Child Labor Advocates Offer Strong Criticism of DOL’s Proposed Rulemaking on Youth Protections

New Rules Would Formalize the 15-Year-Old Lifeguard, Expose Young Workers to New Dangers

July 18, 2007

Contact: NCL Communications
202-835-3323
media@nclnet.org

Washington, DC—The deadline for the submission of public comments on the United States Department of Labor’s proposed rulemaking on child labor regulations may have quietly passed by earlier this week, but for child labor advocates, the need for critical voices to be heard is urgent. The new proposed rulemaking, announced in mid-April, offers one step forward and two steps back, according to critics.

The Child Labor Coalition (CLC) submitted nearly 40 pages of comments this month (www.stopchildlabor.org), offering some support but mostly harsh criticism of the new rules, which the CLC calls, in some cases, both overdue and weak.

“While we’re pleased with a handful of the proposed changes to child labor law, which has been in desperate need of updating for decades, some of the new rules, if they go into effect, will put our youngest workers at risk of even greater dangers than they currently face,” said Linda Golodner, co-chair of the CLC and president of the National Consumers League, the Washington, DC-based nonprofit group that coordinates the coalition. “The DOL has taken far too long to issue this proposed rulemaking, and it hasn’t gone far enough.”

Specific problems with/deficiencies of the DOL’s proposed rules cited by the CLC include:

• A complete failure to produce any rulemaking regarding work in agriculture, which many advocates consider to be the most dangerous arena for youth workers and therefore argue should be DOL’s top priority in protecting its constituents.
• The Department’s current use of certain “enforcement positions,” which contradict existing child labor regulations, as mechanisms for circumventing the formal process of making changes. The CLC decries this practice of the DOL, which is only now going through the required notice-and-comment rulemaking procedure that it should have used before instituting the interim enforcement positions, several of which CLC views as endangering youth workers.
• Decreased protection against unsafe work for 14- and 15-year-olds. This includes:
  • A formal lowering of the age of lifeguards from 16 to 15, a practice that has been: deemed by the Canadian Lifeguarding Society to be unsafe; discouraged by the Lifeguards Standards Association as recently as May of this year; and dismissed by most other countries, which consider the minimum age requirement to be 16.
  • The massive expansion of work for 14- and 15-year-olds beyond the current parameters of employment in retail, food service, and gasoline service establishments.  For the first time ever, 14- and 15-year-olds may work in all workplaces, except for specified hazardous occupations. The proposed rulemaking expands work into areas, such as doctors’ offices, janitorial services, dry cleaners, and oil fields, without first reviewing the environmental hazards in the expansion of worksites and occupations.

• The Department’s failure to include all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) in the list of prohibited machinery that 14- and 15-year-olds may operate. The hazardous ATVs, currently operated by workers as young as 16, were associated with nearly 45,000 serious injuries and at least 130 deaths of youth under 16, according to U.S. Consumer Product and Safety Commission data.
• DOL’s new permission of 14- and 15-year-olds to enter walk-in freezers, albeit briefly. Previously, this activity had been limited to those 16 years and older. The CLC called for DOL to require that freezer doors must remain open when entered and also have clearly marked emergency door releases on the inside.
• Proposed changes to the work-study regulations, which currently allow 14- and 15-year-old students in approved programs to work up to three hours during school hours, for a total of 23 hours of work (combination of in school and out of school work hours) during a school week. The DOL proposes to create a new regulation that would relax these rules so that any school, school district, or private school that fulfills certain DOL requirements may create a program that allows a student to work during school hours up to 8 hours per day and 40 hours per month. 

• Disappointingly watered-down proposed changes to the five existing Hazardous Occupation Orders that don’t go as far as those recommended by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in its 2002 report, “NIOSH Recommendations to the U.S. Department of Labor for Changes to Hazardous Orders.”

CLC did offer some praise for the proposed rules, including the Department’s proposed ban on youth peddling by 14- and 15-year-olds, although even this falls short of child labor advocates’ desire to see this activity banned for all youth under 18.

“The hazards of youth peddling have been on the national agenda for 20 years, and many states have already changed their child labor provisions to protect minors from these dangers. DOL should have been in the forefront of this effort and not following in the wake of 17 states that have already restricted or prohibited door-to-door and street sales by children,” wrote the CLC. The Coalition is disappointed in the DOL’s failure to prohibit involvement in peddling among 16- and 17-year-olds, given the widely-known dangers and exploitation associated with the job.

“The DOL’s failure to protect all teens from youth peddling is particularly disturbing and confounding given its own admission that the children involved are ‘usually’ not even afforded minimum wage,” said Golodner.

Overall, advocates urge DOL to approach additional rulemaking in earnest, as opposed to waiting another five years to begin the process again.

“Child labor laws in the United States are embarrassingly outdated, so any movement forward is welcome,” said Golodner. “However, we’re disappointed in how modest – and, in some cases, regressive – this proposed rulemaking is, and we urge the DOL to take our concerns seriously. Our young workers deserve it.”

To view a copy of the comments submitted by the Child Labor Coalition, visit www.stopchildlabor.org.

About the Child Labor Coalition

The Child Labor Coalition is a group of more than 30 organizations, representing consumers, labor unions, educators, human rights and labor rights groups, child advocacy groups, and religious and women’s groups.  It was established in 1989, and is co-chaired by the National Consumers League and the American Federation of Teachers.  Its mission is to protect working youth and to promote legislation, programs, and initiatives to end child labor exploitation in the United States and abroad.