Shop class at Springfield High school, Illinois 
Marlette Michigan: 
Grafton MA 
Chilton High, Wisconsin 
Posted on 12/20/2006 7:33:25 PM PST by cornelis
If more kids were learning how to do these types of work our country would be better off. Look at all the metal and wood-working classes that are gone now from middle and high schools.
Great idea. Let the kids sit around. Let the kids have midnight basketball. Right. That's the ticket.
Legalities squeezing AmishU.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.”
Well, who knew that problems with violent gangs, AIDS, crime, illegal aliens, drug pushing etc. had all been solved and the state of NY's biggest problem now was Amish kids working for their parents? This is why people hate government...
Only one reason why. Liberals won't be happy until every single aspect of our lives are regulated by the nanny government.
Ping to a nanny knows best thread.
P.S. Better not be letting your child help you with that garden.
Even the reverse lessons from metal and woodworking classes are good. I discovered, early, that I had no talent or inclination toward the skilled trades. I really appreciate those who can work in metal or other materials because of my "shop" classes.
I thought the usual child labor laws do not apply when the business in question is run by the child's own family???
Ah, government absurdity continues.
Shop class at Springfield High school, Illinois
Marlette Michigan:
Grafton MA
Chilton High, Wisconsin
Absurdity? It's normal and its vicious.
Good Lord I wish they would leave those people alone. We all saw what happen when the outside world entered into their world.
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.
All the internships and work experiences I could find through google were for the arts and the sciences. All around nasty poisonous chemicals and reactions.
I have a homeschooled son I want to start in a trade when he is fourteen but so far I can find no one who will work with him. All the tradesmen and skilled guys loook at me like I am a few fries short of a Happy Meal. I thought I could find him an honorable trade to begin with and home educate him a few days a week. He is a willing worker.
I'm sure the unions just have the children's interests in mind...
I wish you the best; stay away from New York.
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