Child Labor In Agriculture: Changes Needed to Better Protect Health and
Educational Opportunities (Chapter Report, 08/21/1998, GAO/HEHS-98-193).
According to one estimate, about 116,000 15- to 17-year-olds worked as
hired agricultural workers in 1997--a number that may be understated
because of methodological limitations in making the estimate. Children
employed as migrant and seasonal agricultural workers face greater risk
of serious injury and death than do children working in other
industries, yet they receive less protection under the law, working at
younger ages and for longer hours than children employed in other
industries. Weaknesses in current enforcement and data collection
procedures limit the Department of Labor's ability to detect violations
involving children working in agriculture. Changes to better protect
children's health are needed, along with measures to address educational
needs.
REPORTNUM: HEHS-98-193
TITLE: Child Labor In Agriculture: Changes Needed to Better Protect Health and Educational Opportunities
DATE: 08/21/1998
SUBJECT: Labor law
Agricultural industry
Health hazards
Occupational safety
Children
Aid for education
Law enforcement information systems
Migrant or seasonal worker programs
Alien labor
Law enforcement
ID: Vermont
Florida
California
CPSC National Electronic Injury Surveillance System
Dept. of Education Adult Migrant Farmworker/Immigrant Education Program
BLS Annual Occupational Injuries and Illnesses Survey
DOL Targeted Industries Partnership Program
Migrant Student Record Transfer System
DOL Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers Program
Census Bureau Current Population Survey
DOL National Agricultural Workers Survey
BLS Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries
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Cover
================================================================ COVER
Report to Congressional Requesters
August 1998
CHILD LABOR IN AGRICULTURE -
CHANGES NEEDED TO BETTER PROTECT
HEALTH AND EDUCATIONAL
OPPORTUNITIES
GAO/HEHS-98-193
Child Labor in Agriculture
(205352)
Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV
BLS - Bureau of Labor Statistics
CPS - Current Population Survey
EPA - Environmental Protection Agency
FIFRA - Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act
FLSA - Fair Labor Standards Act
HHS - Department of Health and Human Services
JTPA - Job Training Partnership Act
LEA - local educational agency
MEP - Migrant Education Program
MSFWP - Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker Program
MSPA - Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act
MSRTS - Migrant Student Record Transfer System
NAWS - National Agricultural Workers Survey
NIOSH - National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
OSHA - Occupational Safety and Health Administration
SEA - state educational agency
TIPP - Targeted Industries Partnership Program
USDA - U.S. Department of Agriculture
WHD - Wage and Hour Division
Letter
=============================================================== LETTER
B-278488
August 21, 1998
The Honorable Henry Waxman
Ranking Minority Member
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight
House of Representatives
The Honorable Tom Lantos
The Honorable Bernard Sanders
House of Representatives
As you requested, this report presents information on (1) the extent
and prevalence of child labor in agriculture, (2) the legislative
protections available to children working in agriculture, (3) the
enforcement of these protections as they apply to children working in
agriculture, and (4) how federal educational assistance programs
address the needs of children in migrant and seasonal agriculture.
This report makes recommendations to the Department of Labor to
enhance the Department's enforcement and data collection procedures
for detecting illegal child labor in agriculture. It also includes a
matter for congressional consideration regarding the protections
provided to children working in agriculture under federal child labor
law.
As arranged with your offices, unless you publicly announce the
contents of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution
until 30 days after its issue date. At that time, we will send
copies to the Secretary of Labor, Labor's Assistant Secretaries for
Employment Standards, Occupational Safety and Health, and Employment
and Training, as well as Labor's Wage and Hour Division
Administrator. We will also send copies to the Administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency, the Secretary of Agriculture, the
Secretary of Education, state enforcement and education agencies, and
others upon request.
This report was prepared under the direction of Carlotta Joyner,
Director for Education and Employment Issues, who may be reached at
(202) 512-7014 if you or your staffs have any questions. Major
contributors to this report are listed in appendix IV.
