Wisconsin used to see plenty of profit-making companies that employed kids selling stuff door-to-door until state regulators got fed up and enacted a tough law in 1985.
Now that state has virtually no for-profit companies employing minors selling door-to-door.Wisconsin's many Catholic schools, Scout troops and other nonprofit groups are exempt from the law. But the one and only for-profit company that had been operating there had its license denied in November, and police in Green Bay are on the alert for adults running the company.
The law requires that for-profit companies using minors to sell things door-to-door register with the state, post a $5,000 surety bond (to make certain that the kids get paid), get a solicitor license from every city in which they operate, and register with every police department in whose jurisdiction they plan to canvass.
If the firms don't comply, the police can arrest the adults involved. Those who are guilty can be fined $1,000 per violation.
"They don't like that in a big way," said Bob Anderson, director of the Labor Standards Bureau in the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.
There also are a variety of other requirements involving such things as working conditions. The idea was to protect teens and customers who Anderson said often are victimized by fly-by-night operators who move from state to state.
"The kids usually are local kids. They're just pawns," Anderson said.
Anderson speculates that the strict law has kept unscrupulous business away, but he jokes that government can't take all the credit.
"It also gets doggone cold in Wisconsin. It's one thing to go out and sell Girl Scout cookies here. But if you're selling for profit and it's February and 5 degrees outside, not too many kids want to go out and knock on doors. That's a factor, too," Anderson said.