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Obama’s Labor Department Looks To Take The ‘Family’ Out of Family Farms
Red State ^ | 11/29/2011 | Labor Union Report Staff

Posted on 11/30/2011 2:12:49 PM PST by IbJensen

Let’s establish this right out of the gate so as not to confuse issues: It is wrong when corporations use child labor. Forgetting the law for a moment, whether it is here in the U.S. or overseas, children are children, and corporations should not exploit children. Got it? With that said, this is not about corporations, this is about families and farms. More specifically, family farms and the overreach of the federal government.

For centuries, even before there was Willie Nelson and FarmAid, farming throughout the world (including here in the United States) has largely been a family affair. That is, parents and their children (when not in school) work from dawn until dusk to put food on the family table, and the tables of others.

Recognizing this, when child labor laws were developed in the last century, there was an exemption built in for family farms. Now, however, the concept of the family farm may be getting gutted if the Obama Labor Department has its way.

Under a proposed “dramatic updating” of the nation’s child labor regulations, the Department of Labor is considering eliminating many of the tasks that children and young adults do on their family’s farm.

Although the DOL’s website specifically states, “The proposed regulations would not apply to children working on farms owned by their parents,” the regulations would (presumably) apply to farms owned by grandparents and other, non-parental family members.

Moreover, as the Milwaukee’s Journal-Sentinel notes, many family farms are legally structured, which could remove it from the parental farm exemption:

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.

Under the DOL’s proposal [emphasis added], the following tasks would be outlawed :

Strengthening current child labor prohibitions regarding agricultural work with animals in timber operations, manure pits, storage bins and pesticide handling. Prohibiting hired farm workers under the age of 16 from employment in the cultivation, harvesting and curing of tobacco. Prohibiting youth in both agricultural and nonagricultural employment from using electronic devices, including communication devices, while operating power-driven equipment.

Prohibiting hired farm workers under the age of 16 from operating almost all power-driven equipment. A similar prohibition has existed as part of the nonagricultural child labor provisions for more than 50 years. A limited exemption would permit some student-learners to operate certain farm implements and tractors (when equipped with proper rollover protection structures and seat belts) under specified conditions.

Preventing children under 18 years of age from being employed in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm-product raw materials. Prohibited places of employment would include country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.

While many might view this as merely a simple example of bureaucratic overreach, diminishing a family’s ability to actually tend to their farm as a family could put many of them out of business since they could be forced to hire workers to fulfill the chores that their children are doing.

Of course, for those farms that can afford to hire employees and stay in business, this could be what the Department of Labor is counting on—especially in states like Hilda Solis’ home state of California, where farm workers can be unionized.

There are, according to the Department of Labor’s website, a couple of days left for the public to comment:

On October 31, 2011, the Department published a notice to extend the comment period to December 1, 2011, because of requests received to extend the period for filing public comments and the Department’s desire to obtain as much information about its proposals as possible. Interested parties are invited to submit written comments on the proposed rule at www.regulations.gov.

Note: Neither Willie Nelson, nor FarmAid returned a request for a statement.

“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Government
KEYWORDS: dol; evilregime; familyfarms; labordept; obamanomics
When will a governor of a state, any state, simply come out and say that henceforth the state nor its residents would comply with federal regulation the state and its citizens consider, through proper debate, unconstitutional?

The states are supposed to be nearly sovereign yet the Feds pretend they don’t exist or at least don’t matter much.

If half a dozen or more states simply started ignoring federal diktats what can the Feds do about it?

I’m sick of the “transformation” that is taking place and it’s obvious that the GOP isn’t going to do much about it except tell us that they only have one half of one third of federal power. How much of our liberties will remain before they have 1/2 of 2/3′s or more? We can’t drill, we can’t farm, we can’t build a pipeline, we can’t open factories (Boeing), we can’t take care of our own health insurance, we can’t enforce immigration laws,…what CAN we do?

“In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” – Thomas Jefferson

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” – James Madison

1 posted on 11/30/2011 2:12:55 PM PST by IbJensen
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To: IbJensen

No one loves the Inheritance Tax more than Archer Daniels Midland Corp. C’mon Mellancamp, write a song about them.


2 posted on 11/30/2011 2:17:33 PM PST by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
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To: IbJensen

This sounds like a strike at Red State America and other conservative areas.


3 posted on 11/30/2011 2:20:09 PM PST by Truth29
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To: IbJensen

Didn’t even Soviet farms have more sense than this?


4 posted on 11/30/2011 2:24:12 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (Sometimes progressives find their scripture in the penumbra of sacred bathroom stall writings (Tzar))
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To: massgopguy; doug from upland

Archer Daniels Midland,
Anti family farm kid-land,

hey doug could you do something??? you’re good at quick parodies, i write songs more from scratch and it takes a long time.


5 posted on 11/30/2011 2:26:42 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (Sometimes progressives find their scripture in the penumbra of sacred bathroom stall writings (Tzar))
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To: IbJensen

Or maybe just changing the Family in family farm from the Smith Family to the Capone Family.


6 posted on 11/30/2011 2:39:53 PM PST by MIchaelTArchangel
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To: Jet Jaguar; NorwegianViking; ExTexasRedhead; HollyB; FromLori; EricTheRed_VocalMinority; ...

The list, Ping

Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list

http://www.nachumlist.com/


7 posted on 11/30/2011 2:43:22 PM PST by Nachum (The complete Obama list at www.nachumlist.com)
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To: IbJensen
First Obummer wants a generation of fat school kids

now the Idiot wants generation of fat lazy farm kids

8 posted on 11/30/2011 2:49:05 PM PST by bunkerhill7
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To: IbJensen; All
Obama is trying to industrialize farms. This is going to help drive up food prices and drive us into importing more food from Chna and Mexico.

