Is this the death of the family farm?

[civil42806]

The whole thing sounds like a solution desperately looking for a problem. Sounds like something dreamed up by GS-12's with eyes on Gs-14 jobs

[fsquid]

Maybe in exchange for this law, the gov't meant can send some welfare recipients out there to do some labor.

[NotNow]

Ock,

What is your source for these?  Do you have Florida Statute #'s?

[fsquid]

The whole thing sounds like a solution desperately looking for a problem. Sounds like something dreamed up by GS-12's with eyes on Gs-14 jobs

Particularly disturbing to me is this part.
"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."

[JeffreyS]

Typical right-wing dishonesty.  It says right in the DoL press release linked to in the article:

The proposed regulations would not apply to children working on farms owned by their parents.

Just thought I would bump this comment so we could add some truth back into this propaganda piece.

[BridgeTroll]

Typical right-wing dishonesty.  It says right in the DoL press release linked to in the article:

The proposed regulations would not apply to children working on farms owned by their parents.

Just thought I would bump this comment so we could add some truth back into this propaganda piece.

So... if I give you that(and Im not) what about the rural kids working on the farms for summer jobs?  I picked uncountable apples and potatoes, milked and herded many cows, mucked and cleaned a few barns, lifted many bales of hay.

Clearly there is a disconnect from urbanites who have never lifted a finger on a farm and have no idea who does what and how it gets done...

Ag advocacy groups are also outraged about the changes. They say the government doesn't understand how agriculture gets done today.

Most farms are now organized under a corporation that includes multiple members of an extended family â€" uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, grandparents â€" but having that status would mean many families that count on their kids wouldn't be exempt, says Jordan Dux, national affairs coordinator with the Nebraska Farm Bureau.

"So kids of individuals who are involved in a family corporation would no longer be able to help mom and dad on the ranch, on the farm. They wouldn't be able to work with animals. They wouldn't be able to work on hay wagons stacking bales six feet tall," he said. "There are lots of ... typical farm practices, that ... would be outlawed by the Department of Labor."

[BridgeTroll]

Thank god washington is putting a stop to it...

The conservative mantra.  If you repeat a lie over and over, it must be true.

Conservative? You realize of course that you are quoting National Socialism, to wit, Joseph Goebbels.

Yep... and call something a lie often enough... and there will be plenty who believe it...

[Garden guy]

The death of family farms came at the hands of big agcorps....the rich ceo killed the family farm and that happened years and years ago...stop blaming it on the democrats and most of the large agcorps ceos are republican so in a way we can say they killed it.

[finehoe]

Conservative? You realize of course that you are quoting National Socialism, to wit, Joseph Goebbels.

And you realize of course that fascism is on the right side of the spectrum.

[buckethead]

Old paradigm.

The political spectrum is more like a circle, with Fascism and Communism being much closer to each other with chaos/anarchy separating the two.

In reality, no pure political system has ever been tried. They always stray from their designs because humans will inevitably seek their own self interests.

That said, I agree the US is marching ever faster toward fascism.

[finehoe]

Yep... and call something a lie often enough... and there will be plenty who believe it...

And apparently you are one to believe the lies, since you continue to deny the first two premises in the article you posted are flat out lies:

A proposal from the Obama administration to prevent children from doing farm chores

"Chores" are not "rural kids working on the farms for summer jobs" which you try to deflect the argument with.

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.

Lies, lies, lies.

[NotNow]

As near as I can tell from reading the proposal, both sides have valid points here.  It is true that the children of farmers are exempt from the rule.  It is also true that the rule will seriously impact other traditional means that children have been incorporated into learning agriculture.  The rule does impact 4H and FFA programs quite negatively.  The intent of the rule is obviously to safeguard against improper or unsafe child labor. 

It seems that the rule should be revisited and rewritten in such a way as to allow traditional forms of agricultural training for children, while still providing protection against misuse of their labor.  Whether that can be done in this kind of political climate remains to be seen.  If it cannot, then the status quo should remain in force until we can leave the politics out of it.

[Ocklawaha]

Conservative? You realize of course that you are quoting National Socialism, to wit, Joseph Goebbels.

And you realize of course that fascism is on the right side of the spectrum.

