Prior iterations of the CARE Act were met with fierce opposition from farms. Opposition from farmers who see a threat to family traditions "I think it's just an issue of people not realizing that we still have these harmful carveouts in law that allow this to legally be happening in our country," she says. Wurth is hopeful that with the national reckoning happening around child labor in recent months, this time will be different. "This is an injustice for farmworker communities," says Ruiz. Raul Ruiz (D-CA) is a co-sponsor of the Children's Act for Responsible Employment and Farm Safety, or CARE Act of 2023, that would raise the minimum age of children working in agriculture from 12 to 14. Lucille Roybal-Allard, who first introduced the measure in 2005 and repeatedly reintroduced it without success. Ruiz is taking up the mantle from another California Democrat, Rep. Many versions of this bill have been introduced over the years. On farms, however, children 16 and over can work at any height with nothing to protect them from falling, Wurth says. But to use that same kind of circular saw on a farm, you could be 16," she says.Įmployers in construction must provide protections from falling for workers who are performing tasks at heights over six feet. "So for example, to operate a circular meat slicer at a deli, you'd have to be 18. Margaret Wurth, senior children's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, says current labor law creates absurd parallels, where children of the same ages doing the same work aren't receiving the same protections, simply because they're working in different sectors. We're asking for parity," says Democratic Congressman Raul Ruiz of California, one of the bill's sponsors.ĭifferent standards in agriculture lead to "absurd parallels" "We're not asking for anything more or above. The Children's Act for Responsible Employment and Farm Safety would do away with the double standard, by raising the minimum ages for agricultural work to match all other occupations. At 16, children can operate heavy machinery and perform tasks at any height while working on a farm without any protections against falling, unlike in other industries. Under federal labor law, children must be 14 to take on all but a tiny handful of jobs, and there are limits to the hours they can work.īut due to a carveout with origins in the Jim Crow South, children can be hired to work on farms starting at age 12, for any number of hours as long as they don't miss school.Īnd while children are generally prohibited from doing hazardous work in other sectors, there's an exception for agriculture. ![]() ![]() House Democrats are seeking to bring those children into the conversation, with a bill introduced Monday that would raise the minimum age for children working in farms from 12 to 14, a change sponsors say would rectify a decades-old double standard.Ī different standard for children working in agriculture Amid discoveries of 13-year-olds cleaning saws in meatpacking plants and 10-year-olds working in the kitchen at a McDonald's, the Biden administration has vowed to crack down on child labor violations in the U.S.īut largely absent from those discussions are the estimated hundreds of thousands of children who are legally working in equally hazardous conditions on farms.
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