Posted on 03/15/2012 11:43:25 AM PDT by pabianice
I haven't seen this posted or discussed on FR before. I was alerted to it by Glenn Beck's morning program. According to Beck, the Government is implementing this without any public or Congressional discussion. "For the Children."
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Proposes Changes to Child Labor Rules on Farms
The Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed new child labor regulations applicable to agriculture. The DOL’s stated purpose for the rule making is “to improve the safety of minors under 18 working in both agricultural and nonagricultural jobs.” The proposed rule changes would place new limits on the work “hired farm workers” under 16 and 18 would be allowed to do and could impact horse farms, ranches and auctions that employ young people who work with horses. The proposed new rules would not apply to children working on farms and ranches owned or operated by their parents or change the statutory child labor parental exemption in agricultural employment contained in the Fair Labor Standard Act (FLSA).
Currently, young people under 16 are prohibited from working in most occupations. However, the FLSA, which established American child labor laws, includes an exemption for agriculture that allows children under 16 to work on farms and ranches. This is because of the unique family nature of agriculture and the important role young people often play on farms and ranches.
Proposed Rule
There are several proposed changes that could impact the horse community. The proposed new rules would:
Prohibit employed workers under 18 from working with horses in feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and auctions.
Exclude employed workers under 16 from working in a yard, pen or stall occupied by a non-castrated male horse “maintained for breeding purposes;” porcine, bovine, or bison older than six months; or engaging in or assisting in branding, breeding, dehorning, vaccinating, castrating livestock, or treating sick or injured animals including horses.
Prohibit workers under 16 from herding livestock from horseback or on a motorized vehicle or on foot in confined spaces such as pens or corrals. The DOL noted that this provision would apply only to the herding of livestock on horseback, not any other kind of work performed on horseback.
Currently, workers under 16 are prohibited from operating specific farm equipment, such as tractors with more than 20 PTO horsepower, corn pickers, cotton pickers, combines, hay mowers, forge harvesters, etc. with exemptions for workers with certificates from vocational programs such as 4-H. The proposed rule would bar workers under 16 from operating any tractors or essentially any equipment not hand-powered including equipment such as lawn mowers and milking machines. It would also sharply limit the exemptions to such rules for workers with training certificates or in vocational programs, such as 4-H.
The proposed rules apply only to hired, paid young workers and retain the parental exemption that exempts children working on farms and ranches owned or operated by their parents. However, there appears to be a question regarding whether the rule as proposed maintains the “parental exemption” for children working on farms and ranches owned as partnerships, even with other family members, such as grandparents, or bothers and sisters, or operated as LLCs.
Status
In December 2012 the AHC submitted comments in opposition to the proposed child labor regulations. The comment period for this rule is now closed. The DOL is currently reviewing all submitted comments and is expected to issue a final rule sometime before this summer.
AHC Position
The AHC opposes this rule as currently written.
The AHC appreciates the stated goal of the DOL to improve safety for young Americans working in agriculture. However, the AHC wants to be sure that any final rules are not unnecessarily restrictive and do not bar young people from working in agriculture with horses, especially on the “family farm,” at a time when many young people are leaving agriculture. The final rules must consider the reality and traditions of agriculture, the unique roll that young people play on family-owned farms and ranches, and the reality that many of these farms and ranches are owned by multiple generations or operated as LLCs.
Can they still do chores or do we need to filll out IRS forms and pay taxes on their “living wage” allowance now?
“Family” and “Farm” are two words that leftists despise.
Both make you less dependent on the collective.
I got a penny a bale (and lunch)...'course, I might be older than you, but it was reasonable at the time...1000 bales a day was the expected minimum...
Farming and manufacturing are being mugged by just about every federal agency there is at the same time.
Now I would pay to be able to do drive that tractor again.
This is all bs, but that doesn't mean it won't be enforced. This must be fought NOW.
I don’t understand the title you posted. Can you get the Mod to fix it so it makes sense?
As are most recent graduates of Journalism school.
Your Lenin quotation is precisely apt!
Independent farmers are the blood enemy of every socialist regime of the last 100 years.
The State prefers to create its own classes of aspiring courtiers and truckling dependents. Farmers might have sh*t on their shoes.
Some of us lobbied, called, and wrote about this extensively last fall. Comments to the DOL closed December 1 so this article is more than a day late and a dollar short.
This does not just apply to tomato farms that might hire migrant workers. The horse industry in the US is a multi-billion-dollar economic engine. Many horse farms and riding stables are operated at on a very narrow margin and much of the labor of handling horses comes from teenage kids who work after school and full time during the summer. The young women are quite knowledgeable and are compensated with money and sometimes with riding privileges. It would be difficult or impossible to hire adults to do this work, with all the expense that entails—social security withholding, unemployment comp, healthcare benefits, mandated breaks and lunchtimes, etc. Most farms and stables don’t have the budget and don’t want to cope with adult personnel issues. With teenagers, they have truly willing workers who are thrilled to be out there grooming the horses or cleaning stalls.
The law would also prevent kids under 18 from working on their grandparents’ farms. Many family farms are owned by a trust rather than directly by parents, so the kids couldn’t even help on a farm that has been in the family for a century. They won’t be allowed to touch milk produced by family cows—can you imagine the stupidity?
And if the kids aren’t allowed to do this work, how will they acquire the skills to become farmers themselves someday? How would they even have the interest?
If anybody thinks this will be widely ignored, let me tell you how closely-regulated today’s farm is. There are state, local, and federal inspectors and agencies harassing the farmer or horseman all the time. Half of a farmer’s time is devoted to compliance issues now. Of course!—because farmers are businesspeople and the government constantly harasses small business owners with hyper-regulation.
Independent farmers are the blood enemy of every socialist regime of the last 100 years.And in the early 30's Stalin murdered 7 million of them -- yes, 7 million... that's 7,000,000 -- in the Ukraine.
And the New York Times covered that massacre up.
And got a Pulitzer Prize for its efforts.
My 10th grade civics teacher maintained that child labor laws were nothing more than the work of the unions to keep competition for jobs at bay.
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And as fast and you can say 'Sandra Fluke', any teenager, worth her salt, can obtain an abortion, no question asked.
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