Department of Labor orders Little Sunshine Playhouse operator to reinstate employee fired for reporting food safety concerns to state health officials

DALLAS – The U.S. Department of Labor has ordered the Southlake location of a national childcare provider to reinstate an employee and pay $43,295 in back wages and damages after the employer fired them for reporting concerns about unsanitary and unsafe conditions in the facility’s kitchen to Texas health officials. 

An investigation by the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration found LSP Operations LLC, operating as Little Sunshine Playhouse Operations, retaliated against the employee for engaging in actions protected by the Food Safety Modernization Act. The Southlake location is a subsidiary of the privately owned, Little Sunshine’s Enterprises Inc. in Springfield, Missouri.

Specifically, the employee alerted the company and the Texas Department of Health and Human Services in August 2023 that the facility’s kitchen was not being cleaned overnight, an unsanitary area was used for food preparation and food was stored at unsafe temperatures. The employee told investigators they suffered severe rashes caused by the kitchen’s conditions. 

“Our investigation found Little Sunshine Playhouse Operations punished an employee who reported unsafe and unsanitary conditions in the facility’s kitchen out of concerns for the health of infants, young children and staff,” said OSHA Regional Administrator Eric S. Harbin in Dallas. “Every employee has the legally protected right to warn others about safety concerns and the right to do so without fear of an employer’s retaliation.”

In addition to ordering Little Sunshine Playhouse to reinstate the worker and pay back wages and damages, OSHA directed the employer to pay $5,500 in attorney’s fees. 

Little Sunshine’s Enterprises Inc. operates 35 early learning centers for children ages six weeks through pre-kindergarten in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas. 

OSHA’s Whistleblower Protection Program enforces whistleblower provisions of the Food Safety Modernization Act and more than 20 whistleblower statutes which protect employees from retaliation for reporting workplace safety and health violations. For more information on whistleblower protections, visit OSHA's Whistleblower Protection Programs webpage.

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Editor’s note: The U.S. Department of Labor does not release the names of employees involved in whistleblower complaints.