A group of Democratic U.S. House members on Friday unveiled legislation “aimed at bolstering protections for America’s workers and ensuring accountability for employers who flout labor and employment laws.”

The Labor Enforcement to Securely (LET’S) Protect Workers Act was introduced by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Virginia) — the ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce — and House Labor Caucus Co-Chairs Mark Pocan (D-Wisconsin), Debbie Dingell (D-Michigan), Donald Norcross (D-New Jersey), and Steven Horsford (D-Nevada).

The bill’s sponsors said their legislation is based on the premise that “employment laws are a promise to our nation’s workers” meant to “secure the most basic rights of work.”

“That promise is broken,” they contended. “Recent shocking revelations about massive increases in the number of children illegally overworked and trafficked into dangerous jobs — just over 85 years since the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which was enacted to eliminate that very problem — is the latest example of the ways that this promise to America’s workers is broken.”

Across the U.S., Republican state lawmakers have been advancing legislation to remove restrictions on child labor, despite several high-profile workplace deaths of minors. At the federal level, Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) and Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) last year........

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