A child labor investigation that uncovered more than 1,600 violations of Wisconsin law at more than 100 Burger King restaurants was probably the largest case of its kind in the state’s history, according to the head of the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. 

DWD has ordered Chicago-based Cave Enterprises to pay more than 600 Wisconsin teens back pay as well as damages totaling $237,436. The company owes the state an additional $828,000, according to DWD — $500 for every one of the 1,656 violations uncovered in an extensive audit of the company’s payroll and employment records.

The company has until Feb. 25 to pay the back wages and penalties, although it also has the option of challenging DWD’s actions in court. 

Cave Enterprises has not responded to requests for comment about DWD’s audit findings, which the department announced Friday.

State alleges child labor violations at more than 100 Wisconsin Burger Kings owned by one firm

Amy Pechacek, the department’s secretary-designee, said in an interview after the agency announced the results of its investigation that the case was the largest one DWD could document. 

“Since the records are somewhat limited in terms of going back several decades, we just chose to be safe and said this was the largest violation we have in modern history,” Pechacek said. 

Cave Enterprises received a formal letter notifying it of the investigation findings on Thursday, according to DWD. But in the months before, there were repeated communications between DWD auditors and management personnel for the company, Pechacek told the Wisconsin Examiner.

The investigation was triggered by a series of complaints DWD’s Equal Rights Division received in 2024, Pechacek said. The division’s responsibilities include enforcing Wisconsin’s child labor and wage laws. 

Pattern of company behavior

The complaints in 2024 prompted investigators to look back through department records. Investigators turned up 33 previous complaints in the years since 2020. Pechacek said those complaints were resolved individually.

The number of complaints, however, showed investigators a disturbing pattern in “how this employer interacts with its minor-age workforce,” Pechacek said. “And due to that, they then said, this warrants a very deep-dive, intensive audit about their practices as it relates to employing minors here in the state of Wisconsin.”

DWD has 25 auditors who review workforce practices in response to complaints, eight of them focusing on minors. 

“So this was a large undertaking,” Pechacek said of the Cave Enterprises review. “They poured their heart and soul into this, and we’re just really proud of that work and what this means in terms of making sure our youth can engage and work in a meaningful and safe way in our state.”

The audit showed that the problems weren’t confined to just a handful of the more than 100 Burger King locations that Cave owned between 2023 and 2025, the audit’s time span. There were violations found at 103 of the company’s stores, according to DWD. 

Work permits underscore child labor rules

In the letter to Cave detailing the audit findings, DWD reported that 593 14- and 15-year-olds started work without required work permits — 84% of the company’s employees in that age group, according to the agency. At a Green Bay Burger King, one teen started working at the age of 13, auditors reported — too young for that work under Wisconsin law.

In 2024, Republican majorities in both houses of the state Legislature passed bills that would have repealed Wisconsin’s work-permit requirement for 14- and 15-year-olds. Supporters of the repeal argued they amounted to a needless bureaucratic roadblock and discouraged young people from working. 

Democrats opposed the bill and Gov. Tony Evers vetoed it. Pechacek said cases like the audit of Cave Enterprises demonstrate the value of the work permit requirement. 

“Every time a permit is even requested for a minor child, there is an explanation of obligations that are sent to the employer as it relates to child labor laws,” Pechacek said. Those informational documents list Wisconsin’s wage and hour laws, the requirements for breaks and the restrictions on what machines minors can operate under state law. The parents, who must sign the work permit, get the same information.

“We want to be able to allow youth to participate in a safe manner that doesn’t impact or impair their ability to still go to school and still be children, but also help out our local economies and our businesses,” Pechacek said. “These duties of the employer and the rights of the minor-aged worker are continually enforced and communicated throughout the process.” 

The widespread lack of work permits at the Cave Burger Kings means that neither the employer nor the teenage workers would have received that communication at hiring. Despite that, each of the previous 33 complaints would have resulted “in another explanation of the law throughout the complaint process,” Pechacek said. “So there are many opportunities for this employer — and for every employer — to get it right.”

