Minors working at the Walmart Supercenter in Saint Clair didn’t get breaks required by law, state labor investigators found.
Saint Clair was one of eight Walmart stores across Pennsylvania audited. Those audits led to a $7.8 million settlement with the retailer covering all of its Pennsylvania stores. It is the largest child labor settlement in state history, according to officials.
The state’s Dept. of Labor & Industry (L&I) cited the Saint Clair store for 35 break violations over two audits. Investigators also cited the store four times for minors working without the required work permits, 39 violations of the state’s Child Labor Act in all.
A spokesperson for L&I’s Bureau of Labor Law Compliance provided the store-by-store findings to Coal Region Canary.
Governor Josh Shapiro and L&I Secretary Nancy A. Walker announced the settlement earlier this week. Walmart will pay $7,686,786.16 in administrative penalties. That’s on top of $142,785 in fines the company already paid after L&I’s first round of investigations at the eight stores.
L&I’s notices of violation name stores by number, not address. Walmart lists Store 2535 as its Saint Clair Supercenter.
The first Saint Clair notice covers Aug. 3 through Oct. 26, 2024. It lists seven times minors weren’t given required breaks and two minors working without work permit. The store was fined $3,030. The second notice covers March 1 through May 31, 2025. It lists 28 more break violations and two more work permit violations, for $4,600 in fines.
Most of the other stores were cited for not telling school districts when minors were hired or let go, or for letting minors work too many hours.
L&I’s notices list 649 violations in all. The fewest on any one notice was nine, on Saint Clair’s first. The most was 164, at a store where nearly all the violations were breaks that weren’t recorded.
Besides Saint Clair, investigators audited Walmart stores in Cranberry Township, Chambersburg, Lancaster, Greensburg, Etters, Trevose, and Butler.
L&I’s Bureau of Labor Law Compliance began investigating Walmart in February 2025. That followed referrals from the department’s Bureau of Workers’ Compensation about minors who were hurt while working at Walmart stores. The Bureau spokesperson told Coal Region Canary the injuries themselves weren’t the basis for any of the violations. Investigators also didn’t find minors doing work the Child Labor Act prohibits.
The violations investigators did find were:
- Failing to get required work permits for minors
- Failing to notify school districts when minors were hired or let go
- Failing to give minors the breaks required by law
- Letting minors work more hours than state law allows
“When our investigators identified a pattern of violations at Walmart stores, we knew we needed to look beyond those individual locations,” Walker said.
L&I started a statewide investigation in February 2026. The settlement spares Walmart an audit of every Pennsylvania store and a possible court fight. It resolves any Child Labor Act violations at Walmart stores in the state from April 23, 2023, to April 23, 2026. By signing it, Walmart gives up its right to a hearing and an appeal.
“Every employer in Pennsylvania should be on notice: we will not tolerate you taking advantage of our youngest workers,” Shapiro said.
L&I will use the settlement money to teach workers and employers about Pennsylvania’s labor laws, help businesses follow them, and enforce worker protections across the state.
The settlement also requires Walmart to:
- Have all of its regional and market managers in Pennsylvania trained on the state’s child labor laws within eight months. L&I staff will run the training in hour-long virtual sessions.
- Post information on child labor protections in English and Spanish in its stores and on its online hiring and onboarding portals. The postings have to go up within 30 days and stay up for two years.
- Give L&I a 12-week sample of employment records involving minors from three stores the department picks at random. The records are due six months and one year after the agreement took effect.
If those record checks turn up new violations, Walmart has agreed to pay double the fine it would normally owe for each one. If it falls behind on the training or posting requirements, it will be fined $1,000 for every week the problem goes unfixed.
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