Federal rewrite of labor laws causing a flap down on the farm

[Geee]

Washington Times:

LANSING, Mich. — Sparking outrage across the country’s rural heartland, the Obama administration is proposing rules to curb the ability of children on farms to engage in “corn sex” for pay.

Farmers call it corn detasseling, a time-honored but physically demanding chore designed to promote cross-pollination in the field. For decades it has been a way for teens to earn extra spending money — and forge some good-natured field hand camaraderie — for a few weeks each summer.

The Obama administration is considering revisions to federal agricultural work rules that effectively would bar teens younger than 16 from engaging in a number of traditional chores for pay — including detasseling.

Opponents of the rules across the Farm Belt argue that they are in part an attack on a way of life, one foreign to Beltway bureaucrats and one that should be encouraged in an era of rising childhood obesity rates and increasingly sedentary lifestyles.

“We need more young farmers in Oklahoma, not less. We need more young people who know where their food comes from, not less,” Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin and state Agriculture Secretary Jim Reese said in a Nov. 30 letter to Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis.

“Any policy that would hinder the opportunities of young Americans to experience life in our agricultural communities is misguided indeed.”

The American Farm Bureau is heading a coalition of more than 70 agriculture organizations that have petitioned the Labor Department in Washington to reconsider what would be the first major rewrite of farm labor standards since the 1970s.

“We have no desire at all to have young teenagers working in jobs that are inappropriate or entail too much risk,” said Bob Stallman, president of the farm bureau.

“Farmers and ranchers are more interested than anyone else in assuring the safety of farming operations, and their right to operate their farms with family members is specifically permitted by Congress. We don’t want to see those rights infringed.”

Rule critics were bolstered last week by farm groups and detasseling companies gathering at state capitols to urge lawmakers to intervene with the Labor Department.

[RandyM]

If Obama gets another term, then by the end it will be illegal to hire anyone under the age of 30.