Child labor rules rile rural lawmakers
By Rachel Leven - 12/02/11 07:00 AM ET
Rural-state lawmakers and agriculture groups are up in arms about new Labor Department regulations that would limit the work that young people can do on farms.
Farming groups are worried the rules would affect children’s ability to earn money, work for their families and learn “life lessons” while training to work in agriculture.
A group of more than 70 lawmakers in the House, led by Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), sent a letter to the Labor Department that said the rule “challenges the conventional wisdom of what defines a family farm in the United States.”
In an interview with The Hill, Rehberg said the proposals are coming from officials who do not understand rural life.
“You’ve got a president of the United States … from Chicago, you’ve got a director for secretary of Labor who’s pushing this from Los Angeles, and you have to think to yourself, do you have any idea what it’s like not just to run an agricultural business in a rural state … but to raise a family in one?” said Rehberg, who is a fifth-generation rancher.
“In many cases this is the very culture of our history … Sometimes I wonder if the people who are running our government right now think food comes from a grocery store,” Rehberg said.
Health advocates assert that children are often at risk of injury or death while working in agriculture.
Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.), who wrote a separate letter in support of the proposed changes, said the farm regulations are not a rural-versus-
urban issue.
“I think that the focus needs to be that there are an estimated 400,000 children working on farms that are not owned by family members and those children are not being protected by our current labor laws,” Roybal-Allard told The Hill.
The proposed rule would forbid children younger than 16 years of age from completing “agricultural work with animals and in pesticide handling, timber operations, manure pits and storage bins.”
It would also forbid farm workers under 16 from handling most “power-driven equipment” and from contributing to the “cultivation, harvesting and curing of tobacco.”
A non-agricultural restriction would also prohibit children younger than 18 years old from working “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.”
None of the rules would apply to children who work on farms operated or owned by their parents.
“Children employed in agriculture are some of the most vulnerable workers in America. Ensuring their welfare is a priority of the department, and this proposal is another element of our comprehensive approach,” Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said in a press release about the proposed regulatory changes.
The fatality rate for child farm workers is four times higher than that of nonagricultural child workers, according to the Labor Department.
Several members of the Nebraska State Legislature signed a letter insisting that necessary safety standards already exist.
For instance, children under 16 years of age would not be allowed to use power-driven equipment under the new rules. But current regulations only allow those children to “operate heavy equipment” if they have taken a safety course, the letter states.
“Doing away with this exemption will not only reduce the number of youth getting proper training on operating power equipment, but will deny them the experience and responsibility associated with learning to operate the equipment safely and effectively,” said the letter, which was signed by more than 30 Nebraska state senators.
AFL-CIO Industrial Hygienist Bill Kojola noted there have been equally stringent regulations for non-agriculture work.
“We ought not have a situation where child workers in non-agricultural settings are protected and, on the other hand, kids in agriculture aren’t protected,” Kojola said.
One key dispute is who would be exempt from the new regulations.
Rehberg said that if parents don’t have full ownership of their property — a common situation — the family exemption would not apply.
“It is so difficult to pass ranches or farms from generation to generation; oftentimes it’s the only retirement your parents have. So you buy the farm or the ranch from them,” Rehberg explained, saying that constitutes only partial ownership.
American Farm Bureau Federation labor specialist Paul Schlegel emphasized that many larger farms are partially owned by families under LLCs or corporations, but are done so “for tax reasons or state purposes.”
“When you have ownership patterns that … are organized around a certain business model, we don’t think that that model should drive how the Department of Labor implements their authority under the law,” Schlegel said. “We think that a family farm is a family farm.”
But Roybal-Allard said that most farms are not “the traditional family farm that we were talking about back in 1910.” The real focus needs to be what the regulations would do to protect children, she said.
A Labor Department spokesman said “the regulation would not impact” families who partially own or partially operate a farm.
The way the current regulation is worded makes lawmakers and agriculture groups worry, however.
“There’s apparently a big difference between what the rule actually says and how the Department of Labor promises to interpret it. The future of the family farm is too important to leave to the whims of how the next Labor secretary or the next administration decides to interpret these rules,” Rehberg said.
