NY Amish Facing Child Labor Law Pressure

The executive director of a New York-based constitutional rights advocacy group says he will be talking with the senator who chairs the state's Labor Committee today during a special session of the State Legislature. At issue is the attempt to resolve a growing problem for some western New York Amish families whom state labor officials say are violating labor laws.

Amish families in Lyndonville have been told the businesses they run in which their minor children, ages 14 to 17, work -- including sawmilling, metalwork, and construction -- have to cease using the children. The Amherst Record newspaper reports labor officials began placing the businesses on notice earlier this summer.

Christian activist and lobbyist Duane Motley of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedom (NYCF) says it is vital to stop the erosion of the Amish families' constitutional rights before it goes any further. The violation of these families' freedoms by New York State labor officials must be checked, he contends, "because, if they can limit the Amish in just this one area, what's going to prohibit them from expanding it into other areas affecting the Amish?

"And, of course," Motley adds, "if you limit the Amish, you've got to limit everybody else." That includes New York's home schooling families, he notes, as home school students often intern with someone in the world of work instead of going to trade school.

The Christian lobbyist says any proposals to help the Amish families through labor law changes have to come through the Labor Committee, which is why he is looking to speak with State Senator George Maziarz. Unfortunately, the NYCF spokesman points out, that committee is also lobbied strongly and regularly by labor unions in the state.

Motley believes the New York unions lobbying the Labor Committee may fear unregulated competition from Amish businesses and therefore may have an interest in blocking any changes to state law that would provide an exception for Amish families or others using minor children as apprentices or workers in particular occupations.

Challenges to the old order cultural tradition of the Amish, which starts young people working with their parents after eighth grade, are causing some families to consider moves as drastic as leaving the state if area lawmakers cannot help them work out a legislative solution. State lawmakers have been quoted as saying they will investigate the issue of whether state labor laws can be modified to accommodate the Amish community's traditional religious practices with regard to their family businesses.

Steve Crampton, chief counsel with the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy, believes constitutional law is on the Amish families' side. He notes that a 1972 Supreme Court ruling in Wisconsin v. Yoder, which provided a precedent establishing Amish families right to keep their children out of public schools, would be in the New York families' favor if they end up having to take the labor matter to court.

Also, the pro-family attorney observes, "The fact that they have so faithfully adhered to their principles and their deeply-held beliefs over a period of centuries really puts them in an unusual ... and a strong factual sort of position to challenge the likes of the New York labor laws."

In other words, the Amish community tradition of introducing its young people early to the world of work has a lengthy history, Crampton explains. So, he says, decades of practice on record that this tradition has not proven hazardous to the children should help the families if the matter has to be resolved in court.

Amish Culture in Clash in WNY

Legalities squeezing Amish
U.S. labor law sets relatively loose guidelines for child employment. There are some limits, in industries such as logging, sawmilling and metalwork, to prevent teens from operating heavy machinery, but the law allows them to do other lighter work.
New York State law, however, bans under-18 employment in those and other industries altogether.
Floyd Yoder, the apple crate maker, says after word came down about the state laws, he called a labor official in Rochester to inquire whether his 14- and 16-year-old boys could at least assemble crates away from the shop floor where the heavy machines are operated. The answer was no, he said.
What exactly the state directed Amish businesses to do, or cease doing, could not be determined. Amy Misisco, a labor investigator in the Rochester office, said officers do not comment on the specifics of any investigation; and a US&J request made under the state Freedom of Information Act could not be met by the Albany-based Department of Labor legal office this week.
Yutzy, the fence-maker and bishop of the Lyndonville Amish Church, says a labor official approached him in mid-summer, as both the settlement spiritual leader and a business owner allegedly in violation of state law, and asked him to spread the word about the rules. The official had difficulty contacting businesses for inspections, Yutzy said, so no citations were ever made — but a copy of the rules was left behind and a crisis was sparked.
“(The official) said his department had received some complaints from local contractors and it is their job to act if complaints are received,” Yutzy said. “It’s been drastic for us. We have families that can’t provide work in their businesses for their own children. It’s having quite an effect.”
Between 80 and 90 percent of all businesses in the 32-family settlement are affected, Yutzy said. Because the state wants all youths younger than 18 to have working papers OK’d by a school district superintendent, Vernon Yoder figures even non-industrial businesses like his bulk food store are affected. The need for the papers means his underage daughter shouldn’t stock shelves or work the family cash register unless she gets an OK from an outside authority.
Even if the papers could be obtained, Graber, is troubled by the notion settlers would pursue permission from others to raise their own kids. It breaches the Amish community’s firm belief in separation of church and state.
“Sometimes, by getting into that system, it just opens the door to something else,” he said.
Graber cites a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Wisconsin v. Yoder, that supported Amish parents’ right to keep their children out of public schools. The larger point of the ruling, to his way of thinking, is that parents have a right to raise their children as they see fit.
“Our children are not forced to work, they want to work,” Graber says. “We don’t want to see them do dangerous things and get hurt.”
Where it concerns children, the law of the land seems to contain some contradictions, Floyd Yoder observes. While it prohibits them from working in presumptively dangerous occupations, the law allows them to partake of other potentially dangerous activities including driving motor vehicles and playing contact sports.
“In football, they have a doctor and an ambulance on standby — and this is OK,” Yoder said. “It does seem a bit skewed.”

STATE PROHIBITED OCCUPATIONS - UNDER 18 YEARS OF AGE
No one under the age of 18 may be employed in or assist in:

Any occupation at construction work, including wrecking, demolition, roofing, or excavating operation and the painting or exterior cleaning of a building structure from an elevated surface.

Any occupation involved in the operation of circular saws, bandsaws, and guillotine shears.

Any occupation in or about a slaughter and meat-packing establishment, or rendering plant.

Any occupation involved in the operation of power-driven woodworking, metal-forming, metal-punching, metal-shearing, bakery and paper products machines.

Any occupation involved in the operation of power-driven hoisting apparatus.

Any occupation involved in the manufacture of brick, tile, and kindred products.

Any occupation involving exposure to radioactive substances or ionizing radiation, or exposure to silica or other harmful dust.

Logging occupations and occupations in the operation of any saw mill, lath mill, shingle mill, or cooperage-stock mill.

As a helper on a motor vehicle.

The care or operation of a freight or passenger elevator, except that minors over l6 may operate automatic, push-button control elevators.

Work in manufacturing, packing, or storing of explosives, or in the use or delivery of explosives.

Operating or using any emery, tripoli, rouge, corundum, stone, silicon carbide, or any abrasive, or emery polishing or buffing wheel, where articles of the baser metals or iridium are manufactured.

Adjusting belts to machinery or cleaning, oiling, or wiping machinery.

Packing paints, dry colors, or red or white leads.

Preparing any composition in which dangerous or poisonous acids are used.

Operating steam boilers subject to Section 204 of the Labor Law.

Any occupation in or in connection with a mine or quarry.

In penal or correctional institutions, if such employment relates to the custody or care of prisoners or inmates.

These prohibitions do not apply to minors younger than 18 who are apprentices individually registered in apprenticeship programs duly registered with the Commissioner of Labor or to student-learners enrolled in recognized cooperative vocational training programs, or to trainees in approved on-the-job training programs.

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