School Choice Popularity Growing Steadily in Wisconsin
School choice is a growing movement in Wisconsin as parents increasingly take advantage of... Read More
Labor Dept Seeks to Outlaw Children Working on Family Farm
Rural families and Congressmen are alarmed at the prospect of new regulations which extend child labor laws to severe restrictions on the family farm.
An unpopular proposal from the Obama administration to outlaw children from doing farm chores is being finalized by the Department of Labor. The rule, which would apply child-labor laws to children who work on family farms, has already drawn criticism from members of Congress who represent rural districts and the prospect is proving equally unpalatable for the children the rule is meant to ‘protect’.
Under the rules, children under 18 could no longer work “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.”
“Prohibited places of employment,” a Department press release read, “would include country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.”
Cherokee County Farm Bureau president, Jeff Clark, explains that the problem isn’t merely about farm families losing vital labor from their children, although this will be a major blow to farmers struggling to survive, but that the children themselves will be losing out on valuable life experiences that teach them a string work ethic.
“Losing that work-ethic — it’s so hard to pick this up later in life,” Clark said. “There’s other ways to learn how to farm, but it’s so hard. You can learn so much more working on the farm when you’re 12, 13, 14 years old.”
The new regulations were first proposed last August by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, and will additionally revoke approval of safety training and certification by independent groups, instead mandating a federal 90-hour government training course.
Republican Senator Jerry Moran, from Kansas, was already angry about farmers being cited by inspectors for chores that the Labor Department didn’t think were age appropriate and the new regulations will only exacerbate this problem.
“The consequences of the things that you put in your regulations lack common sense,” Moran said.
“And in my view, if the federal government can regulate the kind of relationship between parents and their children on their own family’s farm, there is almost nothing off-limits in which we see the federal government intruding in a way of life.”
As the new regulations will put any jobs that could inflict pain on an animal on the prohibited list, but fails to define ‘inflicting pain’ they could potentially make animal shows a thing of the past, and will likely prevent a child accompanying a veterinarian, even if they’re a parent, to a farm or ranch.
Rossie Blinson is now a college student, but remembers her time on the family farm fondly:
“I started showing sheep when I was four years old. I started with cattle around 8. It’s been very important. I learned a lot of responsibility being a farm kid.”
If the Labor Department gets its way, such experiences will soon be a thing of the past.
Recent News
Ohio Study Finds No Correlation Between Teacher Rating, Salary
According to data collected from Ohio’s new value-added teacher ratings, there appears to be... Read More
Dubai to Mandate Parent Rights, Responsibility Contracts
Lawmakers in Dubai hope that forcing schools and parents to sign a legally binding contract before... Read More
Popular News
James Shuls: Why We Need School Choice 26
The Pedagogical Agenda of Common Core Math Standards 24
Julia Steiny: 5th Graders Having a Blast with Algebra 14
Career Index
Plan your career as an educator using our free online datacase of useful information.
- Select a City Subject
- Music Schools in Bluefield
- Music Schools in Bridgewater
- Music Schools in Buena Vista
- Music Schools in Danville
- Music Schools in Fairfax
- Music Schools in Ferrum
- Music Schools in Fredericksburg
- Music Schools in Harrisonburg
- Music Schools in Newport News
- Music Schools in Norfolk
- Music Schools in Roanoke
- Music Schools in Salem
- Music Schools in Sweet Briar
- Music Schools in Williamsburg
Comments
I am a 64year old small farmer in rual kansas my father raised 8 kids and we all had chores to do to help out before and after school we never got into trouble like the kids do today more kids are hurt playing sports everyday than are hurt on the farm. I do not feel that the federal goverment has any business telling farmers how to raise there children. If city people are so good at growing up there kids why are their so many city kids in trouble all of the time?
[...] Farm Now the Feds want to tell family famers what their kids can and cannot do on the farm…. Labor Dept Seeks to Outlaw Children Working on Family Farm | Education News why don't they just try to do their jobs and leave farmers alone. I grew up on a dairy farm and [...]
This looks like a bad solution in search of a good problem to solve.
… and I’m here to help. The scariest words in the English language.
When is a government solution EVER a good one? Besides, I highly doubt most Americans would even agree that there is a problem to solve.
I started working early, and thank God for my family business, which continues to struggle in a losing battle with the Obamaconomy.
Get lost, feds.
If Congress fails again to take immediate action to permanently block this rule by the Labor Department, then Obama will have succeeded in another of his procedural steps toward achieving a complete dictatorship in the U.S.
The proposed new rules are overreaching and unrealistic.