Rehberg also called much of the other language in the proposed regulation “egregious.” For instance, children under 16 would not be allowed to help in any tasks that involve inflicting pain, like branding or vaccinating.
“If you were to take your baby to have its vaccinations, you’re going to have to take it to get shots in the arm or in the butt and it’s going to hurt. How do you say a vaccination is inflicting pain even if it’s keeping the animal healthy? That’s not very bright,” he said.
The proposed regulation says vaccinating animals is a dangerous situation for child workers.
Rehberg said the next move for the Labor Department should be to withdraw the proposed changes.
The Labor Department has been flooded with more than 6,000 comments about the new rules. Some farmers weighed in against the changes.
“The federal government cannot save everyone form [sic] accidents and incidents that happen in life nor should they have the authority to try,” one rancher, Jayde Van Cleave, wrote.
“This nanyism [sic] mentality has gone overboard. The child Labor Regulations has overreached with disregard to how it will affect the very future and security of our country.”
42 Comments
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Kwazai
6 days ago
what you really should read-
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.o...
http://www.thesurvivalistblog....
http://www.threethriftyguys.co...
seems most of these 'trivial' tidbits were learned as 'kids' working on farms....
I wonder how many would aplly outside of agricultrue?
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Old_Beancounter
2 months ago
Subtitle "Do you know what pig s*it tastes like?"
I am one of those "abused" farm kids. By 8 I was doing chores every morning at 4AM, castrating hogs, working ground, hauling manure, blah, blah.
I didn't want some "smart, privileged" lawyer explaining why I shouldn't have to do that.
I've been white collar for 40 years since then. I still don't care much for the folks who do all the talking and little of the work.
Those days taught me how to work, which I practice a lot; that makes it possible for someone else to freeload or just sit around and think.
Our country would be a lot better off with less soft lawyers and more honest workers who had done the kind of work that helped them learn to work.
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Carol Gray
3 months ago
I grew up on a small family farm. I drove a tractor by 10yrs of age, and helped get the cattle in the corral for branding and vaccinations by the age of 8. I have pulled calves by myself at age 12, way before cell phones. When both parents were off the farm at jobs required in town to keep the family going. I knew responsiblity, I knew if we lost that calf and or mama cow, what it would mean financially to my family. I have slaughtered animals for food, and teach/and have taught all my children the same. We didn't fully own our farm. So, I guess since I can't possibly own my land until around the year 2020, that I will be committing an criminal offense. I will choose to do it anyway. Me and mine will survive. I will continue to have my garden and save my own seeds, just as my grandparents did before me. On land they worked, but did not own. They were called SHARECROPPERS, a word our country was built on. Get your whiney snot nosed crybaby attitudes out of my life. Farmers feed you.
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Lstansel
2 months ago
I remember our ten year old neighbor girl back in about 1969 riding the strawberry picking bus each day. How proud she was when she earned enough to buy a brand new bicycle! The work didn't hurt her a bit.
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Tanya Fletcher
3 months ago
I am so tired of hearing the Department of Labor say this will only affect kids who parents don't own and operate the business. I wonder I'd they've looked into just how many of the big ranches are no longer owned by individual families but by huge corporations or businessmen because it's not particle for the average person to come in and buy a large working cattle ranch with the price of land and cattle. My kids choose to help on the ranch where we live and work but do not own because they love what we do. Our food does not just come from the grocery store it comes from farms & ranches & these purposes changes could totally change the agriculture community. As for safety I don't think anyone's more concerned than their own parents. To compare city/town jobs with agriculture jobs is like comparing apples & oranges there totally different things.
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Wimpey Popeye
2 months ago
I watched a boy of 12 on a farm wire weld his mother's car seat back together and reupholster it, run a skid steer to move bales of hay to feed cows, grind & mix the feed etc. The kids I seen as a whole, on the farms grow up to be more responsible, hard working adults. Not like the majority of kids today who are lazy and ignorant and no skills. The 12 year I saw is now a highly skilled and valued adult in his community. Speaking of ignorant, the kids growing up on farms tend to have a real head on their shoulders and not swayed by the liberal "mush" being shoveled at them by the media, schools, government etc. Maybe the government sees them as a threat as non-conformists.
