HR Management & Compliance

DOL Getting Strict on Child Farm Labor: Proposed Rules Due Sept. 2

Agricultural employers on the lookout for Fair Labor Standards Act’s child labor regulations for their industry can look no more — a new notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that would revise those rules will finally be published in the Federal Register tomorrow.

Agricultural employers have been awaiting these rules since final child labor rules for nonagricultural employers were promulgated in July 2010.

Still, employers in certain nonagricultural sectors should prepare for this rule as well, as it proposes to create two new hazardous occupation orders (HOs) for young workers in nonagricultural sectors and because it revises some of the U.S. Department of Labor’s civil money penalty assessment procedures (29 C.F.R. §579.6).

The new “non-ag” HOs would extend the prohibition from all work performed in conjunction with the storing, marketing and transporting of farm-product raw materials from only 14- and 15-year-olds to 16- and 17-year-olds. The second proposed non-ag HO would prohibit the use of electronic devices, including communication devices such as cell phones, while operating power-driven equipment.

One of the main goals of the proposed rule is to increase parity between the agricultural and nonagricultural child labor provisions under the FLSA. One revision in the NPRM would be to include “public agency” under the definition of “employer” under the “ag HO” regulations that apply to youth workers.

In the NPRM, DOL notes that the revisions will not affect the statutory child labor parental exemption for children working on farms but rather will apply only to hired farm workers.

However, the rule will propose to add several ag HOs and to revoke certain exemptions for 14- and 15-year-old farm workers, including an exemption from an HO prohibiting workers of this age from operating tractors and other power-driven machinery.

Also, the NPRM would add an HO that would prohibit 14- and 15-year-old farm workers from operating or assisting in the operation of hoisting apparatuses often used in grain storage operations, as well as an HO prohibiting such youth from working in grain silos.

Under the NPRM, in determining the amount of an initial civil money penalty for a child labor violation, DOL is to consider the severity of any nonfatal injury as well as, under certain circumstances, the size of the business.

Public comments on the proposed rule will be due 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register.

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