Faces in the Fields

Workers harvesting sweet potato in 2009. Photo by Peter Eversoll.By Zachary Kohn
Law Intern, NCJC 
J.D. Candidate 2013
UNC School of Law

This summer on outreach, I had the privilege to talk to farmworkers about everything from La Copa de Oro to minimum wage laws, and witnessed everything from scrimmage soccer matches, to workers trotting home under a majestic sunset with dozens of buckets strapped to their limbs, to tractors spraying pesticides in fields right next to farmworker housing. I enjoyed the aroma of delicious traditional meals being prepared at the end of the day, shared tortillas off of a truck with famished workers and even filed a few complaints with the NCDOL on behalf of farmworkers. 

Among the most memorable experiences so far was at a migrant labor camp where workers are suffering from bed bugs, snake bites, inadequate bathroom and water breaks, and housing with malfunctioning toilets, refrigerators, and stoves. The farmworkers at this camp, a talkative and friendly bunch, did not bring up any of these issues until we had been talking for hours. Even when the problems came to light, almost no worker wanted to file the complaint, even anonymously, out of fear that their employer might retaliate. Fortunately one worker had the desire for change. He told us that he would make the complaint not for himself, but for his fellow workers and future workers living at that camp. I cannot imagine a better client or a more righteous act.

Migrant farmworkers, just like anybody else, need to be able to prepare and store food free from insect infestation, earn livable wages, receive proper medical care, have access to water and bathrooms at the workplace, work in a location free from exposure to pesticides, have privacy in their homes and sleep on actual beds with mattresses. And no one should have to work for an employer who takes advantage of him or her.  Unfortunately, most of what we would consider basic requirements for human beings appears to be frequently denied to these incredibly hardworking, optimistic people.

Nonetheless, we can apply the same optimism and dedication the farmworkers have when they travel thousands of miles from home to do back-breaking work, by refusing to let others treat these workers as a distant abstraction. We must do everything in our capacity to demonstrate our belief that these honest people deserve an opportunity for a better future instead of being cheated, abused and lied to. We can witness, speak to farm workers, share our knowledge with others, make documentaries, pressure the legislature to pass bills in favor of humane treatment of farm workers, write about our experiences with workers, file complaints on their behalf, and even file lawsuits. What we cannot do is be complacent and accept their mistreatment. We must act. 

The outreach trips have been one of the most rewarding aspects of my legal internship at the Justice Center. Aside from interacting with clients and brushing up on my Spanish, I witnessed the hidden realities of our agricultural system, awakened to the plight of the truly impoverished, reignited my desire to study law and learned firsthand that even in the most truly difficult situations people can find happiness and hope. While it's frustrating at times to see progress in farmworker's lives develop so slowly, I can only hope that they have received at least a fraction of the benefit I gained from participating in this incredible experience.

Summer Homework: Plow the Field

The American Prospect recently featured an article about how a legal loophole allows young children to work in agriculture:

Farmworkers are frequently exposed to dangerous pesticides, heavy machinery, and sharp tools, and children are much more vulnerable to the bad effects of these than their older colleagues, according to Levy Schroeder, director of health and safety programs at the AFOP. Deaths from heat exposure and tractor rollovers, and lifelong repetitive strain injuries from stooping for hours on end are just some of the risks that young children face in farm work. “They are not little adults; their bodies have not yet developed,” Schroeder says. Children’s young immune systems are also particularly susceptible to pesticide exposure, which has been associated with cancer and respiratory and reproductive problems over the long term.

Maria Mandujano, now 20, started working on farms in her home state of Idaho at age 11. “It was just something you had to do to put food on the table,” she says, but now she laments the experience. “I wish my parents would have said no, or somebody would have been there to say no,” she adds. Mandujano is now studying in college and is trying to lure her younger brother away from the fields. “I always try to explain to him how he can benefit from not working the fields right now, what he could do in exchange,” she says. “For example, learning from my own mistakes and not growing up as quickly as I did.”

One thing that frequently gets sacrificed is education—Mandujano is a rarity for making it to college. In fact, young farmworkers are four times more likely to drop out of school than their peers, according to government estimates. López moved around the country for work during her summers and often found herself months behind in school when she returned to her home in Texas in late October. Despite the odds, she graduated with a bachelor’s in communications and now works at AFOP to advocate for those less fortunate. “More than half of these kids don’t complete high school,” she says, “and we continue to allow that to happen.”

Click here to read more.

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Hope in the Fight

In a recent blog post, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis states:

Combating child labor is a daunting challenge. As we mark World Day Against Child Labor on June 12, more than 200 million children are working around the globe—and more than half are working in dangerous jobs. 

