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A proposal from the Obama administration to prevent children from doing farm chores has drawn plenty of criticism from rural-district member of Congress. But now it’s attracting barbs from farm kids themselves. The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child-labor laws to children working on family farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own families’ land.
And if it isn't bad enough to tell families what they can do on their own farms with their own kids:
"The new regulations, first proposed August 31 by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, would also revoke the government’s approval of safety training and certification taught by independent groups like 4-H and FFA, replacing them instead with a 90-hour federal government training course."
They came up with this brainstorm after going to farms to check out migrant worker safety. God forbid rural kids learn responsibility and the farm business from their parents.
So why do it now if farm accidents among youth fell nearly 40 percent between 2001 and 2009, to 7.2 injuries per 1,000 farms?
Maybe it's all of that kid farm life experience of President Obama and Hilda Solis...oops no, Solis' father was a teamster shop steward in a battery recycling plant and her mother worked for Mattel. Obama?
“Although there are an awful lot of farms in Illinois, in the neighborhood where I live, the main livestock is squirrels,” said Mr. Obama, who lives on Chicago’s South Side. “So I don’t pretend to know everything there is to know about agricultural issues.”
Well, he does like to eat arugula (A side note to Romney, next time BO makes a rich guy comment you might want to go back to his 2007 arugula comment: “Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?” the senator said. “I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff.”) I think that's the closest he's been to farm life. But, I digress...
Hey I know, now we can grow the government some more by adding more regulators and inspectors to be in our personal business. During the Obama administration (last 3 years) he's grown the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division (inspectors who go out to the farms) from 30% to 40%.
Its almost like the Obama administration is attacking eveyone, and then hoping people will only remember that everyone else is under attack, and forget their own situation.
This is actually a good way to combat illegal immigration.
On the contrary. If you dont allow kids to do household chores on a farm, which is family owned, who do you think is going to be hired to repalce them? More than likely, illegals.
This is actually a good way to combat illegal immigration.
You want to give the fedguv unfettered access to your farm and let them dictate how you raise children as a stop gap to illegal immigration?
Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.
How is standardizing safety instruction an attack on farm kids? I did farm work as a child and some of it was very dangerous. Some of it still is and should not be done by children with or without proper training. You RWNJ's will call any potential regulation, even if it results in fewer injuries and/or death, an attack on your “Freedom” to endanger others for your own profit or personal aggrandizement.
I have a better idea using existing law. If a farm, or any other family, has kids working at dangerous jobs and the child is hurt or killed, then the farm operator should be prosecuted for negligence or manslaughter. That is just a way for forcing the boss to take personal responsibility for what he does. Do you have any problem with that?
Farming is good for kids. It teaches them work ethic and respect for land. Farming is very hard work yet there are many that do it and aspire to.
It starts out simply such as prepping and tending to gardens, animals, etc. please don't tell me I will be in trouble because when my kids were 4 and 7, they wanted to help me with my flowers and veggies.
Some of our best memories were planting together. I didn't even think of it as breaking child labor laws.
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