Posted on 12/19/2011 1:52:51 PM PST by Graybeard58
Shelly Mayer says she would never do anything to put her three children in harm's way on their family dairy farm, but she worries that proposed regulations could put an end to many jobs for farm kids.
As Americans, Mayer says, we are too protective of our children when it comes to physical labor.
"We have raised a generation of 'bubble-wrap' babies," she says.
"Parents dote so much on kids, they practically need an oxygen mask to go outside. And we wonder why they can't function in society."
Mayer and her husband, Dwight, have children ages 15, 13 and 8 on their farm near Slinger, Wis. They are among farmers nationwide who believe proposed U.S. Department of Labor regulations go too far in restricting what work kids could perform on farms, such as driving tractors and handling livestock.
The changes, they say, could dampen kids' enthusiasm for becoming farmers, especially youngsters who don't live on farms but have part-time jobs to gain farming experience.
Under the proposed rules, according to the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, someone under 18 would not be allowed to do many chores for a neighbor or even their own family's farm if it's set up as a corporation or a business partnership.
Today, many family farms are legally structured as corporations or partnerships.
"It could take away a lot of opportunity," said Mayer, who also is executive director of Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin.
Under the proposed regulations:
-- Anyone under age 16 could not operate any power-driven machines unless the child was under the supervision of a parent or guardian.
-- Youngsters would be prohibited from handling noncastrated livestock older than 6 months, sows with suckling pigs or cows with a newborn calf. They also could not be in situations where an animal's behavior might be unpredictable, such as giving shots, dehorning or breeding.
-- Youngsters would not be allowed to work inside any grain silo, fruit or forage storage bin, nor would they be allowed to handle pesticides. Also, they would not be allowed to work at heights above 6 feet from a floor, including working on ladders.
-- The new regulations would prohibit teenagers from talking on cellphones or texting while operating a tractor.
After receiving thousands of public comments on its proposed regulations, the Department of Labor extended the comment period until Dec. 1 before moving forward with a rule-making process.
Nationwide, a child is killed in an agricultural work site every 3 days, and 41 young people suffer serious farm injuries each day, according to data through 2009 from the National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety.
"Children employed in agriculture are some of the most vulnerable workers in America," the Labor Department says on its website. "The fatality rate for young agricultural workers is four times greater than that of their peers employed in nonagricultural workplaces."
It has been more than 40 years since the Department of Labor updated child labor regulations for farms.
Farming has changed considerably in that time, with bigger tractors and other machinery that are a common cause of accidents and deaths.
It's time to update the regulations, according to the Department of Labor.
Children who work on their parents' farms are exempt from child labor laws, and they would remain exempt under the proposed regulation changes. They can perform any tasks, even dangerous ones, at any age on a farm owned or operated by a parent, according to the Department of Labor.
Removing the family-farm exemption would help prevent the most serious farm-youth injuries, according to Barbara Lee, director of the National Farm Medicine Center, in Marshfield, Wis.
"We need to think about the kids first," she said. "If you ask any parent whose child was killed in a farm accident, or who had a limb amputated, they would give anything to take that moment back. The injuries and deaths for children in agriculture are really gruesome and traumatic."
Farming is one of the nation's most dangerous occupations.
But while 81 percent of farm parents perceive the work to be more dangerous than other occupations, only 66 percent of those parents felt it was more dangerous for children to work on a farm than at other jobs, according to National Farm Medicine Center research.
Since she was about 7 years old, Addy Gonzales has been taught how to handle animals on her family's dairy farm near Elkhorn.
Now 14, she helps her mother and father with farm chores, provided it's not dangerous work and she has adult supervision.
"She would never be alone doing anything on the farm, even around the cows, because things can happen quick," said her mother, Kim Gonzales.
It may seem like the corporations control the politicians. And to a great degree they do through campaign donations, etc. But in the end? No, Corporations are at great risk from the politicians and bureaucrats. Just look at Big Coal, Big Oil, all it takes is for the politicians to become indebted to another entity who opposes their former benefactors.
Then the Corporations will be eaten to death small bite by small bite until there is a hollow shell left.
That is why the politicians and bureaucrats are afraid of small business and small farmers. They hire more people and in the end influence far more voters than the big Corporations do.
I would go so far as to say that Big Corporations actually alienate more voters than they influence. After all the Big Corporations are concerned about the short-term bottom line and small businesses are concerned about the long-term future as their business represents the future of their families.
