Lessons learned from the child agricultural labor law debate

Details

• Personal Author:
  Heiberger S
• Description:
  What happened? That was the question asked by stunned safety and health professionals after the withdrawal of proposed updates to the federal labor laws (Agricultural Child Labor Hazardous Occupations Orders) pertaining to hired youth under age 16. After all, weren't these modest and overdue revisions based on years of research indicating that young workers experience a disproportionate number of injuries in a handful of especially hazardous tasks? What about data showing that teenaged agricultural workers are four times as likely to die on the job than teens working in other industries? Children of US farmers would still have been able to perform any task at any age on their farms, and even the updated rules for hired youth would not have been as protective as they are for non-agricultural occupations. Open and shut case, right? Post the new rules in the federal register, wait 60 days, then implement. Not so fast. Many farmers and ranchers, and groups that represent their interests, along with members of Congress and some agricultural educators, spoke out against the rules, which the US Department of Labor withdrew on April 26, 2012, approximately eight months after introducing them. The dramatic rise and fall of the revised rules was well-documented in the mainstream agricultural media. What began with mundane articles announcing the comment period concluded with stories reflecting polarization into winning and losing sides. Child safety is a non-partisan issue. So again, what happened? I posed this question to agricultural communicators in attendance at the Agricultural Media Summit (AMS), August 5-7, 2012, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Summit is the largest annual gathering of crop and livestock publications professionals in the US. It is a joint meeting of the American Agricultural Editors' Association, Livestock Publications Council and the American Business Media Agri Council. Nearly 600 attended. I interviewed 25 attendees, including 10 editors, five college seniors majoring in agricultural communications, three reporters, two publishers, three public relations professionals, one art director, and one college agricultural communications instructor. They represent mainstream agricultural media. Nearly all grew up living on and/or working on farms and ranches. All had an opinion. None supported passing the rules as written by the Department of Labor. Most characterized the rules as "overreach." About one-third called the proposed rules "well intentioned" but in the words of one respondent, "they tried to use a butcher knife where a scalpel would have been more appropriate." Although the updated rules were intended for hired youth, such as migrants climbing 15- foot ladders to pick fruit, opposition coalesced around the family farm and traditional rural culture. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Agriculture Emigration And Immigration Environmental Exposure Family Farmers Mortality Occupational Health Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety
• Keywords:
  Agricultural Agricultural Workers Children Exposure Levels Families Farm Workers Fatalities Hazards Injuries Migrant Workers Risk Factors Safety Measures Young Workers

  More +
• ISSN:
  1059-924X
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 5 ; Wisconsin
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  351-353
• Volume:
  17
• Issue:
  4
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20048911
• Citation:
  J Agromedicine 2012 Oct; 17(4):351-353
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2013
• NORA Priority Area:
  Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing
• Performing Organization:
  Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20080930
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Agromedicine
• End Date:
  20250929
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:d3105964276c7ce8f3e5495bd27c9d5fca65d1f09cf39319ca5ef9b22a31bd9cfe5f80ea031921cea73bb8637a140671a0d6c454b7234e234483f13e0589ee74
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/203527/cdc_203527_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 245.47 KB ]