Big Brother reaches his regulatory arm into the farm

The Department of Labor is about to make child labor laws apply to children helping on family farms. The new regulations would forbid children under 18 from working 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 proposed by Labor Secretary Hilda Solisould 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.

This just boggles the mind. Generations of kids have worked on their family farms and learned from 4-H and FFA. Now the present administration's unelected "we know best-ers" have discovered new ways to regulate and take over our lives.

I have to wonder if these bureaucrats spend their time searching for people who have somehow managed to keep out from under federal government control. Can't have that can we?

Comments

[Ron]

Obama and the people in the Obama administration are completely out of touch with the real world.
Obama needs to realize the whole world does not revolve around a Hyde Park mentality.

[neighbor]

Wouldn't you like to think that the present administration would be spending time on more important issues??? Also, I have to wonder who was lobbying for this. With an election coming up and by following a money trail we could probably figure it out tho.

[Frank]

I don't know the answer. A teenage son of a farmer by Carlyle was pulverized by an auger when he was alone and fell into it. It devastated his parents who apparently were not home at the time. The son just got home from school and was in a hurry to complete his chores.

[neighbor]

I know all about farm accidents and the devastation they create. My Father was a farmer from early childhood thru his adulthood when he was killed in a farm accident. Our family was also devastated.

[Marie]

"The FLSA also provides a complete exemption for youths employed on farms owned by their parents."

http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/whd/WHD20111250.htm