1-year-old America is already in the fields with her family -- what is in her future? The US House Small Business Subcommittee is holding a hearing to decide on 2/2/12. Still from The Harvest/La Cosecha.
The US House Small Business Subcommittee on Agriculture, Energy and Trade is holding a hearing entitled The Future of the Family Farm: The Effect of Proposed DOL Regulations on Small Business Producers on February 2, 2012, on proposed rules to prevent child farmworkers from taking on the most dangerous tasks. The new rules are intended to make paid farm work safer for the hundreds of thousands of children in the United States who labor in agriculture. They would not apply to children working on their parents’ farms.
“Sixteen children died at work in the US last year, and twelve of those were fatally injured while working on farms,” said Zama Coursen-Neff, deputy children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “The rules need to change to ensure that the most dangerous farm jobs are done by adults, not children.”
On September 2, 2011, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would make revisions to existing regulations pertaining to the employment of youths on farming and ranching operations. Yesterday, February 1st, the DOL announced updates to the parental exemption portion of the proposed changes to better address farmers’ concerns. The hearing will examine these rules so that members may better understand their potential effect on small business farm operations as well as youths working in or training for occupations in agriculture.
The subcommittee Chairman Scott Tipton (R-CO) issued a statement yesterday saying he believed “the rule altogether should never have been proposed” as it “would change long-standing and proven programs.” Current child labor laws derive from the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act when agriculture was exempted from the protections given to children in other industries. Children working in agriculture are permitted to do more work at younger ages than children working in other industries, they suffer more fatalities than they do in non-agricultural industries, and their work-related injuries tend to be more severe than injuries to children working in non-agricultural industries. Clearly something does need to change.
Witnesses include Nancy J. Leppink, Deputy Administrator Wage and Hour Division speaking on behalf of updating current child labor laws and Chris Chinn, Owner, Chinn Hog Farm testifying on behalf of the American Farm Bureau, Bob Tabb, Deputy Commissioner, West Virginia State Department of Agriculture, and Rick Ebert, Vice President, Pennsylvania Farm Bureau and others speaking against new child labor protections. You can read their statements on the Committee’s website.