Nationwide three children a day die in agricultural accidents? I wonder how they define their terms....
Nationwide = happens in a nation located on planet Earth. Three = Any non-negative number.
Children = we’re all God’s children, right? (Yeah, yeah I know).
Agricultural = It happens within a 500 mile proximity to a barn.
Accident = Any non-intended outcome
Nothing like favoring the corporate farm over the family farm ! Like Soviet Russia, the family farms were put out of business in favor of the collective farms !
Who the F are they?
Great news! In 2008 they got a five-year, $4.6 million grant to screw around with family farmers. Ain't it wonderful? Of course they're going to be real busy screwing around with family farmers in the hopes of getting a bigger, longer grant in 2013.
Outsiders messing with old farmers is dangerous work. hee hee hee
Not kid’s stuff.
I remember Phil Gramm once got in an argument with some government bureaucrat who tried to claim that the government cared about his children at least as much as he did. Gramm’s response was to say, “If you care just as much, then tell me their names.”
So what? Banker-backed corporations have enough money to control the nomination process. Voters rarely get a chance to make a meaningful choice.
-Between 1995 and 2000, there where 695 total farm-related youth fatalities on US farms
[why choose just those years? Isn't there data available for 2001-2010?]
-Of the leading sources of fatal injuries to youth on U.S. farms, 25% percent involved machinery (includes tractors), 17% involved motor vehicles (includes ATVs), and 16% were due to drowning
[Every drowning is an accident, but not every drowning is farm related. Did they drown in the creek, swimming pool or local swimming hole? You'd expect an industry with high mechanization to have higher mechanization fatalities. Were the motor vehicles being used recreationally or during work?]
[It only gets worse as you read on:]
Nonfatal Injuries
In 2006, an estimated 3,601 household youth were injured while performing farm work. 2
According to data from 2006, approximately 3,026 injuries (26%) occurred to children under 10 years of age living on farms.3
Nearly 75% of injured children were not actively working when the injury occurred.3
Falls (40%) were the most common injuring event among household youth.
[Just do the math yourself and you'll see these guys are either innumerate, liars or both. The numbers just don't add up.]
More here: http://www.marshfieldclinic.org/proxy/MCRF-Centers-NFMC-NCCRAHS-ChildAgInjuryFactSheet_July-2011.2.pdf
So what? Banker-backed corporations have enough money to control the nomination process. Voters rarely get a chance to make a meaningful choice.
I agree with you in that it seems like the voters rarely get a chance to make a meaningful choice. But that can be changed and it is as far as I can see at the local level WHEN the voting public gets involved. Unfortunately that doesn’t happen as much as would like to see it happen.
But things do turn around and I see it happening again. It may not be this election cycle or the next one but it will happen. Unhappily I see it happening with bullets instead of ballots, but that’s a discussion for a different thread.
This has absolutely nothing to do with farm accidents and everything to do with killing the family farm and having the government take over land so it can “rent” it back to the people. I believe this was tried before in other places like Russia and did not work very well.
60 years ago i illegaly went to work plastering for my fathers company when I was 14 so I would have a righteous street racer ready when i turned 16 but I was smart enough not to spout off about it.
— The new regulations would prohibit teenagers from talking on cellphones or texting while operating a tractor.
Actually, here’s what the proposed reg would say from MCRF: “The use of electronic devices, including communication devices, while operating power driven equipment, including motor vehicles.”
As I read it, it’s not just limited to cell phones, but also 2-way radios (cb, business band, amateur), digital display broadcast radios, monitors for seeding, spraying, etc. Any tractor or harvesting unit made in the last 30 yrs has come standard with some sort of electronic monitoring display unit. If actually written this way, this leaves the door wide open for whatever level of enforcement the enforcer desires.
Correct. We’ve paid for the choker collar around our necks and the chain they hold in their hand. Sickening.
Do you know of someone that can work with that data? I’m not a farmer, but I do love liberty.
Where is the epidemic of injured farm kids that this legislation is supposed to give succor to?
The Fe'ral government wants to keep them whole so that they can send them to Afghanistan to get chewed up in our government's suicidal ROE.
IOW, workplace injuries and death are OK when its directed by the Fe'ral Government.
In itself that statement defeats their purpose. But I bet even that statement is distorted. "Figures do not lie, bu liars figure."
Screw ‘em! For a number of reasons, screw ‘em.
We need a list employees of such parasite organizations that have enabled Obozo’s takeover.
This should follow them for the rest of their life.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.