Feds seek to limit child labor on farms

SOMERSET -—

For generations farm kids have developed a work ethic while performing chores on the family farm. But the U.S. Department of Labor is proposing regulations that would make many chores illegal for kids under 16.

The proposed regulations don't apply to children working on their parents' farms. Restrictions affect those working on farms owned by non-guardian relatives and others, including family farms operating as corporations.

Larry Cogan, vice president of the Somerset County Farm Bureau, said there are family farms operating as corporations in Somerset County. It is done for a variety of reasons, including inheritance laws.

The new regulations would ban farm workers under 16 working for anyone other than their parents from:

* Riding tractors and four-wheelers, but certain machinery could be ridden after teenagers have had 90 hours of safety education from a public or private school;

* Operating power-driven machines;

* Working in a farmyard, pen or stall with uncastrated livestock older than 6 months;

* Working inside any grain silo, fruit or forage storage bins;

* Handling pesticides;

* Working in the cultivation, harvesting and curing of tobacco;

* Being employed in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm-product raw materials;

* Working at heights above 6 feet from a floor, including ladders.

Under the federal definition, employment doesn't necessarily include cash compensation. If the grandparents own a farm and the grandchildren came to work there, they wouldn't be exempted under the rule.

Cogan disagrees with the new regulations.

"It is very important that kids help; it goes back to the idea that they are family farms," he said. "To have chores when you grow up on a farm is part of farm life. You learn by doing. Think of our conservative population — Amish and Mennonites — it is ingrained in them to work on the farm."

He remembers that at the age of 12, he drove the farm equipment while family members were baling hay because he was too small to handle big bales that his older brother could handle.

Harold Shaulis, a Somerset Township farmer, agrees with Cogan.

"The government needs to be concerned with things that are problems, not with farms," he said. "Farms have extremely good safety records. More kids are hurt riding bicycles or on playgrounds than on farms."

Shaulis worked on his grandparents' and parents' farms when growing up. His first farm injury occurred when he was 55 — working on his own farm.