The audit also found 627 workers 17 or younger — 45% of the company’s minor employees — who worked longer than six hours without a required 30-minute meal break. 

“All minor employees under the age of 18 must have a 30-minute, duty-free break during shifts of six or more consecutive hours,” states the DWD audit report sent to Cave management. “Multiple shorter breaks totaling 30 minutes are not a lawful substitute for the required 30-minute break.”

Breaks that are less than 30 minutes must be paid under Wisconsin law, regardless of the worker’s age, the DWD report states. Unpaid breaks must be at least 30 minutes, with no duties during that time and with the employee free to leave the worksite.

“We found multiple instances of employees taking unpaid breaks of less than 30 minutes in length,” the DWD letter states — one of the reasons for back pay owed to teen workers. 

Large Wisconsin footprint

The Cave Enterprises website states the company currently owns 100 Wisconsin restaurants and that it has the largest number of Burger King franchises under a single owner in the country. The company also operates 77 Burger King franchises in seven other states. 

The company’s list of Wisconsin locations has 105 restaurants, but internet search results for three of them — two in Milwaukee and one in Waukesha — describe them as permanently closed. 

The Wisconsin Examiner’s review Friday of a job portal on the company website showed 379 openings at the company’s Wisconsin Burger King locations. 

Pechacek acknowledged that filling job openings has been a stiff challenge for employers for years.

“We know that youth are a very important part of our workforce, especially during worker shortages,” Pechacek said. “There is no excuse ever to violate labor laws — especially when it comes to protecting our youth, but for any worker.”

DWD has an outreach operation and can send personnel to help train employers about the ins and outs of state and federal child labor regulations. The department has videos available online along with other information in plain language, she said.

“We aren’t here just to be a compliance arm. We would rather have this conversation before any type of laws are violated and before anybody’s rights are infringed on,” Pechacek said.

“So there are many opportunities for education and compliance before forfeitures and penalties even come into play — or large-scale audits. And we are always available to have those conversations with any employer and any minor-aged child or parent who is unclear about what the rules are.”

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A Madison Burger King owned by Cave Enterprises of Chicago. The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development has found more than 1,600 violations of state child labor laws by Cave, which owns 100 Burger King outlets in Wisconsin. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

This report has been updated.

The owner of more than 100 Wisconsin Burger King franchises will be required to pay more than $1 million after Wisconsin’s labor department found more than 1,600 violations of state child labor and wage laws, officials said Friday.

The violations took place during a two-year period ending in January 2025, the state Department of Workforce Development reported. The case involves the largest number of child labor and wage payment violations identified by the department “in modern Wisconsin history,” according to the office of Gov. Tony Evers.

“We have a responsibility to make sure kids who are working are protected from exploitation, predatory employer practices, and being subjected to hazardous or illegal working conditions, and that’s a responsibility we must take seriously,” Evers said in a statement released Friday.

The franchise owner, Chicago-based Cave Enterprises, operates Burger King locations in eight states, according to the Cave Enterprises website. Wisconsin has 100 of those restaurants currently — more than any of the other states.

On Thursday, DWD informed Cave that investigators reviewed records from the company from January 2023 to January 2025.

A  letter from DWD to Cave states that the company:

• Employed 593 14- and 15-year-olds who started work without required work permits;
• Failed to provide a required 30-minute meal break for 627 minors who worked at least one shift of six hours or longer without a break;
• Failed to pay required overtime to 67 workers who were 16 or 17 and who worked at least one shift longer than 10 hours — after which state law requires payment at time and a half;
• Violated state requirements on permitted work hours for 369 minors. 

DWD “counted violations of Wisconsin’s Employment of Minors laws by counting only one violation per child per type of violation found,” the department stated in a cover letter accompanying the notification of violations. By that count, “Employer violated Wisconsin’s Employment of Minors laws and related regulations at least 1,656 times during the investigative period.”