2012 can't come fast enough. Is the next Civil War starting soon? I think so.

9 posted on 11/30/2011 2:49:38 PM PST by ExCTCitizen (Cain/West 2012....what would the RACISTS LIBERALS say???)
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To: Truth29

Child labor laws are used to destroy the Natural Family. My parents would have had their children taken away from them for “child abuse”.

All my brothers and sister are hard workers—the men own their own company. Children have to learn work ethic and they learn it by doing it while young.

We are raising infantile adults, who are lazy—can not struggle with anything that takes effort and strength—the very things which created Abe Lincoln and the Wright Bros.

Most child Labor laws are ridiculous today and it is to create slaves and people who can not think and use common sense....those who have no agency-—can not think for themselves and who are told everything from cradle to grave.

Agency is learned when young—it is a worldview—the individualism of our Founding Fathers and Theodore Roosevelt all required hard work and contributing to the household. Most didn’t learn “conformity” from centralized education which is a brainwashing factory curricula designed by Marxists like billy ayers. The Natural Family (Christian ethics/Orthodox Jewish) is where true self-esteem and worth come from—and loyalty to the family.

Families are being intentionally destroyed through the legal system. Not only through no-fault divorce-—making marriage contracts cr*p—and teaching children that “anything” can be a “family” (insanity and a lie and denies children their natural rights to have a biological mother and father)...

Ethical families are what is the basis of free thinkers who want freedom for their families and all decent human beings worked within the family unit. These people grow up fighting and respecting their families. Loyalty to families and their private property and social contracts (based on right reason and common sense) is what created the USA.

Now, we have wrong reason-—(sodomy is a right and children should be slothful and lazy and not have to have a work ethic in a family). The work ethic is learned by young children—not in adulthood. The natural family is set up to model and teach appropriate behaviors and values—because biological families have a genetic interest in their offspring which is a natural method of creating “love” and “caring” about the future of the human beings which bureaucracies will never do.

Loving children is about teaching them values which make them successful in the world....that includes perseverance which is only learned through working hard and being frustrated and overcoming it. The Formative years are the first seven in a child.....if you don’t instill empathy and a work ethic....the child will never develop these qualities. Like the interaction between men and women—it is learned in the formative years. Destroy the model of family—you will destroy the child’s ability to reason, and use common sense, logic and form long-lasting flourishing relationships in his future.


10 posted on 11/30/2011 3:25:52 PM PST by savagesusie
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To: massgopguy
No one loves the Inheritance Tax more than Archer Daniels Midland Corp. C’mon Mellancamp, write a song about them.

I was just going to post that, I wonder if Johnny Cougar was going to support Obama now.

11 posted on 11/30/2011 3:27:08 PM PST by dfwgator (I stand with Herman Cain.)
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To: ExCTCitizen

“Obama is trying to industrialize farms.”
Corporatism requires it. Small businesses must be eliminated, also. “Nationalization” through regulation and taxation is underway.


12 posted on 11/30/2011 3:31:46 PM PST by griswold3 (Character is Destiny)
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To: IbJensen

(Assuming the status quo is maintained next November*)

nobama will soon control all our health care.

nobama already controls all our schools.

If the EPA is not challenged, nobama will control all our energy.

Now nobama wants to control our food.

What’s next? What’s left?

* Lord, I hope not!


13 posted on 11/30/2011 3:40:12 PM PST by upchuck (Rerun: Think you know hardship? Wait till the dollar is no longer the world's reserve currency.)
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To: IbJensen

Stalin tried this.


14 posted on 11/30/2011 3:40:42 PM PST by castlegreyskull
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To: IbJensen

Stalin tried this.


15 posted on 11/30/2011 3:40:44 PM PST by castlegreyskull
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To: griswold3

So true. Nationalization is coming and if 0 get re-elected, 0 will distroy America as we know it.


16 posted on 11/30/2011 3:41:00 PM PST by ExCTCitizen (Cain/West 2012....what would the RACISTS LIBERALS say???)
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To: IbJensen

The GOP is useless and the DEMS are just plain dangerous.


17 posted on 11/30/2011 3:59:23 PM PST by Fledermaus (I'll vote for Mitt Romney when Hell freezes over. He's as bad or worse than Zero.)
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To: savagesusie

What about children who are adopted - are they not part of a “REAL” family?


18 posted on 11/30/2011 4:48:44 PM PST by Gabz (Democrats for Voldemort.)
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To: griswold3

See my Tagline folks.


19 posted on 11/30/2011 7:12:19 PM PST by Varsity Flight (Phony-Care is a government "Work-Camp")
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To: Gabz

Depends. Are you talking about the adopted black boy by the homosexual couple in Mass. who was a Duke Prof. —The one who was complaining about his “son” learning to speak which made it more difficult to rape him and sell him to other homosexuals on the internet? He “loved” his black baby.

The Truth is-—that orphanages and “step” parents, etc. who have no biological interest and connection to children are more likely to emotionally and physically abuse the children. It is recorded fact.

We understood the tragedy of children who lose parents—orphanages were always considered evil.

Granted. There are people with true Christian ethics who do a wonderful job raising adopted children-—but even those loved, adopted children find a need to search out their true identity. It is what connects them to the past and gives them when they have children, a connection to the future in profound ways which creates an interest in history and a concern about the future. God designed it that way-—it is a perfect design. Adoption is necessary with death, etc. but it is never as good as the way God designed it.

That being said-—many adopting parents are wonderful because they have that true selflessness of Christianity. I think immoral people will be horrible parents whether natural or not. There are some awful parents and children are better off with strangers raising them in that case.


20 posted on 11/30/2011 9:53:35 PM PST by savagesusie
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