The Obama administration’s latest great idea:
The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child labor laws to children working on family farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own families’ land.
Under the rules, most children under 18 could no longer work “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.”
“Prohibited places of employment,” a Department press release read, “would include country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.”
The new regulations, first proposed August 31 by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, would also revoke the government’s approval of safety training and certification taught by independent groups like 4-H and FFA, replacing them instead with a 90-hour federal government training course.
The Labor Department has reportedly withdrawn the proposal already in the face of public outrage. It seems America isn’t ready for a war on family farms just yet.
But why did the Obama administration want to do this in the first place? A payoff from big agro concerns? I don’t get it.
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