Jude and Angela Doty believe in instilling a strong work ethic in their seven children
and have clashed with the state over how they have gone about it.
Posted on 07/08/2004 8:32:22 AM PDT by ppaul
Labor laws and personal beliefs collide
YAKIMA Jude Doty has spent the past 15 years whittling his life philosophy down to a motto: home birth, home school and home business.
To live by those words, he says, is his right.
To fight for them is fundamental.
From the head of his sturdy dining-room table, Doty speaks rapid-fire about his efforts to preserve his family amid a society he says is eroding around him. His Bible lies near one hand, a history book near the other.
Doty's fight has pitted him against the state, which says he violated child-labor laws by bringing his two eldest sons, Zach, now 15, and Stephen, 12, to work at his construction business. The resulting fines have effectively put him out of business and could cost him the very thing that's central to his ideology: his home.
Jude and Angela Doty believe in instilling a strong work ethic in their seven children
and have clashed with the state over how they have gone about it.
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He says he's willing to fight the state as long as it takes. The law, Doty says, should make exceptions for kids working with their parents, even if the work is dangerous. He wonders why his family is being singled out when kids can hop on a snowmobile or run a combine without the state stepping in.
As Doty makes his case, his wife, Angela, drifts in and out of the dining room, rising at intervals to tend to their seven children and to fix lunch. The boys are outside, flying down hills on their horses. The baby is crying upstairs.
All this activity is typical in the Dotys' renovated colonial home, which also serves as a school, church and recreational center for the family of Christian fundamentalists. As someone practices the piano, Doty explains that he's raising his eldest sons to be followers of the Lord: hard workers and good Christians, like boys were a century ago.
"Youth in the past were productive," he said. "Young men should be like trees, producing fruit."
But the state Department of Labor & Industries says Doty is exposing his boys to jobs that are simply too dangerous for kids so young. A state administrative-law judge recently ruled against Doty, but he has appealed the ruling in the hope that the laws will change.
L&I officials say Doty's case is the most tenacious campaign they've seen against child-labor standards. They say it could force the state to change its laws.
"This could be something big," said Reuel Paradis, Yakima regional administrator for the department. "This could be absolutely business as usual or the Department of Labor and Industries misinterpreting the public policy, and then that becomes pretty earth-shattering."
Backhoes and bulldozers
The dispute started in January 2003, when Doty's house-moving business was hired to move a block of houses to make room for Yakima Memorial Hospital's expansion. L&I received several phone calls, some from Doty's co-workers, who were alarmed at the work Zach and Stephen were doing for their dad.
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The boys, 13 and 11 at the time, were riding on the peak of a house as it moved down the street, callers reported, pushing up low-hanging traffic lights. They were flagging traffic at construction sites, driving bulldozers and backhoes, and they seldom if ever wore protective gear. Fueling fears for the boys' safety, a backhoe flipped with Zach inside. "My bottom line is that these children should have an opportunity to survive to adulthood," Paradis said. "I absolutely support [Doty] in his contention that he was in the right to teach his children a work ethic, but I also really believe that there are jobs that aren't appropriate for some age groups."
Child-labor laws in the United States were put into effect in 1938 as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which also established a minimum wage and overtime laws. Changes have been rare.
Washington laws, updated in 1991, are more strict than federal ones. They put tighter limits on when kids can work, for how long and in what occupations.
State laws say no one under 18 is allowed to do the kind of work the boys were doing, and the rules explicitly prohibit children from working backhoes and bulldozers, flagging traffic and working on rooftops.
In February 2003, Yakima Superior Court issued a preliminary injunction that banned the kids from all of their father's construction sites. Doty contested the order, but the court upheld it. L&I fined him $26,000 for the labor violations; he appealed.
In late May, a state administrative-law judge ruled in favor of L&I, saying that children who work for their parents are not exempt from child-labor laws.
"Children 11 and 13 years of age are generally inexperienced at exercising sound and independent judgment necessary for work in inherently dangerous activities," wrote the judge, Chris Blas. "Mere supervision in these occupations is insufficient to cure the inherent dangers."
Doty says he was expecting the ruling and has appealed it to the director of L&I. From there, the case could be appealed to Yakima County Superior Court.
Paradis is confident that his department will prevail. But if Doty wins, L&I will take a hard look at the rules, he said.