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Kwazai
6 days ago
It should be legislation to encourage 'urban' farms (vertical or otherwise).
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Jasan
1 month ago
Good deal then, eliminate all safe guards and if the kid gets stuck in an auger and looses an arm, well he has another one. If the kid gets sick from chemicals, there own fault. Like I am sure the parents will not be taking the auger manufacturer to court either, nor the chemical company. Everything is all good until someone looses an eye.
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Kwazai
6 days ago
Tobacco feilds for 40$ a day wouldn't fit in your work vocabulary would it.
Most lazy- take sunup to sundown for their 40$- I'd rather be swimming at 1 in the afternoon- so bust a.. and get er done....
A co-op farm at that.
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Journe
3 months ago
Federal Gov't. AGAIN should not be involved in this type of decision or regulation. At the most, it should be a state or County 'oversee' that knows the needs of individual farmers needs or business. Newt Gingrich, candidate for President, says he wants "poor or inner city kids to work as Janitors so they learn the value of work". Guess that leaves the richer kids to do their drugs or selling them in their free time? Personally, I think any teenager, 13 and up, should be allowed to work IF they choose and their parents approve. My sons found little local jobs in young teens, earned a few dollars, praise and still studied hard and now all successful adults. They chose it, I checked it out and approved and Our business. I do not approve of any kind of Forced labor of kids taken off the streets as I have seen that happen years back in the South, where kids were Pulled out of School to go Pick Cotton for CENTS a day. It was horrible to see. Keep the FEDS out of local and privatge lives.
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Karen
3 months ago
Guess we won't see any proud 10-year-old kids holding blue ribbons at the stock shows and fairs.
No more 4H, no FFA and less kids going off to college to refine the business aspects of farming.
REAL farmers don't learn from a book, they learn from farming.
Are the Amish exempt? Have these yo-yos never heard the term apprentice? I'm a city girl and I have learned SO much on our family farms! This is a stupid bill.
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WanderlustMisfit
2 months ago
ridiculous regulations, restraining the freedoms of Americans once again.
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Ggm281
2 months ago
Yep complain about the high cost of college tuition, but prohibit kids from earning any money so that they can reduce their dependence on loans. Typical leftist logic. They accept money from so many disparate groups that they can't help but come off as hypocrites. In this case, the good old farm workers' union who started the push to put limits on teen labor back in the 1980's is obviously back in a position of leverage.
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Thomas Macso
2 months ago
I just don't understand why people from the farming areas don't understand that a Harvard educated lawyer knows better. Get with the program people of the farming communities, after all food comes from the grocery stores.
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Carole Fisher
3 months ago
Author-rancher Linda Hussa writes: "Modern America offers few other situations where the family enterprise continues to thrive as it does on ranches. Entire families work together for the good of the common enterprise. Within that context, children are encouraged to think outside the "self" by connecting them to the welfare of animals, land, water, and the community of neighbors, contributing to their development as responsible, productive citizens - the very qualities of leaders." - The Family Ranch.
Please stop this new regulations from breathing life. It will diminish this quintessenially American culture, and tear at the fabric of ranch families who raise our most healthy food, and the generations of real people who provide it to us.
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Farm Villager
3 months ago
As a worker grew up in a small farm community and now who facilitates farmers who hire temporary work visa foreign workers, the child labor restrictions are ridiculous. The proposals are undoubtably products of someone completely ignorant of farm work or family businesses. Almost all current farmers either grew up on farms or worked on them as children. Injuries are rare compared to most industries. Would you rather the farmer hire a foreign worker to do the job the child could do? A child who very likely will grow up to own a farm or start some other business? That's right, farm kids are more likely to become entrepreneurs. My family owned a dry cleaning business, in which I worked frequently as a child as young as seven. I also worked on farms, did yard work, brush clearing, fished and hunted with a (Oh, my God!) shotgun. Those experiences provided invaluable lessons and skills which I use even to this day, including responsibility, accountability, self-sufficiency, money management, respect, just to name a few. Looking back I would have been sorely handicapped as an adult if I had not done those jobs.
