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🗞️ San Antonio Bakery Chain Fined After Federal Investigators Find Child Labor and Wage Violations

Federal investigators found a San Antonio bakery chain employed a 13 year old and let a 15 year old work overnight, violating child labor law. The company paid $45,000 in penalties and back wages.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division has concluded an investigation into three San Antonio locations of La Panaderia Bakery & Café, concluding that the businesses violated federal child labor and wage laws. According to the department, the companies operating the cafés, Tequila Almond Croissant LLC, Pan Dulce LLC and SA Bakery Co. LLC, employed a 13 year old who was below the legal working age and allowed a 15 year old to work overnight shifts, a practice barred under the Fair Labor Standards Act for workers that age. Regulators assessed a civil penalty of $25,706 for those violations.

Investigators also identified separate wage infractions, including a failure to pay one worker for two overnight shifts and a failure to combine hours for employees who worked at multiple locations, an oversight that led to unpaid overtime. Altogether, the company paid roughly $45,000 in back wages and penalties. The case surfaces at a moment when national data show reported child labor violations reaching their highest level in more than a decade during fiscal year 2025, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a labor focused research organization. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, penalties can reach roughly $16,000 per affected minor for each violation.

Unfair Labor Practices in Context

The San Antonio case reflects patterns that labor regulators have documented across the restaurant industry for years. Wage and hour violations, including unpaid overtime, off the clock work, and failure to combine hours for employees who work at multiple locations of the same company, are among the most common infractions cited in federal enforcement actions against restaurants, according to the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division. Because young workers are often paid hourly and scheduled irregularly, gaps in payroll tracking can affect them alongside adult employees, even when the underlying error is administrative rather than intentional.

Child labor violations, meanwhile, tend to cluster in fast paced, high turnover environments such as restaurants and food service, where minors are frequently hired for entry level roles. A federal compliance survey of the fast food, full service restaurant and supermarket sectors found that while most minors employed in these industries were working in compliance with federal law, a meaningful share of 14 and 15 year olds in full service restaurants were found working in violation of youth employment rules, most often tied to prohibited hours or job duties rather than deliberate exploitation. Labor economists generally attribute the pattern to a combination of thin staffing, decentralized scheduling across multiple locations, and inconsistent training on federal youth labor rules, rather than to any single cause. The Department of Labor treats wage violations and child labor violations as related but distinct categories of noncompliance, and cases like La Panaderia's, in which both appear together, are used by regulators to illustrate how gaps in payroll and scheduling oversight can expose a business to liability on multiple fronts at once.

Key Points

Federal investigators found a 13 year old employed below the legal working age and a 15 year old permitted to work overnight at La Panaderia locations in San Antonio.
The Department of Labor assessed a $25,706 civil penalty for the child labor violations.
Separate minimum wage and overtime violations were also identified, including unpaid overnight shifts and unpaid overtime for staff working across multiple locations.
The company paid approximately $45,000 total in back wages and penalties.
The case comes amid a broader national rise in reported child labor violations over the past several years.
Federal surveys show wage and hour violations, along with youth employment infractions, cluster in fast paced, multi location restaurant and food service settings, often tied to scheduling and payroll gaps rather than deliberate exploitation.

Primary Source Author: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division

Primary Source: US Department of Labor finds child labor and wage violations at 3 San Antonio bakery and café locations

Primary Source Link: https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20260804