Unfinished Business
SLOW: Children at Work
The Fair Labor Standards Act outlawing child labor was signed into law 85 years ago this month. Yet the number of children caught up in child labor violations today is almost five times higher than in 2015. More than 3,800 kids were illegally employed by 835 companies during 2022, according to Dept. of Labor's Wage and Hour Division data. The worst violators? McDonald's, Subway, and Dunkin' Donuts.
Earlier this week, at a House Education and Workforce Committee hearing, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra pointed a finger at companies employing migrant children in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. He said his department had "no jurisdiction" over unaccompanied children who arrived in the U.S. after they were placed with sponsors.
Ranking Democratic members of the Committee have asked Chair Virginia Foxx (R-NC) to dedicate a hearing to this issue. She seems unlikely to oblige.
However, Democrats are working on comprehensive legislation, including stiffer penalties, expanded research, closer tracking of child labor violators, and an update of the list of hazardous occupations for kids. H.R. 2388, the Justice for Exploited Children Act of 2023, is bipartisan legislation that would increase civil monetary penalties. Democrat Dan Kildee of Michigan also has introduced H.R. 2956, the Combatting Child Labor Act, to levy both civil monetary penalties and criminal sanctions.
This concern began with a New York Times investigation of underage children in 20 states working at fast food restaurants, factories, and meat processing plants. Now it seems likely to spill over into a greater scrutiny of children in other industries.
Email overlaps child labor issues
About six weeks ago, I opened an email sent by a freelance producer of Soledad O'Brien's news show, which airs on some local TV stations across the U.S.
She had read my February 18 Substack column, In Harm's Way, and was interested in creating a 5-minute segment on loosening child labor laws. She asked for a lead on a family impacted by Iowa's child labor law, although the legislation had not been signed into law yet!
Then she asked specifically if I could connect her with the Iowa founder of an organization to protect the health and safety of farm kids. That seemed off the mark to me, since the new law in Iowa and others in at least 10 other Republican-led states focuses on the paid labor of kids in the nonfarm workforce.
I provided a few resources--and contacts for labor representatives in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. Most of my sources were out of state, including the National Children's Center for Rural and Ag Safety and Health in Marshfield, Wisconsin. But it was clear that she wanted to focus on Iowa. Providing her with farm contacts seemed to muddle the issue.
At the same time, I was aware of the challenge of maintaining safe working conditions for kids on farms. I spent 30 + years writing about it for Successful Farming. Most of the farm families I interviewed had a sincere desire to instill a work ethic in their children. Unfortunately, they miscalculated the risks, sometimes with tragic outcomes. Successful Farming partnered with the University of Illinois on an in-depth study of this issue in 1989. It revealed that parents tend to overestimate their child's physical and cognitive abilities and maturity. But the crux of the issue is that family farms don't fall under OSHA regulations, unless they have more than 10 employees. Farm kids working for their parents typically are unpaid.
What about Child Farm Workers?
Then, earlier this week, I learned that legislation had been introduced in Congress to raise the minimum age for children working on farms to 14, from age 12. This would conform to other child labor rules. H.R. 3394, The Children's Act for Responsible Employment and Farm Safety (CARE), is sponsored by Lucille Royal-Allard (D-CA). It includes an exemption for the children of farmers.
At age 12, children can be hired to work on farms, without any restrictions on hours, as long as they attend school. At 16, they can operate heavy farm machinery and work at any height, including grain bins. For many years, high school vo-ag instructors taught a Hazardous Occupations Safety Training in Agriculture (HOSTA) curriculum, including a minimum of 24 hours of training. A certificate was required for 14- and 15-year-olds to be hired by nonfamily to operate tractors and machinery. Unfortunately, with fewer rural schools and vo-ag instructors, the course is less available today.
The National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety developed a set of 48 age-appropriate guidelines for children's farm chores in 1999. Director Dr. Barbara Lee testified before the House Education and Labor subcommittee on September 7, 2022, as one of three invited witnesses in support of the CARE Act.
“Despite considerable progress in the past 30 years, far too many young people are still impacted by health conditions, injuries and death associated with agriculture,” Lee said. “At the same time, appropriate, supervised work for young people offers valuable experiences and perspectives as they later become productive contributors to society.”
Unfortunately, federal oversight has been undermined by funding deficits since 2016 at the Dept. of Labor and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). In a letter to Chair Foxx, two ranking Democrats pointed out that NIOSH had discontinued its Child Agriculture Injury Surveillance program, launched in 1997, due to lack of resources.
Changing Labor Landscape
The earliest version of the CARE Act dates back to 2005. But the Dept. of Labor has the authority to protect child workers without legislation. In 2012, I covered its first effort since 1970 to update hazardous jobs under HOSTA regulations. Although family farms were specifically exempt from this update, I was stunned by the opposition of the American Farm Bureau Federation, other farm commodity groups, and even some land grant leaders. Concerns were raised that the new rules would prevent children from working for other relatives, or for their own family if they had formed a farm corporation. The rule was withdrawn to address these concerns, but the revisions never were republished. It was killed.
Sponsors of the CARE Act seem hopeful the current spotlight on child labor in the nonfarm sector will build momentum for its passage this time around. After all, agriculture has changed. When the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed, 30% of Americans lived on farms; today it's less than 2%. The U.S. no longer is a country of family farmers relying solely on their children's labor. And, just like the abuses and violations making headlines in the nonfarm sector, the children most at risk from farm injuries today are poor and vulnerable: many are Latinx kids working in the fields.
Child labor laws were changed in Iowa and other states under the guise of providing valuable on-the-job training. Like the kids in Iowa now allowed by the legislature and the governor to work longer hours at less safe jobs, farm worker families often need their children's income.
But there's a short-term, and a long-term cost, paid first by the children, and ultimately by all Americans. Norma Flores Lopez, Human Rights Watch, worked in the fields with her parents as a child. "Farm worker youth drop out of school at four times the national average," she testified at the CARE hearing.
In addition to the tight labor market, some suggest that loosening state child labor laws is a parents' rights issue. But how does parental choice apply if:
· the children are unaccompanied?
· the families are poor and struggling?
· the children are trapped in abusive situations?
Will lobbyists for powerful companies and industries opposed to any regulations once again stand in the way of improving conditions for poor and exploited children by using the fig leaf of protecting parental rights or defending family farmers? Some state laws, like Iowa's, conflict with federal law. Will efforts be made to turn back the clock at the federal level?
Since when does a global industrial power like the United States need to use its children's labor to turn a profit? And, aren't we all complicit if we turn a blind eye to this betrayal of our responsibility to protect the most vulnerable among us?
News flash: The child labor story featuring Iowa will air on Saturday, June 17, at 6:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. on Channel 8
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Important information. Hope our legislators read this!!
Terrific column! As one who grew up on a farm, I am very cognizant of the risks farm children face from both machines and livestock.