U.S. Cracks Down on Farmers Who Hire Children
Monday, June 21, 2010 at 9:00AM by Chris Liu-Beers Here's a recent story from the NY Times on child labor - with a focus on North Carolina. Click here to learn more about children in the fields.
WHITE LAKE, N.C. — The Obama administration has opened a broad campaign of enforcement against farmers who employ children and underpay workers, hiring hundreds of investigators and raising fines for labor and wage violators.
A flurry of fines and mounting public pressure on blueberry farmers is only the opening salvo, Labor Secretary said in an interview. Ms. Solis, the daughter of an immigrant farm worker, said she was making enforcement of farm-labor rules a priority. At the same time, Congress is considering whether to rewrite the law that still allows 12-year-olds to work on farms during the summer with almost no limits.
The blueberry crop has been drawing workers to eastern North Carolina for decades, but as the harvest got under way in late May, growers stung by bad publicity and federal fines were scrambling to clean up their act, even going beyond the current law to keep all children off the fields. The growers were also ensuring that the workers, mainly Hispanic immigrants, would make at least the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
“I picked blueberries last year, and my 4-year-old brother tried to, but he got stuck in the mud,” said Miguel, a 12-year-old child of migrants. “The inspectors fined the farmers, and this year no kids are allowed.”
Child and rights advocates said they were encouraged by these signs of federal resolve, but they were also waiting to see how wide and lasting the changes would be. Across the country, hundreds of thousands of children under 18 toil each year, harvesting crops from apples to onions, according to a recent report by detailing hazards to their health and schooling and criticizing the Labor Department for past inaction.
Reader Comments (2)
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Those kids should have never been allowed to work! Why wasn't that child in school?? What was going through the mind of the employer? This the USA and these things should not happen here. I can't believe the Labor Department has to go on without cracking down sooner.
Raise the fines? Try some jail time, I don’t see much of a difference between that a chide abuse