If being a liberal is to be on the left, and if being a conservative is to be on the right, then how do these common labels fit? I've always questioned that the extreme right is fascism, and the extreme left socialism or communism, as Fascism and Socialism differ in superficial ways, but are essentially the same. We tend to think of fascism only in terms of Hitler's Germany, but Mussolini's Italy, Tojo's Japan, Franco's Spain, Pinochet's Chile, Peron's Argentina, were all fascist governments. Germany was racist, Italy was not, Spain was not a belligerent nationalist government and Iatly's was. The definition of fascism or socialism is a strong state government that controls property, industrial, commercial enterprises and the affairs of it's people for a supposed greater good.

Did you know for example, that in the German elections of 1933, the communist party ordered it's members to vote for the Nazi's? Why? To defeat 'common enemies.' Could it be that they are not that far apart? Finally if conservatives are the right, the fact that fascism is absolutely opposed to conservatism would seem to shoot the popular 'right wing Nazi' label in the foot. But then I guess who cares about historical or governmental fact when one can always, 'tell the lie often enough to become truth.' I realize these are NOT the popular culture labels, but they would seem to be historically correct.

OCKLAWAHA

[finehoe]

Five Facts about the Proposed Child Labor in Agriculture Rule

Fact # 1: The proposed Child Labor in Agriculture rule will not prohibit all people under the age of 18 from working on a farm.

The proposed rule would not change any of the Fair Labor Standards Act's minimum age standards for agricultural employment. Under the FLSA, the legal age to be employed on a farm without restrictions is 16. The FLSA also allows children between the ages of 12 and 15 years, under certain conditions, to be employed outside of school hours to perform nonhazardous jobs on farms. Children under the age of 12 may be employed with parental permission on very small farms to perform nonhazardous jobs outside of school hours.

Young people can be employed to perform many jobs on the farm â€" and this would be true even if the proposed rule were adopted as written. The proposed rule would, however, prohibit the employment of workers under the age of 18 in nonagricultural occupations in the farm-product raw materials wholesale trade industries. Prohibited establishments would include country grain elevators, grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, feed yards, stockyard, livestock exchanges, and livestock auctions not on a farm or used solely by a single farmer. What these locations have in common is that many workers, including children, have suffered occupational deaths or serious injuries working in these facilities over the last few years.

Fact # 2: The proposed rule would not eliminate the parental exemption for owners/operators of a family farm.

The parental exemption for the owner or operator of a farm is statutory and cannot be eliminated through the regulatory process. A child of any age may perform any job, even hazardous work, at any age at any time on a farm owned by his or her parent. A child of any age whose parent operates a farm may also perform any task, even hazardous jobs, on that farm but only outside of school hours. So for children working on farms that are registered as LLCs, but operated solely by their parents, the parental exemption would still apply.

Fact # 3: This proposed regulation will not eliminate 4-H and FFA programs.

The Department of Labor fully supports the important contributions both 4-H and the FFA make toward developing our children. The proposed rule would in no way prohibit a child from raising or caring for an animal in a non-employment situation â€" even if the animal were housed on a working farm â€" as long as he or she is not hired or “employed” to work with the animal. In such a situation, the child is not acting as an “employee” and is not governed by the child labor regulations. And there is nothing in the proposed rule that would prevent a child from being employed to work with animals other than in those specific situations identified in the proposal as particularly hazardous.

Fact # 4: Under the proposed rule, children will still be able to help neighbors in need of help.

In order for the child labor provisions of the FLSA to apply, there must first be an employer/employee relationship. The lone act of helping a neighbor round up loose cattle who have broken out of their fencing, for example, generally would not establish an employer/employee relationship.

Fact # 5: Children will still be able to take animals to the county fair or to market.

A child who raises and cares for his or her animal -- for example, as part of a 4-H project -- is not being employed by anyone, and thus is outside the coverage of the FLSA. Even if the child needs to rent space from a farm, the animal is not part of the farm’s business and with regard to the care of the animal no employer/employee relationship exists, so the child labor provisions would not apply. Likewise, there would be no problem with taking the animal to the county fair or to market, since the child is doing this on his/her own behalf â€" not on behalf of an employer. The proposed prohibitions would apply only if the child was an employee of the exchange or auction.

http://www.dol.gov/whd/CL/truthNPRM.htm

[MusicMan]

Thanks Fine Hoe, that should end this thread.