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March 04, 2005
What's Wrong With Child Labor?
Should children be allowed to work in sawmills?
What if they’re Amish?
Under federal law, anyone under 18 is forbidden to work in a sawmill. Well, almost anyone. Last year, Congress declared it permissible for a 14-year-old to work in a sawmill if a statute or court ruling exempts him from having to attend school past the eighth grade. That’s code for “if he’s Amish,” and in case you don’t get the message, the statute specifies that such a person must be supervised by “an adult member of the same religious sect or division.”
So if an Amish parent wants to raise his children to an Amish lifestyle and send them to work in a sawmill when they finish eighth grade, he can do it. But if a child is not Amish, he is forbidden to work in almost any job until he is 14, in most jobs until he is 16, and in a considerable number of jobs until he is 18. Why? Because to “protect children,” Congress and the Department of Labor have decided they know just which village it takes to raise a child: Washington, D.C. But the truth is that Washington’s labor laws now hurt children more than they protect them.
Stossel goes on to expound upon the subject and points out that children and their parents know better whether kids should be working or not than the government does. (By the way, did you know that Washington says child labor is okay if you're a wreath maker? Who knew that wreath makers had such a powerful lobbying organization?)
(Thanks to WorldNetDaily for the link.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at March 4, 2005 11:23 AM
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