A Florida home repair company has been cited for child labor and safety violations after a 15-year-old worker suffered “severe” injuries in a fall from a roof, according to the Department of Labor.
The department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration found that the company, JGN Services LLC in Lake Mary, failed to install “a guardrail, safety net or personal fall arrest system” for employees doing roofing work and cited the company, according to a March 10 news release from the Department of Labor.
The worker had fallen about 20 feet from a two-story home at an Orlando work site and suffered severe head and spinal injuries, the release says. The teenager had to spend six days in a hospital after the February 2022 incident.
By law, workers under the age of 18 aren’t allowed to do any roofing activities or any type of work that requires the use of ladders, scaffolds or “power-driven woodworking machines,” the release says.
Federal officials also found that the company allowed for “improper use of ladders” and did not train employees in fall hazards, the release says. The company was fined $8,702 for the safety violations.
Once investigators with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration learned the age of the worker who fell, they contacted the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, which enforces child labor laws, the release says.
Investigators found that in addition to inappropriately letting the teen work on the roof, the employer had failed to keep the teenager’s date of birth on record and allowed the 15-year-old to work more than three hours on school days and more than 18 hours during school weeks, the release says.
The company was fined $55,841 as a civil penalty for the child labor violations, the release says.
A man who answered the phone at a number listed for JGN Services said a McClatchy reporter had not reached the right company.
In addition, the company did not pay some of its employees for all hours worked, “misclassified” some workers as independent contractors and did not pay overtime rates, the release says. The company must pay $106,600 in back wages and damages to 18 workers, the release says.
“This is a case where an employer’s very poor decision caused a 15-year-old boy great harm, and denied many workers all of their hard-earned wages,” Wildalí De Jesús, director of the Wage and Hour Division District in Orlando, said in a statement. “With more than $50,000 in child labor penalties, and payment of more than $100,000 in back wages, JGN Services has seen how costly the consequences for failing to respect its employees’ rights to a safe workplace and to be paid their legal wages can be.”
Lake Mary is about 20 miles north of Orlando.