Tragic Death of NC Teen Raises Questions Again About Protection of Working Youth
October 10, 2007
Contact: NCL Communications
202-835-3323
media@nclnet.org
Washington, DC, October 10, 2007 — While North Carolina and federal labor department officials investigate whether child labor laws were broken in last week’s death of a 17-year-old working with a wood chipper, advocates are once again questioning why child labor laws fail so miserably to protect working teens. According to statistics from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the Washington-based Child Labor Coalition (CLC) estimates that one working teen dies on average, every five days in the United States.
On October 2, 17-year-old Nery Castaneda died after becoming entangled in a wood chipper he was operating. He had been on the job for three months, where his assignment was to grind up wooden pallets to make mulch at his workplace in Greensboro, North Carolina.
“Whether this job is permitted for a minor or not, something is terribly wrong with our nation’s commitment to safe jobs for teens,” said Sally Greenberg, CLC Co-chair and Executive Director of the National Consumers League. “This isn’t rocket science. Those jobs, occupations, and machinery that have high rates of occupational injuries shouldn’t be permitted for youth under 18 years old, period.”
Nery is not alone. Other young workers have been killed or seriously injured while operating wood chippers and grinders. In 2000, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) investigated the death of a 14-year-old member of a tree trimming crew who was dismembered when he became entangled in branches he was feeding into a drum-type wood chipper.
In 2001, DOL investigated the serious injury of a 17-year-old who suffered a fractured skull when the wood chipper he was feeding “spit out” a 12-inch long, 4-inch diameter, piece of a tree branch. Three titanium plates were permanently implanted into the minor’s skull.
Last July the CLC endorsed the DOL’s proposed regulation to revise Hazardous Order (HO) 14 to expressly prohibit youth from operating chain saws, wood chippers, and reciprocating saws, whether the machines are fixed or portable. The prohibition would not depend on the material or materials being processed and would encompass the occupations of setting up, adjusting, repairing, oiling, or cleaning such machines.
“We call on the DOL to quickly issue final regulations on HO 14, as well as other needed regulations to better protect youth from hazardous jobs,” said Greenberg. DOL’s proposed rulemaking comes five years after NIOSH, the government’s premier research agency on safety and health on the job, published a report, commissioned by DOL, titled National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Recommendations to the U.S. Department of Labor for Changes to Hazardous Orders.
The NIOSH Report contained 176 pages of detailed facts and analysis in support of recommended changes and additions to the HOs in DOL’s child labor regulations that prohibit children from working in jobs determined by the Secretary of Labor to be particularly hazardous. These regulations, as DOL recognized in commissioning the NIOSH Report, were far out of date, and many of them have not been revised in 30 years or more, even despite many outmoded provisions. The NIOSH Report recommended that 13 of the 17 HOs relating to non-agricultural employment be revised, that 8 of the 11 HOs relating to agricultural employment be revised, and that 17 new HOs be created, for a total of 38 revised or new HOs in all. Now, more than five years later, DOL proposes to revise only five existing HOs, and even in doing so DOL does not adopt many of the recommendations made by NIOSH about how to improve these five HOs.
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.