The Department of Labor’s regulatory agenda may soon dredge up an old fight in America’s labor wars. As sources told Bloomberg Law on May 8, the DOL is reconsidering regulations on the labor 16- and 17-year-olds may perform in certain hazardous industries. “That includes roofing work, as well as operating chainsaws, and various other power-driven machines that federal law recognizes as too dangerous for youth younger than 18,” Bloomberg Law reported. DOL will propose the change by October.

Current regulations allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work for an hour per day in defined hazardous industries, under close supervision, consistent with protections stipulated by the Fair Labor Standards Act. The DOL wants to increase the amount of time minors may work in these industries, as part of an ongoing push to expand apprenticeship programs. As Bloomberg Law also notes, at least one Democratic senator, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, had asked Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta to reconsider the time restrictions in a Senate hearing. Acosta told her that the DOL was looking into it, on the “theory” that it was safer for 17-year-olds to learn how to use dangerous equipment than waiting until they were 18.

Bipartisan support or not, the apprenticeship push now seems linked to a larger, more troubling push by the White House. Deregulation emerged early as a priority for the Trump administration, and advocates and experts tell me that the DOL’s child labor proposal fits into that agenda. Congress has repeatedly used the Congressional Review Act to overturn Obama-era regulations. “One was a rule to implement an executive order on fair pay and safe workplaces, which provided greater accountability and oversight for firms that wanted to be federal contractors to demonstrate their compliance with federal labor and safety and health laws,” explained Peg Seminario, director of occupational safety and health for the AFL-CIO. Another was a rule requiring injury recordkeeping in the workplace. Without it, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will have difficulty enforcing recordkeeping obligations, and workers will lack a key way to understand the dangers that may wait for them at work.

From packing the National Labor Relations Board with anti-labor officials to rolling back regulations on child labor, the Trump administration has waged a near-constant war on workers. Deregulation has a cumulative effect: Workers become more vulnerable, and are increasingly forced to depend on the tender mercies of their bosses. The DOL has proposed plunging minors into this precarity, where they would find few options for escape. College costs are rising, and so are health care costs. Wages, meanwhile, have stayed relatively stagnant. Minors could find themselves trapped in dangerous industries without the means to treat whatever injuries they incur.

This isn’t even the administration’s first attempt to roll back child labor restrictions: In December 2017, the Environmental Protection Agency gave notice that it would reconsider age restrictions on the handling of dangerous pesticides. As Dave Jamieson reported for HuffPost in March 2018, the EPA proposed a rule change after the Farm Bureau lobbied for relaxed rules. “Supporters of the age restrictions told HuffPost in January that growers probably want to remove them because work performed by minors tends to be cheaper than work done by adults,” Jamieson wrote.