Every young person deserves the chance to be in school and learning—not sacrificing their childhoods working in life-threatening jobs. Children across the world who are forced into labor are risking their health, their future and their lives.

And this poster by the U.S. Department of Labor reminds us that “We cannot succeed on the backs of children.”

Most people perceive child labor as an issue that only affects developing countries.  However, it’s also a problem here in North Carolina.

In the U.S., children account for roughly 1 out of every 5 work-related deaths on farms, and face higher injury and illness rates than adult workers.  At least 9 children have died working on farms in NC in the past decade, and many more have been injured.  (Right now we don't know the exact numbers because North Carolina does not keep track of how many child workers have died in agriculture.)  

Children who work in fields treated with pesticides are at greater risk of developing neurological and reproductive health problems, as well as cancer.

Here in North Carolina, one simple way to help wipe out exploitative child labor is to close the legal loopholes that allow young children to work in agriculture.  House Bill 838 would have done just that, but big agribusinesses are apparently more interested in corporate profits than the health and future of North Carolina's youngest workers.  These special interests shut down debate on the bill this spring and prevented it from coming to an up-or-down vote.

Secretary Solis says that “Our mission is difficult, there is no doubt.  But it is not impossible. The job of eradicating hazardous and exploitive child labor must get done.”

There is a long road ahead of us, but we can get there together.  Will you stand with us? 
Endorse the Harvest of Dignity Campaign today.

Protecting farm kids: a tough row to hoe

By Harry Payne, published in the Raleigh News & Observer

RALEIGH - One in every five farm deaths in this country ends the life of a child. We must face North Carolina's role in that bloody truth.

North Carolina law doesn't allow children aged 13 years and under to be exposed to the dangers of the modern adult workplace: no construction sites, chemical plants, poultry processors or pickle factories. Sharp blades, heavy weights, power equipment, toxic chemicals, conveyer belts and the rough edges of adult behavior make these workplaces no place for kids - except if they work in agriculture.

Yet farm work has these dangers and more. Add green tobacco sickness, snakes, pesticides and rural isolation into the mix, steam it in sweltering heat and you have the real life story of "How I spent my Summer Vacation" guaranteed to a few thousand North Carolina kids not yet old enough to shave.

The continuation of this misery and danger is made possible by the efforts of the N.C. Farm Bureau and the state labor commissioner, and it may well be the story of that pint of blueberries you just picked up at the store.

Agriculture is exempt from most of the child protection laws and OSHA provisions that are intended to keep children from the worst danger and to protect folks in every other workplace. In the General Assembly this year, House Bill 838, offered by child advocates and sponsored by Ashe County Republican state Rep. Jonathan Jordan, would have taken the 10-to-13-year-olds out of the fields and restricted the older youth from specific hazards determined by the U.S. Department of Labor, such as applying pesticides and operating heavy machinery, that are the purview of those 18 and up in all other industries.

An exemption for farm family members was included - and then expanded - at the behest of the N.C. Farm Bureau. It allowed basically any work by family kids at family-owned or operated farms.

So far so good, right? But lest reason and common sense prevail at the General Assembly, the Farm Bureau and the labor commissioner intervened.

The commissioner's office reported her preference to wait on some consensus between the Farm Bureau and the bill's proponents. After much delay, the Farm Bureau revealed its position as being OK with the protections for the 10-to-12-year-olds, but not the 13-year-olds.

Negotiations broke down at this point, with child advocates again offering a slimmed-down version of the bill, without sacrificing the safety of 13-year-olds, but to no avail.

Jordan, the bill's sponsor, then explained that he would not bring the bill forward for a hearing because of his preference for consensus, the labor commissioner's opposition and the Farm Bureau's discomfort.

So the opportunity to discuss the issue or provide relief has now disappeared for the next two years - relieving the Farm Bureau and the labor commissioner of an awkward moment when they might be forced to explain their positions on child labor to the public.

If there is good reason for kids to work in these places, these people are well-positioned to make the case, and they should have to.

Forget the bucolic images of kids milking cows or raising a prized pumpkin. Farm life has changed radically since child labor laws were written at the dawn of the 20th century, and what we know about children and danger has changed.

Rather than make the case that the farm economy somehow turns on the toil of kids or reveal that somehow they see children forced by circumstance to do farm work as less deserving of protection than all other kids, they hide behind a bill sponsor they have pressured to hold the bill. They want him to take the heat for their turning their backs on children in danger.

