Maine Child Labor Regulations:- Child labour regulations are essential for safeguarding the welfare and rights of young workers and making sure they don't work in abusive situations.
These regulations seek to protect young people’s education, health, and general development while also striking a careful balance in terms of giving them useful work experience.
EMPLOYMENT MINIMUM AGE
Minors of 16 years or more:
In manufacturing facilities, bakeries, launderettes, dry cleaners, and garages, minors 16 years of age and older are permitted to work in non-hazardous jobs. Along with working in any of the following occupations, they may also be employed by hotels, motels, commercial amusement centres, bowling alleys, arcades, circuses, and skating rinks.
Minors of 15 or more:
Restaurants, kitchens, lobby areas, and offices of hotels and motels are lawfully open to MINORS 15 YEARS AND OLDER. In addition, they are permitted to work in any profession that 14-year-old adolescents are permitted to work in. However, they are not permitted to transport food to hotel rooms, deliver room service, or go through the halls leading to those rooms.
Minors Under the Age of 14:
Children under the age of 14 are permitted to work in children’s camps, hospitals, nursing homes, municipalities, domestic work in or around a private residence, and field crop planting, cultivation, and harvesting. Additionally, they might work for, with, or under the direct supervision of parents in fast food establishments, car washes, retail establishments, athletic camps, or hotel/motel properties.
Federal restrictions ban kids in Maine from working in non-agricultural jobs until they turn 14 years old. However, minors working in the agricultural industry are subject to separate laws and regulations.
Additionally, children of any age are allowed to engage in non-hazardous employment for their parents in retail or service sectors where the minor’s parent is the only owner.
Maine’s Minor Payment Laws
- The minimum wage in Maine is legally applicable to minors.
- It is noteworthy that Maine does not have any regulations pertaining to training wages or student wages that are lower than the minimum wage.
- Maine’s Rules Regarding Meals and Break Times for Children
- After six hours of work, employees in Maine are entitled to a minimum 30-minute break.
- Unless the worker chooses to take an unpaid meal break, in which case they must be fully relieved of their tasks, this break hour is normally paid.
- If workers can take frequent breaks during the workday, small enterprises with three or less employees on duty are exempt from providing meal breaks.
Working Hours for minors:
- employers are required to maintain daily time logs. The minor’s start time, total number of hours worked, and end time for the day must all be documented in the records.
- How early, how late, and for how long minors can work is determined by child labour rules. Details are provided below.
- The times and hours that minors may work are as follows:
- minors that are younger than sixteen
- Work Hours: During the academic year, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- only from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. during the summer holidays
- not in the course of the school day
Maximum Hours:- Maine Child Labor Regulations
- On school days, including Fridays, three hours a day
- Every week throughout the school week, eighteen hours
- Forty hours a week without classes
- On days off from school (holidays, weekends, vacations, storm days, etc.), 8 hours are spent in class.
- Minors aged 16 and 17 who are enrolled in school, including homeschooling, may not miss more than six days in a row.
Note: There are a few exceptions to the Maine legislation that caps the number of hours 16 and 17-year-old workers can work. Minors who are 16 and 17 years old are not subject to work hours limits under federal law.