under 13.
On the weekend, the ABC reported on a cafe in country New South Wales where most of the 100 workers are school-age children. The Long Track Pantry in Jugiong, faced with a workforce shortage, hired children aged 11 and older to work in the factory kitchen and cafe.
The children are paid award wages to wash dishes, make jams and relishes and serve customers.
States and territories all have different laws governing child employment and to prevent child labour, but not all of them stipulate a minimum age. NSW does not have a minimum age. The minimum wage for children under 16 is 36.8% of the national minimum wage.
Despite the employment of the children being legal in NSW, one-star reviews of Long Track Pantry appeared over the weekend on Google accusing the cafe of “child labour”, but they were later taken down.
Understandably, I've stopped at this cafe and purchased many of their products. Blissfully unaware that I'm supporting child labour.
— Imogen Hines (@Imi_cycles) April 8, 2023
[Long Track Pantry in Jugiong employing 11 yr olds in their kitchens] https://t.co/6LtlEC9Ez6
Others were supportive of the move, pointing out that the children were paid award wages. A Twitter user, Nathan Lee, said it was an “entirely normal and healthy aspect of growing up”, the political and economics writer Tim Colebatch said it was “common sense” and the historian Sue Hodges said the “kids looked pretty happy”.
Yay! This is common sense challenging political correctness: we need more of it. I got my first job when I was 9, and it was a great learning experience. The Long Track Pantry is a fantastic enterprise: good to see these kids becoming part of it.https://t.co/x9QOwWto87
— Tim Colebatch (@gumnut49) April 8, 2023
An employment and workplace relations survey in June last year found about 214,500 children aged 15 and under were legally working.
A parliamentary committee recommended in March that Australia take “binding treaty action” and ratify the International Labour Organization (ILO) convention concerning minimum age for admission to employment.
The committee report said work could benefit young people but “the bulk of the evidence suggests that except in cases where a youth works only a few hours per week, child and youth labor is harmful to development, educational success and health”.
Tabling the report, the committee chair and Labor MP Josh Wilson said Australia had “not exactly moved swiftly to ratify this convention” and would be the 176th country to do so. He said there were three key obligations in the convention.
“Members that ratify are to specify the age of completion of compulsory schooling, which, in any case, shall be not less than 15 years of age, as the minimum age of admission to employment,” he said.
“They are to establish 18 years as the minimum age for hazardous work or 16 years where certain protections are in place and, where permitted by national law, specify the conditions for children no younger than 13 years to undertake light work.”
The convention allows for exclusions so children under 13 can work in circumstances where it will not affect their health, wellbeing, or education, and gives examples including in family farms or shops, delivering newspapers or pamphlets, mowing lawns, babysitting, volunteering, or doing light household chores.
The national children’s commissioner, Anne Hollonds, agreed with those recommendations and warned of the risks facing child workers.
“It’s not just making sure it’s not hazardous work, it’s the environment of young children working with older kids and adults,” she said.
“Obviously there’s a huge variety of circumstances – kids working in a family business, a corner shop, is a different environment to working in a factory – but regardless of the circumstances, size or type of the business, we have to remember that a child is at greater risk of harm from co-workers, customers and the business owner themselves.
“Because of that we need to have in place the appropriate protections … we have an obligation to protect children; that’s not optional.”
Wilson said ratifying the convention would put Australia on a stronger footing to identify and abolish child labour.
Hollonds said that the United Nations convention on the rights of the child also calls for a minimum age. She said children’s issues were often invisible, and that they were often just seen as “appendages” of their parents, leaving the role of government “unclear”.
She said Australia often lagged on child policies, and was ranked 32 out of 38 wealthy countries on child wellbeing.
“I have been told more than once that there are no votes in children,” she said.
Guardian Australia has contacted Long Track Pantry for comment.
