LINDA CHAVEZ-THOMPSON CHILD LABOR COALITION PRESS BRIEFING WASHINGTON, AUGUST 30, 2005
I'm Linda Chavez-Thompson, the executive vice-president of the AFL-CIO. I am here on behalf of the millions of proud members of the AFL-CIO -- the women and men who build our homes, type our letters, fight our fires, and teach our kids. Today, I'm delighted to announce that we're giving our full support to the Children's Act for Responsible Employment, which has been introduced by Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard. We're supporting this bill because of the hundreds of thousands of children -- no one knows exactly how many -- who work in fields and orchards across the country. They often work 12-hour days, picking cantaloupe and lettuce, weeding cotton fields, climbing rickety ladders in cherry orchards, stooping low over chili plants, pitching heavy watermelons, hour after hour. Their health is often damaged permanently by dangerous exposure to pesticides that have an even greater effect on children than on adults, and they are often crippled and sometimes even killed in accidents with heavy equipment, or falls from ladders, or sharp knives. These kids have precious little chance of staying in school, little chance of using their talents and moving ahead, little chance of a brighter future. I know what it's like. I grew up in west Texas as the daughter of cotton sharecroppers, and beginning when I was 10 years old, I spent every summer weeding cotton, Monday through Friday, 10 hours a day. When other kids were on the playground or taking vacations, I was working in 90 and 100 degree heat in the cotton fields. I started out making 30 cents an hour, and eventually, by the age of 19, I earned one dollar an hour. At the age of 15, my father took me out of school, and I started both hoeing and picking cotton on a full-time basis. No child should have to work like I worked. I'd like to tell you that this no longer happens in America -- but I can't. What kind of legal protection is there for kids who work in the fields? With all the problems and all the suffering these kids face, the fact is that they actually have less legal protection than kids in other workplaces. For instance, as David mentioned earlier, under the Fair Labor Standards Act, children working on farms can be employed at a lower age -- 12 years old -- than in other workplaces. There's no limit on how many hours they may work. There's no requirement that they be given overtime pay. And they can be put in hazardous work two years earlier than in other workplaces. It is a terrible double standard -- one standard for kids who work for McDonald's or a shop in the mall, and another standard for kids who work for a farm or orchard. It's not right. It's not fair. The Children's Act for Responsible Employment would help change that by giving kids who work in corporate agriculture the same kind of protections that kids have in other workplaces. Teenagers would need to be at least 16 years old to work in the fields, and at least 18 to perform work that is especially hazardous. The bill would also give children working on farms greater protection against pesticide exposure, and it would expand their opportunity to get an education and graduate from high school. We now know that most Americans support changes like this. As we're hearing from Darlene's report today, the important new survey from the National Consumers League shows that a big majority of Americans support equal treatment of children working on farms, and they say child labor is a big concern for them as consumers. But powerful agribusiness interests want to keep things just as they are, so change will not be easy. It will take the effort and energy and vision of all of us -- whether we're in unions, or the consumer movement, or government, or the human rights community. I promise here and now that we in the union movement will do everything we can to pass the Children's Act for Responsible Employment, and we will join with our friends and allies to make a land where the blight of child labor is finally brought to an end and justice is finally done. Thank you.
	Linda as a young farmworker