Limiting Child Labor
Limiting Child Labor. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.
Like a lot of kids who grew up in the 50‘s and 60‘s my first job was working on a farm. It taught me the meaning of good hard work. Well the Department of Labor is proposing new regulations that would severely limit the ability of kids under the age of 16 to work on the nation’s farms and ranches.
SCHLEGEL: Under the law, children working for their parents on a farm can do any chores at any age, but the department is interpreting that provision fairly narrowly so that it might even jeopardize the ability of brothers and sisters or cousins who jointly operate a farm through a business partnership to have any of their children work for it. The department is contending they might view those children as working for the partnership as opposed to one of the parents.
American Farm Bureau Labor Specialist Paul Schlegel says the proposed rules could even have a big impact on FFA – or Future Farmers of America.
SCHLEGEL: FFA is very concerned about the exemptions they currently have for training and educating young people who want to know what it’s like to work on a farm. They would narrow those exemptions quite substantially. They’re saying that they will not allow youth under the age of 16 to operate any power-driven equipment and the way they define power-driven is anything other than hand or foot power. So if you take the department literally they are saying you cannot use a flashlight; you cannot use a weed whacker. They don’t want youth under 16 herding livestock on horseback. It would come pretty close to eliminating any work on a tractor. They also have a provision which prevents youth under the age of 16 working at any level which is greater than six feet so if it’s the hayloft, if it’s getting up on the combine, if it’s getting on a ladder to pick apples. If it’s more than 6 feet, those are all going to be out the window.
Under the proposed rules it appears the Labor Department would allow a kid to use his family’s lawnmower to make some extra cash from the neighbors, but a farmer couldn’t hire that same kid to mow using the farmer’s lawnmower. Schlegel says that suggests safety isn’t really the issue.
SCHLEGEL: We don’t think youth should be working in positions for which they are either not qualified or not old enough or too hazardous. But we don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath to say for instance a youth under 16 can’t even clean a tractor or paint the side of a barn. They need to recognize that there’s a lot of rewards and a lot of education and a lot of things that are very positive about working on a farm and we want to make sure we have a future generation of farmers coming along, growing food and fiber in the future.
That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
