According to Joseph Halik, a Labor Department investigator, many children aggressively pursue jobs despite being under the legal working age limit. And even if an employer fires an underage worker, the next job could be as close as a business in the same building or just around the corner. And on the day the story was published, the Labor Department was at the baseball team's general manager's front door. This is your tax dollars at work. When the batboy was fired there was so much publicity that Robert Reich himself, then labor secretary,, intervened and McCoy lucked out.
Child actors luck out too.
The Labor Department gives them a special exemption. Farm workers, too, and even wreath-makers. Kids routinely baby-sit until 10 p.m., if not midnight. They do yard work and deliver newspapers. But they can't.