This isn't the first time Doty's beliefs have run counter to the law. He's been arrested a dozen times, he says, maybe more. In 1983, he was charged with third-degree assault after spanking an 18-month-old boy with a stick, Kittitas County Superior Court records show. Doty, who believes in corporal punishment, was running a homeless shelter in Ellensburg at the time and disciplined the boy, with his mother's permission, for "acting up at the supper table." A jury found him not guilty.
He's also been battling L&I on other fronts. He has been audited five times since 1990 for such violations as failing to have industrial insurance and inaccurately reporting employees' hours. He was fined $107,000 for erroneously reporting hours for workers-compensation insurance and $4,400 for violating state health-and-safety laws.
Fighting it has tied up all his assets, Doty says. Half his construction equipment has been repossessed, and he's lost his contractor's license and insurance, he said. He hasn't been able to move a house in more than a year. Without income, he and his family have been scrimping by, he said, and his home is being foreclosed on.
Despite everything, he remains optimistic.
"I think I'll come out pretty well," he said. "But in the meantime, it's brutal."
Although the Dotys say they aren't anti-government, they keep to themselves and believe the strongest influences on family should come from religion.
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Doty and his wife, a certified home-school teacher and former Christian-school teacher, teach their kids at home because public schools don't teach the Christian religion. Conservative literature and history are important in their education, but faith looms larger than anything else.
Faith, Doty says, will sustain his family.
"I have a big-enough vision and a great-enough God to keep [this family] intact," he said.
The Dotys are not alone in their belief that work is an important part of education.
The home-school movement often butts heads with federal labor law, said Chris Klicka, senior counsel with the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, a national nonprofit advocacy group. Some home-school supporters believe children should be taught skills in apprentice-type situations, but laws prohibit work that takes place during school hours.
Klicka cited the Michigan case of a home-schooled girl who was prohibited by state child-labor laws from practicing sign language as an interpreter in a public school because she would have been working there during school hours.
"We're into modern living, and there's so much more available to a child and more preparation that they need for life," Klicka said. "Times have changed, and labor laws need to change with them."
Instilling a work ethic
Doty learned his work ethic as one of seven children raised on a farm in Indiana. Public school failed him, he said, and he received most of his education on the farm.
The work was dangerous. When he was 8 or 9, he cut off four fingers at the knuckle while using a buzz saw. They were sewn back on.
"Losing an arm or a leg is not the end of the world," he said. "But losing your soul would be a bad situation."
Doty was supervising his sons' work and knows it was hazardous. But for him, that's not the point.
For his wife, overseeing children is the key in teaching them to go it alone. Having the boys work with their father, she says, is like learning to cook: Kids are taught under a watchful eye until they're ready to handle a hot stove.
Angela Doty says her boys enjoy working with their dad because it provides them a strong male role model and a set of skills.
"[They've] got a dad that cares," she said. "My children beg to go to work with their dad."
Zach and Stephen say they are itching to get back to work. Leaning on the desk in the family's school room, their eyes light up when they talk about the equipment they operated and the time they spent with their dad.
The Dotys say numerous activities, skateboarding, snowmobiling and horseback riding, to name a few, imperil children far more than construction work does.
And Jude Doty wants to know why kids on farms can use tractors, combines and other heavy machinery while his boys are banned from backhoes.
The answer is steeped in history and politics, says James Gregory, a history professor at the University of Washington who specializes in labor studies. In Washington and across the country, farms are treated differently than the industrial world.
"We have a strong tradition of thinking about farming as sort of noble and protected and nonindustrial," Gregory said. "Someone that says, 'I want my kids to work with me on the family farm,' seems to be saying something a little different than, 'I want my kids to work with me at the factory.' "
There is an inherent contradiction in that position, he acknowledges, but he says lawmakers have to draw the line somewhere.
"This is a reasonable distinction," he said, "not a perfect one."
On top of that, farm lobbies are wealthy, powerful and tough to beat. Few people are willing to take on such a venerable institution.
'I'm doing right'
Doty's lawyer, Raymond Alexander, says L&I is interpreting child-labor laws too broadly. Doty's sons should be exempt because they are his children, not his employees, Alexander says.
"L&I is basically saying that anytime any parent has their child do any work that isn't housework or farm work, they're going to be considered an employee," Alexander said. "That has staggering ramifications."
