A little hard work never hurt anybody.
Twelve and thirteen year old are allowed to work UNLIMITED hours? We are living in a world gone mad. I may never eat another berry again!
Federal agencies that should be terminated to save money have a way of identifying themselves.
I grew up on a family farm. Cotton, wheat and cattle.
I was driving a tractor by the time I was 10. My grandmother taught me to hoe cotton by the time I was that age. We all worked.
It did not hurt me a bit. But the labor laws would not apply, we did not get paid but we helped the family make a living.
When I was young and needing to raise money for school I was happy to find people who wanted to pay me for unlimited time.
After growing up in the the South Carolina lowcountry, count me as unmoved by ABC’s phony outrage.
Just doing the jobs Adult Americans refuse to do.
Ever been on a farm.....you start at dawn...then come in for breakfast....go back to work, come in for lunch, and maybe a nap, then depending upon the time of year, you are done, or you go back out and work until dinner....Agriculture is NOT like working in an office....and there’s NOTHINg wrong with kids working...in fact, it is preferable if you ask me to sitting them down for 6 hours in indoctrination centers.
I know how these labor guys work. It happened to us once and now we don’t allow women to bring their children. It isn’t against the law if the children are on the perimeter of the field but if they enter it for any reason you can get fined.
So what happened was a kid was following his mother and they were going to fine us. My husband refused and they said we had to file reports every month and my husband refused and they eventually went away and left us alone.
Just recently they showed up again. Their complaint is that the crew that is working for us is coming in a van and there are too many people riding in the van and if they get in an accident on the way to work we are going to be responsible. My husband said that we would then see them in court.
A little hard work never hurt anybody.
Never hurt me or my siblings, we hated field work, soon as we were able we got out of it and went on to other things. But a work ethic installed at an early age to earn your keep and work for what you get is likely the best gift parents can bestow on their children.
They fed us well and we all had a lot of fun. Little did we know that we were part time slaves.
Where was OSHA when I needed them? LOL
Hey, there’s some jobs that their small finfers are ideally suited for. They can pick the berry but not hurt the plant.
When we were kids in boyscouts we spent a whole summer cutting and bailing hay and pulling poisonous weeds from a farmer’s pasture.
Our troop leaders called it the “Agriculture Merit Badge”
Hell - we didn’t even get paid!
thats “fingers”,, apparently whiskey affects my spelling. Odd,,,
“ABC News Investigation: The Blueberry Children”
Oct. 30, 2009
The Obama administration's Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, promised a crackdown on child labor violations after taking office.
This summer, labor inspectors cited blueberry growers in North Carolina, Arkansas and New Jersey for using children in their fields, with fines averaging $1,100 per child.
We need more Federal raids.
I picked beans and berries on farms and I’m better for it. Also mowed lawns scooped snow and split firewood; I don’t remember a gun to my head just money in my pocket.
I like strawberries and I like kids.
Win-win.
If the kids were missing out on school, they should be fined to the hilt but since this was during the summer, the Feds should butt out and let the parents make the decision about what kind of work (if any) their children should do during the summer.
From reading the article, it seems that these youngsters were subcontracted employees of their picker-parents, rather than hired hands of the farmers.
Let’s find out to whom the checks were written.
Benefits to the parents are two fold: increased earnings with no increase in their toiling; and no child care outlay...and the farmer takes it in shorts when the inspectors arrive.
Next step: parents sue the farmer for “exploiting” them.