MEDIA RELEASE: Time running out to protect NC kids from child labor

Today’s committee meeting was the last scheduled chance for a bill protecting child farmworkers from dangerous work to be heard. Why won’t the NC Farm Bureau and Department of Labor support an up-or-down vote?

RALEIGH (June 7, 2011) – Today’s House Agriculture Committee meeting may have marked North Carolina’s last chance this legislative session to protect kids by ending the practice of child labor on North Carolina farms. 

 

But pressure from the NC Farm Bureau and Department of Labor prevented this common-sense legislation from reaching the floor for an up-or-down vote. Advocates say this is unfair to young farmworkers, who are already exempted from most basic health and safety regulations present in other industries.

 

Meanwhile, as school lets out, thousands of North Carolina children are preparing for a long, hot summer tending crops in 90-plus degree conditions. 

 

“Child farmworkers deserve the same legal protections that child workers in every other industry have,” said Emily Drakage, executive director of the NC FIELD Coalition. “Young people want to work to help their families, and they deserve to do so with the same protections on farms that they would get working at McDonalds or at the mall.”

 

While children make up only a tiny fraction of the agricultural work force, they account for 20 percent of all deaths on the job in agriculture. 

 

As an industry, Agriculture is exempt from most child labor laws. Under current law, children are allowed to work as paid employees at agricultural operations beginning at age 10. 

 

The bill, HB 838, would remove the exemption for agriculture from child labor laws, in order to provide the same protections for children who work in agriculture as in all other industries. It would also preserve the exemption for children who work on their own family’s farm.

Despite extended negotiations with children’s advocates, farm interests and legislative leaders, entrenched powers seem intent on preventing the bill from coming to a vote before the legislative session’s crossover deadline. Negotiations broke down after the Farm Bureau took issue with protecting 13-year-olds.

 

Barring some special circumstance, today’s 1 p.m. meeting of the House Agriculture Committee was the last scheduled meeting where the bill to protect child farmworkers could be heard before the June 9 crossover deadline. 

 

“The Farm Bureau and Department of Labor need to let this bill move forward,” said Fawn Pattison, director of Toxic Free NC. “Kids in North Carolina should be able to stay in school without being subject to dangerous or exploitive working conditions – and we deserve an up-or-down vote on this bill so any lawmaker who supports dangerous child labor can be held accountable.”

 

Though the last scheduled committee meeting has passed, advocates for the bill hold out hope the bill will be heard, either during a special meeting or if the crossover deadline is extended. Harry Payne, Senior Counsel for Policy & Law with the NC Justice Center, said that there is still ample time for committee members to discuss this bill.

 

“In this session, we have seen 90-page bill with enormous consequences passed in less than five minutes. Surely we can find time to hear a bill that protects children from workplace dangers,” said Payne.

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: Fawn Pattison, executive director, Toxic Free NC, 919.833.5333, fawn@toxicfreenc.org; Emily Drakage, executive director of the NC FIELD Coalition, 919.749.3629; Jeff Shaw, director of communications, NC Justice Center, 503.551.3615, jeff@ncjustice.org.

   

Update on Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 9:07PM by Chris Liu-Beers

Check out these interviews with 3 students who are former child farmworkers:

Raise your hand if you support child labor

Photograph shows half-length portrait of two girls wearing banners with slogan "ABOLISH CH[ILD] SLAVERY!!" in English and Yiddish ("(ני)דער מיט (קינד)ער שקלאפער(ײ)", "Nider mit Kinder Schklawerii"), one carrying American flag; spectators stand nearby. Probably taken during May 1, 1909 labor parade in New York City. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Abolish_child_slavery.jpg

As a society, we decided 75 years ago that child labor needed very strict guidelines to make sure that education comes first and to prevent abusive conditions.  The only problem?  Children in agriculture were exempted from these protections, in part because most farms were small family operations that needed everyone’s help.  Today, mass-scale agribusiness has replaced family farms.  But the exemption allowing child labor on farms has remained, meaning that there’s a good chance that pint of blueberries you’re enjoying was hand-picked by 12- and 13-year olds – legally.  These same children are too young to work in any other industry.

If you listen closely, you’ll hear two main arguments in favor of the status quo – in favor of child labor.

