NATURAL BARN KILLERS
First, the government started supervising preschoolers'
sandwiches. Now, it's monitoring children's chores. What's next--picking out my four-year-old's bedtime story? Give them an inch, and they'll take an acre--preferably on the family farm. That's where the latest crop of regulations is headed, if the Labor Department gets its way. Secretary Hilda Solis is convinced that "children employed in agriculture are some of the most vulnerable workers in America," so she and her team wrote 200 pages of rules dictating what kids can and cannot do on American farms.
The list is so over the top that it bans anyone under 18 from working in grain elevators, feed lots, silos, stockyards, and livestock auctions. Operating power tools like screwdrivers, milk machines, or tractors? Also off-limits. Any work that "inflicts pain on an animal" is also outlawed, even though the department doesn't stipulate what that means. Would branding or tagging cattle be taboo? What about veterinary work?
Apparently, these activities are all at Solis's discretion. Her department's press release is clear, "[The government] charges the secretary of labor with prohibiting employment of youth in occupations that she finds and declares to be particularly hazardous for them." Notice there is no mention of families or the parents' responsibility to keep children safe. Under this policy, even kids' chore charts will be dictated by a Washington bureaucrat. Solis insists that her agency is "working to prevent unnecessary child injuries or deaths."
But considering the latest data, what may be unnecessary is her legislation. "The reported farm-related injury rate for youth under 20 fell by nearly half from 2001 to 2009, a U.S. Department of Agriculture survey found." I find it hard to believe that the mortality rate of a teenager working on a family farm is higher than the mortality rate of the ones walking the streets of America. If the government is really concerned about child welfare, maybe it should focus on those children--not the ones learning the value of a hard day's work.
And while Solis's "Fair Labor Standards Act" would provide some exemptions for kids who work on their parents' property, farming is multi-generational business. Under these rules, families couldn't teach the trade to grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or other relatives. Hasn't this administration done enough to destroy small business? Does it have to constrict its workforce too?
Tennessee's leaders are so livid about the regulations that they passed a bill that blocks the state from enforcing Solis's changes. "This is a prime example of D.C. way overreaching their limited powers,"
said Assemblyman Jeremy Faison. In Congress, conservative members are pushing a measure called Preserving America's Family Farms Act that would stop Solis's rules before they start. Like us, they're concerned the government is not only trampling on family's rights, but it's also robbing this generation of the valuable experience they gain working on a farm. As one parent said in the public comment period, " It's much better to teach these young people to work at an early age than have them getting into trouble in town because there's nothing to do." What's more, it could have the unfortunate effect of steering more kids away from agriculture because it clamps down on their involvement in groups like 4-H.
The bottom line is that these decisions belong to the family--not the Feds. The government doesn't need to swoop in and rescue children from their own relatives. In this or any legislation, family rights are the last things Washington should put out to pasture.
