2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-NINE - Labor (§§ 1 — 3004) › PART I - Labor Provisions Generally (§§ 1 — 510k) › Chapter 19 - Employment of Women and Minors; Compulsory School Attendance (§§ 431 — 476d) › § 448 - Employment of minors—Dangerous occupations; Board for Determining Occupations Dangerous to Minors; regulations; enforcement

(a) No minor under eighteen (18) years of age shall be employed, or permitted, or suffered to work in any occupation dangerous or injurious to his life, health, education, safety and welfare, whenever said danger or injury is so determined through regulations by the Board hereinafter created.
(b) A board is hereby established to be known as the “Board for Determining the Occupations Dangerous to Minors”, hereinafter called the “Board”, which shall be composed of three members, namely: the Secretary of Labor and Human Resources or his delegate, who shall be the Chairman; the Secretary of Education or his delegate; the Secretary of Health or his delegate. At the first meeting of the said Board there shall be elected a secretary from among its members.
(c) Said Board shall work out regulations establishing and determining the occupations which are dangerous or injurious to the life, health, education, safety and welfare of minors under eighteen (18) years of age; under what conditions said occupations cease to be dangerous and injurious to them; fixing the minimum age a minor under eighteen (18) years, male or female, must be in order to be employed in the various occupations and jobs that may be defined in the regulations, and the disciplinary measures or administrative penalties which shall be taken or imposed against an employer who violates the provisions of said regulations. Upon preparing the regulations the Board shall take into consideration the basic purposes of this section to safeguard fully the life, health, education, safety and welfare of minors under eighteen (18) years of age who need to be employed in order to earn their living, as well as to prevent employers from employing, in the performance of their activities, minors under eighteen (18) years of age in occupations that may adversely affect their normal development.
(d) For the adoption of the regulations it shall be necessary that the Board hold public hearings which shall be duly announced. Once the regulations are adopted, they shall be submitted to the Governor of Puerto Rico for approval, and upon approval by the Governor, they shall have the force of law. A copy of the said regulations shall be transmitted to the Legislature. Whenever it becomes necessary to adopt any amendment or modification to the regulations approved pursuant to the provisions of this section, such modification or amendment shall be adopted by the Board following the procedure herein set forth.
(e) The Secretary of Labor and Human Resources shall be in charge of enforcing the provisions of this section and of the regulations which may be adopted for the purpose, but in the meantime, the provisions of the existing law shall remain temporarily in force until the regulations to be promulgated by the Secretary of Labor and Human Resources shall take effect.
(f) None of the provisions of this section shall be applicable to work performed by minors in public or private schools in Puerto Rico under the direct supervision and instruction of school officials or teachers, neither to those students or graduates from occupational training courses heretofore or hereafter offered by the Department of Education or other private educational institutions duly accredited by said Department in the occupations thus classified, provided the student or graduate from such courses is sixteen (16) years of age or over and the Secretary of Labor and Human Resources, in the case of students receiving training in vocational courses, certifies that the occupation and working place in which the minor is to render services meet the requirements established by the Department of Labor and Human Resources and have established the security measures required by said agency; or that, in the case of graduates from occupational training courses, the Secretary of Labor and Human Resources determines that the industry in which the minor is to render services meets the requirements established by the agency for the employment of minors. By occupational training shall be understood that type of education directed at training a person to start working and advance in an occupation.
(g) The Board shall conduct, as a minimum, a review of the occupations that are dangerous for eighteen (18) -year-old minors every five (5) years. It shall implement and develop the public policy of gradually extending non-dangerous employment activities, as well as the new market changes and emerging occupations to young persons over sixteen (16) years of age.
History —May 12, 1942, No. 230, p. 1298, § 18; July 12, 1960, No. 111, p. 313, § 2; July 30, 1974, No. 270, Part 2, p. 314, § 1; renumbered as § 19 on Aug. 26, 2005, No. 87, § 2; July 30, 2007, No. 90, § 2.