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GOOSE
3 months ago
This is the Government over reaching into our lives. This is how a small family farm survives and these pencil neck idiots in Washington are so far out of touch it's discusting.
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Kwazai
6 days ago
at 14 driving a truck to the barn to load with feed (grain,bales of hay,etc) to take to the pasture(or pen). Cleaning stalls(sic) is next?
And the first chicken(pig,cow,steer,whatever) has a name- the rest are food.
get real- sounds like you might be ready for a 'manicure'....
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Tmaster
1 month ago
Where in the constution did they get the power to regulate our farms that are not involved in interstate commerce?
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Frizzlekatz
1 month ago
So when I grew up in MIchigan I shouldn't have been made to shovel snow? Rake leaves? Pull weeds? Come on! I survived, and you know what? My friends and I were not obese!
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Reverend Ira L Lewi
3 months ago
We are a Nation of sovereign laws that make us a civil Nation and child labor is barbarick and cannibal. To have our Children working is uncivilized because it is intended for them to stay children to play and get an education. People like Newt Gingrich, who suggest child labor is absurd and he know that but he is certainly not including that/those grandchildren of his, that he will not have them performing child labor. But, in case he is frank about such a comment, then it is definite proof that he is poisinous to our Presidency. We don't need vagabonds among distinguished men, who have done their best to continue the sovereign blessing that God have made by His Guiding Hand... Reverend Ira L Lewis Austin, TX tririason@gmail.com. Thank You.
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Dennis Nutter
3 months ago
Here is another instance of over regulation by people who don't have a clue what goes on in agribusiness. My kids were taught safety from the get go. our nieces and nephews considered it a real privilege to come out and spend time on the farm. This bill would eliminate their being able to experience farm life. They don't get an allowance for taking out the trash: they get paid for feeding the animals and yes, veterinary work is a important part of farm life. Over all, farm kids are much more responsible than their counterparts in the city. They learn a work ethic from an early age and love what they do. I don't know where the 4% statistic came from but city kids don't even operate a lawn mower so how can you compare the two. If you keep putting roadblocks and more stupid regulations on everything, it won't be long before a real revolt takes place. You'll only push and shove the farmer so far before they stand still. Is this the best our representatives can do, more and more regulations instead of doing something worthwhile like working to stop spending money we don't have...
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Dan
3 months ago
You are going to stop kids from helping out with the family farms. That is just crazy. Why would you want to create even more generations of non workers. You don't want kids to work on a farm because they might get hurt,but you'll let them play sports. We all have chores and responsibilities as we grow up and learn to be better adults.
Do not let these people get away with this ridiculous law.
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Reverend Ira L Lewi
3 months ago
It is UnConstitutional about the gains that this Sovereign Nation have made for us to become a civil Nation. Thinking about Child Labor takes my mind back to the immediate Post-Civil War Era, when as a people, we did not consider the value of Youth. The Children are intended to be children of their youth and to get a healthy education. Any industrial business, should make a fair profit that they are able to hire adult age workers. It is time that The People, who are the sole power of The Sovereignty of our Government to our place of civily run our Government. It time to take our Sovereign Government away from the corrupt politicians, who are funded by corrupt ideology of renegade businesses/corporations that are stealing resourced tax dollars that are intended to provide a living for The People of our Government.
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eddyjames
3 months ago
Children should only be employed at safe non-farming jobs. Such as selling Crack on the street corners in Chicago and Los Angeles.?
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Farmer Charlie
3 months ago
And here we see another example of what happens when Congress cedes its lawmaking power to a bureaucracy that can make regulations that carry the force of law.
The family farm is poised to make a comeback and more and more people come to realize how toxic our industrial food model is to us, to the land, to our waterways, and to the animals we raise to provide our protein. The "eat local" or "locavore" movement is on the rise and the FDA, USDA, and the big ag conglomerates see it as a threat to their power. They will use any means at their disposal, like this proposed child labor regulation, the FDA's recent crackdowns on raw milk producers, and others (Watch the new documentary Farmageddon for details), to take away our freedom to choose what we feed ourselves.
