Where We Live: Putting Children To Work
Farmers face large increases in fines for employing children
Last week the federal labor department announced a large increase in fines that farmers can face for employing children.
This crackdown from the Obama administration is a welcome response to child rights advocates who have been fighting for stricter child labor laws to regulate the hundreds of thousands of children under 18 yrs old, many who are immigrants, who work on farms across the nation. Connecticut has its own history of child labor on tobacco farms – but now our state has some of the strictest child labor laws in the country.
Coming up, a conversation about federal child labor reform, and we’ll profile a family pizzeria in Clinton who claim having their young children making pizzas and counting money teaches good work ethic.
What do you think? Should young children be able to work? What was your first job? How did you learn work ethic? Join the conversation.
Attorney Dan Schwartz authors the Connecticut Employment Law Blog.
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Comments
Listener Email from Joan
When I was 14 and between my sophomore and junior years in high school, my father connected me with an associate who sold commercial kitchen equipment. My job was to layout diners and restaurants for their customers to help sell the equipment. I was paid a dollar an hour. It was the best summer job I ever had and my biggest thrill came when my father brought me to a diner I had designed. It was beautiful!
Listener Email from Helene
If the children of a business owner are learning the trade, then what is the harm? What ever happened to young people learning the value of work and responsibility? We used to have paper routes, babysitting jobs, lifeguarding opportunities. These jobs taught us about money, gave us a bit of 'financial freedom' of sorts and helped us gain self esteem.
I do hope that the Department of Labor will make an allowance here.
Listener Email from Diane
We absolutely need to change our state child labor laws. Children want to work; they need to work at young ages to develop a work ethic. It's interesting that this morning you had editorial comment from Frank DeFord who (as I understood him) speculated that pehaps the demise of rising young tennis stars in the U.S. is because kids don't want to work as hard as needed to be at the top of the sport. Kids today are often coddled. Look at the headlines in yesterday's NY Times that even law schools are changing their grading scales to make their graduates look like they have higher grades. Talk about coddling!
As an elementary teacher for 24 years, I know that 8 and 9 year olds have tremendous energy and desire to help, to engage in useful activities. That's one reason hands-on learning is so important for this age child. They are also very competent and should be given a chance to develop skills that interest them in the "real world" such as working in their family pizza restaurant.
I grew up in Oregon. We all picked berries and beans, starting at age 9 or 10--going out on "platoons," school buses led by an adult to carry us to the fields. We earned money to buy our favorite clothes for school or to spend on hobbies. We learned how to work, and to presevere even when it was hot or we were tired. My generation (baby boomers) have proven themselves to be hard workers, in part I believe, because we had much more freedom to work and to play.
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