My dad always said he was born in a sale barn. He was an auctioneer for 50 years, and at 88 years old will tell you hard work working with livestock did not hurt him. I worked at a stockyard starting at about 13 years old, but could not legally drive a until I was 15 years old. Some times this meant loading a horse to ride when I got to the Kiester 80 acre pasture, rounding up the cattle that I was supposed to bring back, loading them into the truck and bringing them back (15 mile trip). I was sort of pampered, my Grandfather sent my dad on a 200 mile trip when he was 16 years old to pick up a load of feeder pigs in Little Falls MN. If not for the work I was able to do when I was young, what would I have been doing??? Today I would be playing with the computer, getting fat and lazy …… I thought the government wanted us to be fit…. So now they do not want kids to work…. I don’t get it…. LETS ALL VOTE FOR THE DEMOCRATS, I THINK THEY KNODW WHAT THEY ARE DOING…???
Typical…there is no problem to fix…only regs to make and farms and families to harm. Next she and Obama will be outlawing kids working in all family businesses. This is a push to get more unions into all biz……wake up America…lock and load…..a new revolution needs to happen. Any fed steps on your land….shoot first!
Ok, you need to calm down right now. Did some nutty website link this story or something, cause the comments on it are particularly malignant.
You can put away the gun, there scooter. The rule has been dropped.
This new bill there trying to pass is a crime against America and the people who have worked to make it into the country it is. Growing up on my families cattle ranch was a pricelest gift. It molded me into the person I am today, it gave me strength, character, strong values, and a good work ethic. it gave me powerful tools to use in my life. Its a statistical fact that farm and ranch kids get into less trouble, infact any kid who has a job, who works toward anything is better off. They have a sence of purpose, they understand the value of a dollar. Even in our court system if a young individual is heading down a wrong path one of the main punishments dished out is community service where they have to go and work for a certain amount of time depending on there transgressions. This country is founded by men who had to work growing up, and had strong work ethics because of it. If any of them were here today then they would not stand for this! This new bill defies all reason and common sence. And the people who are trying to get it passed are causing this country and its people harm. I am twenty-two years old and I am so thankful to have grown up where I did. All we need to do is get involved, we need to call our senators and congressman and tell them to put an end to this insanity before they turn our countries youth into a bunch lazy ungrateful slugs. I want to instill into my children someday the same work ethic and values that I was taught growing up on my families ranch. We canot sit idle while this attrocity is allowed to come to pass. Please get involved!
I did not grow up on A farm but I did work at my parents resteraunt when I was about 12 or so, it did not kill me or my sister 2 yrs. older. We did go to a great Aunt & Uncles farm so my parents could help with the haying I colected eggs from 2 chicken coups fed the pigs went out to the field to get the cattle, i am now 65. i don;t think, helping on farms hurts any kids, my older daughter would love to live on a small farm. i helps kids stay out of trouble and teaches them good work ethics for the future.
People aren’t forced to have after-school jobs anymore, that’s the problem. Learning the value of earning money early in life helped me a great deal when I got older.
[...] More here: Labor Dept Seeks to Outlaw Children Working on … – Education News [...]
Oh please. It is not prohibiting kids from working on farms but just applying child labor laws already on the books to farm labor. Of course you can have kids doing chores for you if you live on farm, you just can’t use them as full-time free labor to such degree that it negatively impacts their education. Besides, due to excessive whining, the rule was withdrawn. Too bad. It was a good rule.
Kevin you are absolutely clueless to how much of America works. I don’t know where you are from, but in SD, ND, MT, WY, KS, etc. etc. these kids are absolutely vital to their farms and ranches. What this rule would have done by simply applying child labor laws would have effectively shut down many of them. These chores you speak of, during the weekend and summers are full time jobs. Many of the kids I have taught can out work many men I know (just guessing of one right now). Your vision of Uncle Freds farm with 2 cows and a goat where Jr. takes out the trash is hardly what we are talking about here. It was an absurd idea (yet another from this administration) and your excessive whining, is that only when people disagree with you? And I suppose its called political activism when they agree, right?
The rule was indeed prohibiting kids from working in farm locations, unless they were wholly owned by their parents. It was an entirely stupid rule, and could have been used to fine someone if a kid went home with a friend and helped the friend feed a horse or collect eggs. Having lived in a rural area (though not on a farm) for a few years, I can see all kinds of things my kids did regularly on friends’ farms that would have been prohibited, and that were GOOD things for them to learn. The government needs to get its damn nose out of people’s everyday lives and try doing their own jobs for a while (maybe prosecuting the MF Global thieves for a start).
I’m happy to see that this foolish law was cut down before it had a chance to grow into a larger problem. Education happens outside the classroom as well as in it, and being educated by one’s family should be welcomed and glorified by the government, not vilified by it.
This was not a law, but rather an attempt by the executive branch to legislate by fiat through regulation.
That was not an attempt by the executive branch to legislate by fiat. It was the executive branch using its legal authority.
[...] Labor Department has backed down over a proposed rule that would have applied child labor laws to youths working on family farms. They have cited public [...]