DWD told Cave the company owes the employees a total of $3,498 in back wages, $1,994 in unpaid overtime wages, and $231,944 in wage penalties — liquidated damages amounting to 200% of the wage shortfall. 

Cave also must “immediately change its business practices to ensure that it is no longer in violation of Wisconsin’s Employment of Minors laws and related regulations which were found to be violated,” the investigation report states.

The cover letter states Cave also must pay DWD a direct penalty of $828,000 — $500 for each of the 1,656 violations, according to the department. The company must make the payments within 20 days to resolve the case.

Cave has not replied to an email message from the Wisconsin Examiner sent Friday to the company’s human resources manager seeking comment on the DWD’s findings.

DWD launched the investigation after receiving several complaints in 2024 and subsequently reviewing department records, which produced 33 previous complaints against the business for wage payment and child labor violations from 2020 through 2023.

Those complaints were resolved individually, DWD Secretary-designee Amy Pechacek told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview Friday.

But they also pointed to a larger pattern in “how this employer interacts with its minor-aged workforce,” Pechacek said. Investigators decided that “this warrants a very deep-dive, intensive audit about their practices as it relates to employing minors here in the state of Wisconsin.”

On Jan. 23, 2025, DWD requested records from Cave on the company’s employment of minors younger than 18 going back to Jan. 1, 2023. The records started coming in on March 4, 2025, with the last batch received Nov. 11, 2025, according to DWD.

DWD’s auditors “literally reviewed thousands and thousands and thousands of records for months,” Pechaeck said.

The DWD letters to the company state that both the payments for the employees, which must be made with individual checks for each worker, and the penalty that is owed to the state must be sent to DWD’s Equal Rights Division, which investigates child labor  and other workplace violations.

In 2024, Evers vetoed a bill passed by Republicans in the Legislature that would have eliminated a requirement that 14- and 15-year-olds in Wisconsin have a work permit approved by their parents in order to take a job.

The legislation was supported by Wisconsin Independent Business and the National Federation of Independent Businesses, according to lobbying records posted by the Wisconsin Ethics Commission.

It was also promoted by the Opportunity Solutions Project, the lobbying arm of the Florida-based Foundation for Government Accountability, which Wisconsin Watch reported had gotten “attention for its successful drive to relax child labor restrictions in Iowa and Arkansas.”

“After years of Republican lawmakers working to get rid of Wisconsin’s basic child labor law protections, I’m proud my administration is working to do the opposite by making sure bad actors are held accountable for taking advantage of kids in the workplace,” Evers said Friday.

When DWD issues work permits, it also sends employers letters informing them about the details of Wisconsin’s child labor regulations, including the limits on hours of work and requirements such as the one for paid meal breaks after six hours of work. 

“It’s just not in the best interest of the youth, our families, or even the business to be using workers and youth workers in a way that again is really going to potentially impact their success in other areas that we want them to be protected in,” Pechacek said. 

“We have to put some guard rails around utilizing youth workforce so that we can protect them,” she added. “That also protects the businesses. These kids are going to school all day. They need breaks. They need to be able to focus on also being a kid.”

Cave was founded in 1999 by Adam Velarde with a Burger King outlet in Lemont, Illinois, and grew to be the largest group of Burger King franchises with a single owner, according to the company website.

“The majority of Cave’s growth has been through purchasing distressed restaurants and improving the value of the location and brand through hard work, smart decisions and dedication to the guests,” the company states. “We pride ourselves on being leaders in the Burger King Brand in traffic and profit growth.”

While the investigation found minors employed at 104 Wisconsin locations that Cave owned, the company’s current list of 100 locations would appear to suggest that Cave closed or divested at least four restaurants sometime in the last three years.

Cave also operates four locations in Iowa, 28 in Illinois, one in Indiana, eight in  Michigan, 13 in Minnesota, one in Nebraska and 22 in South Dakota. 

This report was updated Friday following an interview with DWD Secretary-designee Amy Pechacek.