Illegality in the Workplace

Illustration by Janicza Rosas-Nuñez

By Kassidy Thomas

News Feature Editor

January 2022

Thirty percent of high school students are employed during the school year and about 31 percent are employed during the summer, according to childtrends.org. Many students are expected to go to school for eight hours and then work for a few more right afterward. According to urban.org, 78 to 87 percent of students are also involved in extracurricular activities which adds extra stress to their days.

“As a year-round student-athlete, my manager expects me to work every day after school, and on the weekends when I need time to let my brain and body rest,” said junior Jazzlyn Pulido.

Employers are required to give each employee a 30-minute lunch break every six hours they work, yet many do not. Some students also use this time to finish up school assignments, and they are unable to achieve this when their supervisor is abusing their power.

“While working at a waterpark I was expected to take my 30-minute break at the beginning of my shift with the rest of my coworkers, so when we didn’t get a break during the rest of the day we wouldn’t get written up," said a senior. "We were so short-staffed that we needed everyone to rotate to each spot before a break, which took up to six hours, even though we were required to take breaks in the first five hours of our shift. The solution was to have everyone take breaks at the same time after training in the morning so the supervisors wouldn’t have to worry about giving everyone breaks. There were multiple times when I worked ten-hour shifts and that morning 30 was the only break I got.”

These extended hours affect students’ mental health. According to mhanational.org, 70 percent of students are stressed about money and school. With the overwhelming amount of school assignments, shifts at jobs, extracurricular activities, and social time it is hard to find time to prioritize mental health. Many employers do not understand the effects of stress on high school students which leads them to assign such long shifts.

“Handling school work along with a job and a social life becomes too much with the abuse from supervisors. We are already stressed enough worrying about the finances to continue our education and when they abuse their power it creates a breaking point,” said a senior.

Not only do the extensive hours of work affect students' mental health, but the inconsistency of supervisors’ schedules adds to it. It is a lot of times stressful having schedules changed last minute because of mistakes made by bosses.

“They change things last minute without asking me. It affects my mentality because I need to be prepared for some things that we do at my workplace,” said another senior.

Students constantly voice their concern for the number of hours that they work on top of the amounts of schoolwork they are receiving. They are becoming burned out because of the sleep that they are losing over school and work.

“We as a society value productivity, and have a constant need to feel busy or else we’re seen as failures,” said junior Hayden Murry.