Wage and Hour division
cmonforton | August 8, 2012The NBC News affiliate in California's Bay Area released last week a multi-part investigative series entitled "Children in the field: American kids pick your food." The anchorwoman introducing the first segment said:
"They are too young to drive, work in an office, or even a local fast food joint, but thousands of them work long hours in brutal conditions to make sure we eat well, and on the cheap."
Investigative reporter Stephen Stock added:
"We talked to children who said they started working the fields when they were 8, 10 and 11 years old. While most of us had jobs when we were teens,…
cmonforton | September 8, 2011After two teenagers' legs were severed while they were working near a grain auger, I wrote last month about the White House's role in holding up a proposed Labor Department rule to address hazards for young workers. After a 9-month delay by the White House, the Labor Department released the proposed rule last week and is asking the public to submit comments on it by November 1. After reviewing the proposal, it's hard to imagine why such common sense improvements to protect young workers drew such time-consuming scrutiny from the President's regulatory czar.
The proposed rules will amend the…