Farmers fear effects of proposed child labor regulations

Kristi Ruth speaks with utmost credibility during the hundreds of farm safety presentations she's made to youth groups.

“When I show them my arm, they fall silent, and some have even started crying,” said Ruth, 20, whose left arm was mangled five years ago in an accident on her parents' farm near Columbia in south-central Iowa.

In part through the efforts of farm safety advocates like Ruth, whose arm wrapped repeatedly around a power takeoff shaft, the rate of childhood injury on farms and ranches has declined sharply during the past decade.

But Ruth, who was a family farm member before she became a safety advocate, comes down firmly against a recent U.S. Department of Labor initiative to further reduce the incidence of youth farm accidents.

“It's shocking to me that the government thinks it can fix a problem with a piece of paper. You have to encourage people to want to do it themselves,” said Ruth, who recently completed studies at Kirkwood Community College and will enroll at Iowa State University this summer.

Ruth, whose arm remains far from fully functional and a source of constant pain, said she thinks the proposed restrictions would inhibit the development of the work ethic for which farm kids are well known.

The debate over youth farm labor started in September when the Labor Department proposed revisions to a rule that exempts children under 16 from specified restrictions if they are working on a farm owned or operated by a parent or person standing in place of the parents.

Under the proposed change, the family exemption would apply only if the farm were wholly owned by the parent. The proposed change would also restrict youth work with power-driven equipment, livestock and pesticides and would forbid youth from working more than 6 feet off the ground.

In response to pushback from farmers, the Labor Department on Feb. 1 said a re-proposed portion of the rule covering the parental exemption will be available for comment in the summer.

Effects on family farms

Iowa farmers fear the rule would adversely affect family farms structured as partnerships or limited liability corporations - an increasingly common arrangement, said Trudy Wastweet, national policy adviser for the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation.

“They worry, for example, that the 15-year-old son of one partner would be precluded from working on the farm of his uncle or grandfather,” Wastweet said.

While acknowledging the importance of farm safety, Bill Northey, secretary of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, said in some respects the proposed rules are a solution looking for a problem.

Both Northey and Gov. Terry Branstad have called the proposed rule “a prime example of federal overreach,” stating that farm families are better than the federal government at ensuring the safety of children in agriculture.

Northey said the proposed rule would keep “town kids” under the age of 16 from doing farm work involving driving tractors or working with livestock.

“Farm work offers youngsters the opportunity to develop self worth and to understand the boss-employee relationship. We believe those are valuable milestones in the upbringing of children,” he said.

Lack of statistics

While Iowa does not maintain comprehensive farm accident statistics, from three to five Iowa children die in farm accidents each year, according to University of Iowa professor Kelley Donham, chairman of the UI's Rural Safety and Health Department.

For all children who live on, visit or are hired to work on farms, the rate of injuries fell 59 percent - from 16.6 per 1,000 farms in 1998 to 6.8 per 1,000 farms in 2009, according to the National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety in Marshfield, Wis.

That dramatic decline indicates that research and public awareness efforts are making an impact on one of the nation's most hazardous industries, said Barbara Lee, the center's director.

Donham and Lee say the proposed Department of Labor changes are modest and overdue, bringing agriculture closer in line with other industries.

The hazards facing farm youth are changing, with all-terrain vehicles and horses accounting for an increasing share of accidents, said Marilyn Adams, founder and president of Farm Safety 4 Just Kids, an Urbandale-based international organization with 131 chapters.

Adams, who founded the group after her 11-year-old son Keith suffocated in a grain wagon in 1986, said she thinks the federal review will help keep the spotlight on farm safety.

History of issue

•  The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act prohibited most employment of minors in “oppressive child labor,” but allowed them to work on their family farms.
•  In 1966, Congress prohibited children under 16 from doing work considered “particularly hazardous,” but it exempted those working on their parents' farms.
•  On Sept. 2, 2011, the Labor Department proposed a rule amending the exemption for a farmer's own children to only apply to farms “wholly owned” by the child's parents.
•  On Feb. 1, the Labor Department said it would re-propose the family exemption rule to accommodate farmers' suggestions.