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Capn Rusty
3 months ago
Freedom is risk. The nannycrats in Washington, far removed from the reality of life in America, smugly considering themselves far superior to it, in the guise of protecting us dumb slobs from ourselves, are destroying that freedom by taking away our right to make decisions for ourselves. We have to take a stand, now, while some of us are still around to tell the next generations what freedom was like.
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GOOSE
3 months ago
And these Regulations should be Approved by the Congress and not some left wingnut..
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Mon
3 months ago
Most likely more kids get murdered in inner cities than work related accidents.
Any uppity urban academia type should be prevented of any and all decision making that is way, way outside their area of expertise. Guess that would mean all of Obama's appointees.
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signspeaker
3 months ago
These same Liberals don't mind organizing the "children" for marches and managing their minute daily activities, parents or not. Red sashes are coming......
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Bruce Lynn
3 months ago
What business is it for anyone in the government to put ANY restrictions on any farm or other business? It is not their job period! It is far past the time to take our country back from these incompetent asse's...
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grenadier
3 months ago
The US Labor Secretary, Hilda Solis, is a well-known communist sympathizer and pro-amnesty for illegal aliens. (Google Solis's speeches) Solis is not concerned about the welfare of farm children especially white American children. Her concern is the hiring of illegal aliens to do the farm work that she will not allow the kids to do.
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pemon dupree
3 months ago
If its the later, I have seen those kids go to farms and LOVE it. .... My point exactly! Glad to see you agree.
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ccfonten
3 months ago
Just more government nanny meddling. Kids have been working in and on farms since humans learned how to grow food and raise animals to eat. Yes, it can be dangerous, but so can walking to school in the cities. We cannot protect our children by putting them in a bubble of protection. The lessons learned while working on a farm or ranch can be invaluable to kids later in life.
There is nothing wrong with good hones hard work.
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Hey Boy
3 months ago
Don't cuss the farmer with your mouth full!
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Stephen McDow
3 months ago
Furthermore, the "inner-city" children going to farm areas to do some real work. Which "inner-city" people are you talking about? Is it those children of white-collard workers that intern in offices and or summer camps? Or, is it those "inner-city" children that often lose out on jobs because of pedigree and guidance? If its the later, I have seen those kids go to farms and LOVE it.
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Such BS
3 months ago
Putting Kids to work on Farms is not the future and not an investment in education. We kill off the small farmers and import food and then say, Farms are the Future! No they are not. You can't have it both ways. Self interest... nothing more
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Stephen McDow
3 months ago
I understand the concern. However, Obama I thought lived in rural America before going to Hawaii (sidebar). I find the "inner-city" comment a bit of an insult. I agree that farms, especially due to poor farm legislation, need their young-people in the community to work on the farms. However, what does one do with the fatality rate being 4x higher than any other child? I don't know but I do think we should take a look at the issue. As for the rest of the hill, just because they live in the city now, does not mean they come from the city. So that sweeping assumption bothers me.
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LA RAZA SUPREMACY
3 months ago
BIG AG BIZ has spoken!
BIG AG BIZ senators, the very corrupt sens. FEINSTEIN & BOXER have now three times pushed for a "special amnsety" for 1.5 million "cheap" labor illegals despite the fact that one-third would end up on CA WELFARE!.
CA IS SINKING UNDER THE WEIGHT of the la raza occupation, and obama, feinstein, boxer, pelosi and reid all WANT MORE ILLEGALS!, OPEN BORDERS! NO E-VERIFY(it's now illegal to use in CA), & OPEN BORDERS...
IT'S ALL ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED!
MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com
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Patriotson
3 months ago
This is the degree of knowledge the newest generation, now in government regulatory control, has about life in general. They are the generation that believes milk; eggs and bacon comes from cartons and don't have a clue about what is required to produce the raw products that are consumed in the urban society. I would recommend that before urbanites in regulatory agency's propose a requirement that they know nothing about, they spend 6 months in the industry they are trying to effect (infect) before it is considered. Better yet, ask the Agricultural Dept for advise before attempting egregious regulatory rules on a segment of society that has chosen to make food production their livelyhood.
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