The most common one goes like this: “I worked on a farm when I was young, and it was hard work but I learned a lot.  There’s nothing wrong with hard work.”  Working on family farms is indeed our agricultural heritage, and so the proposed legislation to reduce child labor in North Carolina has a very clear exemption for the children of the farm owners.  However:

1. Today’s farms are dangerous places for children.  Large-scale agribusinesses use a lot of heavy machinery and pesticides – things that don’t mix well with kids.  Today, 20% of all farm deaths are children, even though children make up only about 8% of the agricultural work force.  From 1992-2000, 42% of work-related deaths of minors occurred in agriculture.  Half of the victims were 14 years old and under.
2. No one says that children shouldn’t be able to work at all.  But it doesn’t make any sense to exempt children working in one of America’s most dangerous industries, when those same children would be turned away from working at movie theaters or shopping malls.  Children in the fields should be protected in the same way as children in any other industry. 

Another common argument in favor of child labor goes something like this: “Farmworker families are so poor that their children have to work to support them.  It’s really an opportunity for them to save money and build their resumes.”

Most farmworker families are very poor – average annual incomes for farmworkers are around $11,000 – but the solution is not to allow child labor.  The solution is to support living wages and other safe, proven mechanisms that raise workers out of poverty.  Ending exploitative child labor is only one piece of a much larger puzzle, but it is a crucial piece.  Too often, we see that allowing child labor doesn’t break the cycle of poverty, it reinforces it.  Children who work in the fields often experience health problems and difficulty performing well in school because of the severe toll farm labor exacts on young bodies and developing minds.  

From the garment factories of New York to the coal mines of West Virginia, America decided a long time ago that child labor was not going to be the solution to bringing people out of poverty.  It’s been 75 years, and we’ve never looked back.  It’s long past time to close the loopholes and level the playing field for children working in our fields. 

Growing up working on the family farm is an important tradition that should be preserved, but employing young children in hazardous work should not be a tradition any longer.  Child labor laws should be the same for every industry.  All children in North Carolina deserve a safe, healthy and bright future.  It’s as simple as that.

Watch a short video on child labor in NC | Support legislation to end child labor | Endorse the Harvest of Dignity Campaign

60 Minutes misses the rest of the story

On Sunday, May 22, CBS’ 60 Minutes featured a report on child labor in agriculture in the U.S. The report primarily focused on the economic necessity of young children working in the fields to both the grower and the farmworker. Currently, children as young as 12-years-old are allowed to work an unlimited number of hours in the fields outside of school hours.  In almost every other industry you must be at least 14 years of age and the hours permitted to work are limited. The 60 Minutes segment appears to justify the existence of child labor and how and why it plays an “inevitable” role within the complexities of the agriculture industry.  However, there is something terribly askew in this business model if producing fruits and vegetables forces growers and farmworkers to employ children, so that both can financially stay afloat as well as feed the nation.  

AFOP’s Children in the Fields Campaign Program Director Norma Flores López was also featured in the segment. Back in August, Flores López, who is a former migrant farmworker, sat for an hour long interview, sharing the barriers and dangers farmworker children face as a result of the unfair agriculture exemption in the U.S. child labor law. While the report did shine a light on the agriculture exemption, important information shared by Flores López describing why children should not be exempted from the protections established in the child labor law that governs other industries was missing. 

Children who work in the fields are exposed to many dangers including pesticide exposure, which has been scientifically linked to delays in learning rates, reduced physical coordination, cancers, and behavioral problems to name only a few.  Farmworker children are also exposed to heat-related illnesses and are subjected to injury and even fatality from operating heavy and dangerous machinery and equipment.

Farmworker children in North Carolina have reported experiencing vomiting, dizziness, nausea, rashes, sunburn, and heat sickness while working in the fields.  We need to stop and ask ourselves, “Would I allow my 12-year-old child to work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week in the tobacco or strawberry fields knowing these risks?” 

Take a stance to end child labor in North Carolina’s fields! Visit www.harvestofdignity.org  for simple ways you can take action.

Emily Drakage
Children in the Fields Campaign
Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs

Update on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 at 1:32PM by Chris Liu-Beers

Here is extra video of Norma Flores Lopez that is online but did not appear in the televised report:

New Short Film: Uprooted Innocence

The Farmworker Advocacy Network worked with Professor Bruce Orenstein's video and social change class at Duke University to produce this brand new documentary about the Harvest of Dignity Campaign. Stay tuned for more...

This powerful student-made short film highlights an issue that most of us think disappeared a century ago - child labor.  Here in North Carolina, children as young as 12 years old and in some cases as young as 10 are allowed to labor in the fields, while in every other industry the minimum age is 14 or above. Agriculture is one of the three most dangerous industries in the nation, and yet every year across the country close to 500,000 farmworker children and youth risk their childhood, health, and well-being in order to bring food to our tables. Children in North Carolina are no exception.

Want more facts about children in North Carolina's fields?  Download the fact sheet now. 

Want to help end exploitative child labor?  Take action now.