Alexander wants the laws rewritten to make it easier for parents to teach their kids skills and a work ethic.
But relaxing the rules could open the system to abuse, Paradis said. It could allow parents to work their kids in any way they like.
If a judge rules for the state, the boys will be considered Doty's employees and be subject to child-labor laws. They would not be allowed to work with him.
If a ruling goes Doty's way, the boys could return to the job sites and resume their training, but with restrictions: Doty would have to comply with state health-and-safety rules and federal labor laws, so the boys wouldn't be able to do a lot of the work they were doing: no driving backhoes, no working on rooftops, no directing traffic.
While the case plays out, Doty lingers around the house to spend time with the boys, watching his livelihood wither and feeling attacked. His patience is wearing thin.
"I'm not going to be sheepish about it, and I'm not going to be apologetic," he said. "I'm doing right."
Lisa Heyamoto: 206-464-2149 or lheyamoto@seattletimes.com
"And I'm sure all your friends call you MacGyver."
I've always contended that if you want to get something built that is not only going to work but will be built in the least amount of time and cost and work the first time out get a hot rodder from the 40s or 50s to design and build it.
Back then you didn't go to the local speed shop with a fat wallet to go fast, you had to first figure out something that would accomplish it and then build it.
Without being taught in school, you became innovative, a design engineer, a machinist, a mechanic, an welder, etc. or you remained an also ran.
The law in this case seems to make a distinction- farm work is excepted. People are romantic about family farms, I guess.
What about the frontier parents whose kids helped fight off marauding Indians? What kind of ethics were they instilling in their children?
At the time, everyone had to pitch in to survive. Here, we're talking about a parent who is putting his kids in danger to make some sort of moral point. Though his desire to teach his kids about the work ethic is admirable, the way he has chosen to do so is not.
Tell that to the Marines and soldiers fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the firefighters who died in the WTC. How old are they?
" Here, we're talking about a parent who is putting his kids in danger to make some sort of moral point."
Not if he started training them from the time thay were born as I was.
Why are you such a big fan of making kids work in dangerous situations? I don't have kids yet, but I imagine when I do, I'll try to avoid putting them in unnecessary danger.
oh yes of course, all the what-ifs, try staying on point and stop using your BS what-if's as strawmen
Perhaps someone needs to spend 10 minutes with you.
are threats how you normally communicate?
dalereed has already said that he would have no problems with allowing 14 year-olds performing in pornography, so long as they had their parent's permission.
I'm asking a simple question: Since you seem to be okay with 12 year-olds working in construction, would you be okay with them working as strippers, porn stars or prostitutes? (where prostitution is legal)
"I don't have kids yet, but I imagine when I do"
That gives away your age as being from a generation that wants to be risk free.
I grew up being taught to take risks and will continue to do so. You will probably be tickled to death when my generation is dead and gone.
No. I just don't see the need to put kids in unnecessary danger. What's the point of going out of your way to make a kid's life more dangerous?
I grew up being taught to take risks and will continue to do so.
That's fine, but there's a difference between you, a consenting adult, putting yourself in danger and a kid being put in danger by his parents. The kid doesn't know enough to make decisions for himself and his parents certainly have no right to put him in a dangerous situation.
You will probably be tickled to death when my generation is dead and gone.
I have no real opinion on your generation.
"The kid doesn't know enough to make decisions for himself"
You don't know that, I certainly did at that age and was raised to make those kind of evaluations and decisions.
"Still the parents responsibility, not yours or the states. "
The problem with your argument is that there is a third party involved - the child. Most children do not have the capacity to defend themselves from abuses by parents. In addition, parents do not have the right to murder, rape, prostitute, or put their children in dangerous situations.
LOL Exactly what have I threatened? To spend 10 minutes with you? Ooohhhhh, scarey.
Loosen your tin foil hat, kid.
That puts you in a different class than the 'master of the house' in the story posted. He taught his kids how to work without the burden of all that safety equipment. I wonder if he has life insurance policies on his boys.
I thought you lived in Squantos Flats???
Actually it's the county jail and no one is sending bail money ?
Did ya see the big Eaker Fireball in the sky last night ? I was sure it was something you were working on gone awry !
Stay safe ............:o)
*sniff* We have always lived in Squatos Heights.
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