Tag Archives: Hilda Solis

The Power Of The New Media

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Image of a family farm near Stockbridge, Wisco...

Image of a family farm near Stockbridge, Wisconsin, United States Espanol: un granja de la familia en Stockbridge, Wisconsin, Estados Unido (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday’s Daily Caller posted an article showing the power of the Internet and the new media. (Note: I suspect what happened in this case is the result of the fact that it is an election year.)

On Wednesday I posted an article about new farm regulations which will severely limit the activities of children on the family farm (rightwinggranny). I wasn’t the only one who was concerned about the regulations–the Daily Caller article I sourced made it to facebook, the Drudge Report, and other social media.

The results:

Under pressure from farming advocates in rural communities, and following a report by The Daily Caller, the Obama administration withdrew a proposed rule Thursday that would have applied child labor laws to family farms.

Score one for the good guys! However, don’t get too confident. If Obama wins a second term and has more flexibility in his policies (as he told Russian leader Dmitri Medvedev recently), these regulations may magically reappear.

Meanwhile, we can celebrate at least a temporary victory.

 

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Undermining The Family And The Work Ethic All At Once

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A farm, Bethel, Vt. (LOC)

A farm, Bethel, Vt. (LOC) (Photo credit: The Library of Congress)

You have to hand it to the federal government–they sure know how to ruin things. Today’s Daily Caller posted an article about the farm regulations about to be put in effect by the Obama Administration’s Department of Labor. The new laws would apply child labor laws to children working on family farms.

The article reports:

Under the rules, children under 18 could no longer work “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.”

“Prohibited places of employment,” a Department press release read, “would include country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.”

The new regulations, first proposed August 31 by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, would also revoke the government’s approval of safety training and certification taught by independent groups like 4-H and FFA, replacing them instead with a 90-hour federal government training course.

This is ridiculous.

One person related his experience of working on a relative’s farm during the summer and how it impacted him:

John Weber, 19, understands this. The Minneapolis native grew up in suburbia and learned the livestock business working summers on his relatives’ farm.

He’s now a college Agriculture major.

“I started working on my grandparent’s and uncle’s farms for a couple of weeks in the summer when I was 12,” Weber told TheDC. “I started spending full summers there when I was 13.”

“The work ethic is a huge part of it. It gave me a lot of direction and opportunity in my life. If they do this it will prevent a lot of interest in agriculture. It’s harder to get a 16 year-old interested in farming than a 12 year old.”

Weber is also a small businessman. In high school, he said, he took out a loan and bought a few steers to raise for income. “Under these regulations,” he explained, “I wouldn’t be allowed to do that.”

The federal government is interfering with a farm family’s right to teach their children a work ethic and the basics of farming. The government is also interfering with organizations like 4-H and FFA, which build a sense of community among the children who grow up on farms or are interested in farming.

This is simply the government getting involved where it does not need to get involved. The new laws will not accomplish anything except disrupt a system that works. The federal government needs to learn to heed the words ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.‘ That would probably solve a major percentage of the America’s problems–financial and otherwise. 

 

 

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After They Are Done Destroying The Family, The Government Is Going To Destroy The Family Farm

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Clint Farm tractor

Image via Wikipedia

I did not grow up on a farm. I am not sure I have ever been on one (other than school trips and a friend who has a barn and various animals). However, I am aware that the food in the grocery store comes from farms–many of them family-owned. The attack on the family farm through the estate tax is obvious–many family farms are land-rich, but do not have the liquid assets to pay off estate taxes–many of those families have to sell the family farm to pay the estate taxes. Now there is a new attack on the family farm and the culture and work ethic it represents.

Townhall.com reports that a new sweeping set of rules proposed by Hilda Solis, Secretary of Labor, will change the dynamic on the family farm.

The article reports the proposed changes:

  • Prohibit children under 16 who are being paid from operating most power-driven equipment, including tractors and combines. Some student-learners would be exempted from the ban on operating tractors and other farm implements, but only if the equipment has rollover protection and seat belts.
  • Bar those under 18 from working at grain elevators, silos, feedlots and livestock auctions and from transporting raw farm materials.
  • Prevent youths 15 and younger from cultivating, curing and harvesting tobacco to prevent exposure to green tobacco sickness, which is caused by exposure to wet tobacco plants.
  • Prohibit youths from using electronic devices such as cellphones while operating power-driven equipment.

Solis believes that some farm work is “too hazardous for children to be engaged in.”  How she knows this is anyone’s guess since she apparently has never lived or worked on a farm, nor do we find any evidence that she has children of her own. 

My experience is that the children who grow up on farms learn a lot of things other than how to drive a tractor. They learn to contribute to a family business. They learn the value and satisfaction of a job well done. They learn a work ethic. Many of the jobs this law would prohibit those under 18 from doing are the jobs those children do to earn money to go to college. Parents are the best judge of what equipment their children are able to operate–not the government.

 

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