(MintPress)– The US House Small Business Subcommittee on Agriculture, Energy and Trade held a hearing in early February to address regulations pertaining to the safety of youth employees in agriculture. The hearing was held in response to child labor regulation changes proposed by the Department of Labor (DOL) last fall.
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which sets minimum age limits for work, maximum work-hours per day and week, and minimum wages current policy on child labor in the United States, has not been updated for child labor regulations in 40 years. The current law provides exemptions for children working in agriculture, making it legal for children as young as 12 to work unlimited hours, outside of school, with parental consent.
According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), over 100 youth die annually from farm-related injuries. Proposed changes to child labor regulations would prohibit employees under the age of 16 from operating dangerous machinery and from using electronic devices while operating power-driven equipment.
The regulations would also prohibit workers under the age of 18 from working in grain elevators, grand bins, silos, feedlots, feed yards, stockyards, livestock exchanges, and livestock auctions, which are deemed to be highly dangerous environments.
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Protecting the Family Farm
Under pressure from farm groups, the DOL amended its proposal last week to allow broader exemptions for farms in which a parent is a partial owner or has substantial interests in a farm partnership, such as an officer of a corporation.
Previously, the proposal only exempted children who work on farms that were wholly owned by the parent. Despite the changes, many farm groups are still opposed to the legislation.
Critics argue that even with the changes, youth will be prohibited from working on the farms of friends and neighbors. Farm groups including the FFA, Farm Bureau, West Virginia Dept. of Agriculture, and various House representatives all attended the February hearing to voice their concerns.
Senator Paul McKinley (R-IA) said, “We believe that Iowa farm families are better at ensuring the safety and wellbeing of their children than bureaucrats in Washington.” McKinley, among others, believes the new regulations would prohibit farm families from providing educational opportunities for young people to learn about agriculture in a responsible manner.
Nancy Leppink, deputy administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the Labor Department, tried to assure farm groups that agricultural educational programs would not be affected by the regulations.
“The proposed rule would not eliminate safety programs that are provided by organizations such as 4-H and the FFA…nor would the regulation apply to situations where a child is raising a pig as part of her 4-H project, or taking the pig she has raised to sell at a county fair or market on her own behalf,” said Leppink.
Chairman Scott Tipton (R-CO) believes the entire proposal should be tossed out and that the Obama administration is trying to solve a problem that does not exist. “The federal government’s own statistics and analysis show that between 1998-2009 nonfatal farm-related accidents involving youth have declined by more than 50%” said Tipton.
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Who are Child Farmworkers?
Despite the decline Tipton reported in nonfatal farm-related accidents among youth, over 15,000 youth were injured on farms in 2010. While fatal and nonfatal accidents do occur on family-operated farms, many child farmworkers facing dangerous working conditions are hired employees.
In 2006, farm operators reported hiring over 200,000 children under age 18. The number is estimated to be closer to 400,000 today. Human Rights Watch reports that nearly 40 percent of hired youth farmworkers are mobile workers who routinely travel to find work.
Many child workers are forced into farm work because of financial desperation and a sense of family responsibility. Poverty among farmworkers is double that of all wage and salary employees.
Human Rights Watch believes that current child labor laws have a disparate impact on racial and ethnic minorities, particularly farmworkers of Hispanic descent. The organization also believes that the majority of child farmworkers are documented American citizens, whose farmworker parents would have given birth in the US.
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What are the risks?
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the fatality rate for agricultural workers ages 15 to 17 is 4.4 times greater than that of the average worker in that age range. The majority of deaths occur in workers ages 16-19; however, fatal accidents affect farmworkers of all ages.
Last July, two 14 year-old workers died in an electrocution incident while removing corn tassels at a Monsanto Corp. farm in northwestern Illinois. In August, two 17 year-old workers suffered severe injuries after becoming trapped while operating a large grain auger at the Zaloudek Grain Co. in Oklahoma.
The majority of fatal injuries to youth farmworkers involved machinery, followed by motor vehicles and drowning. Other risks to youth farmworkers include pesticide exposure, extreme climate exposure, working at extreme heights, and more.
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An Urban vs. Rural Debate
Advocates of stricter child labor regulations believe the recently proposed regulation changes will fix the double standards in the FLSA that fail to protect farmworkers like those at the Zaloudek Grain Co. in Oklahoma.
However, debate around the issue of child farmworker protections has turned into a highly politicized issue. Critics believe that the bureaucrats from large cities have no place in the debate over child farmworker legislation.
Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT), a fifth-generation rancher, says his is appalled that the government would “expect this one size fits all knowledge from Washington, DC to try and determine what is appropriate for agriculture in a state like Montana.”
Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) believes that instead of having an urban vs. rural debate, “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.”
Source: MintPress