Richard L. Hembra
Assistant Comptroller General
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
============================================================ Chapter 0
PURPOSE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:1
Millions of adolescents in this country work to earn spending money,
gain responsibility and independence, and help their parents
financially. The agricultural industry, although generally agreed to
be one of the most dangerous, employs a proportionately larger number
of these children than other industries. When the U.S. agricultural
industry depended upon small and family farmers for most agricultural
products, children working for their parents or local farmers was
common. Today, a different kind of child labor exists on U.S.
farms, fewer of which are owned by families or local farmers. These
children, who are the focus of this report, work as hired labor on a
migrant or seasonal basis (that is, moving to find employment or
working intermittently) or have parents who work as migrant and
seasonal workers. Migrant and seasonal agricultural
workers--especially children--have been the subject of studies and
much concern in the past several years because of the possible
adverse impact of this work on their health, well-being, and academic
achievement.
Because of these concerns, you asked GAO to (1) determine, given the
data available, the extent and prevalence of children (defined as
anyone under 18) working in agriculture, including their injuries and
fatalities; (2) describe and analyze the federal legislative
protections and those in selected states for children working in
agriculture; (3) assess the enforcement of these laws as they apply
to children working in agriculture; and (4) identify federal
educational assistance programs and describe how they address the
needs of children in migrant and seasonal agriculture, focusing on
those aged 14 to 17.
BACKGROUND
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2
Many federal and state agencies are responsible for enforcing the
laws protecting children working in agriculture and overseeing
programs designed to enhance the educational opportunities of
children in migrant and seasonal agriculture. The Department of
Labor's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) is responsible for enforcing the
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal law establishing child
labor and other labor standards (for example, the minimum wage) for
employers engaged in interstate commerce. In addition, state labor
departments are responsible for enforcing their own child labor and
other laws that apply to children and others working in agriculture.
Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)--along
with its state counterparts--is generally responsible for enforcing
safety and health standards for workers of all ages, while the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state agencies are
responsible for protecting agricultural workers of all ages from
pesticide exposure through appropriate exposure reduction measures.
Labor and the Department of Education oversee educational programs
that target educationally and economically disadvantaged children--
classifications that include migrant and seasonal agricultural child
workers or children of such workers--to help them overcome barriers
to academic achievement.
Several recent initiatives have addressed the safety, health, and
academic achievement of children, especially those who work. In
1998, the President announced a Child Labor Initiative to reduce
abusive child labor and enhance educational opportunities for migrant
and seasonal agricultural child workers. As a part of planning
efforts under the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (the
Results Act),\1 Labor, Education, and EPA identified children's
safety, health, and education as major goals. For example, the
Secretary of Labor has stated that reducing illegal agricultural
child labor is a major agency goal, and Labor's WHD has committed to
a 5-year effort to reduce illegal child labor by employers producing
particular agricultural commodities. In addition, a 1997
presidential executive order called for federal agencies to identify
and assess environmental health and safety risks that may
disproportionately affect children.
--------------------
\1 Under the Results Act, major federal agencies must establish
program goals and measure their achievement of those goals. These
goals and processes are outlined in a number of key documents.
First, agencies develop strategic plans that document agencywide
long-term goals and describe how they intend to achieve their goals.
Then, each year (starting in fiscal year 1999), agencies prepare
annual performance plans that identify the relationship of their
annual goals to the long-term goals, the resources necessary to
achieve the annual and long-term goals, and the performance
indicators to be used to gauge progress in accomplishing the goals.
RESULTS IN BRIEF
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3
According to one nationally representative estimate, about 116,000
15- to 17-year-olds worked as hired agricultural workers in 1997.
This estimate (as well as those from other sources) may undercount
the number of children employed in agriculture because of
methodological limitations in making the estimates. Of all children
working in agriculture, between 400 and 600 suffer work-related
injuries each year. In addition, between 1992 and 1996, 59 children
lost their lives while working in agriculture. While these injury
and fatality data show that agriculture is a hazardous industry for
children, they also may be understated because of methodological
constraints.
Changes to FLSA since it was first passed 60 years ago have resulted
in more protection for children working in agriculture than when the
law was first passed. During this time, the U.S. agricultural
industry has continuously evolved, and an emphasis on children's
safety, health, and academic achievement has grown. Nevertheless,
FLSA and state laws provide less protection for children working in
agriculture than for children working in other industries.
Consequently, children may work in agriculture under circumstances
that would be illegal in other industries.
Weaknesses in current enforcement and data collection procedures
limit WHD's ability to detect violations involving children working
in agriculture. Enforcement activities devoted to agriculture have
declined in the past 5 years as has the number of detected cases of
agricultural child labor violations. WHD has not established the
procedures necessary for documenting whether children are working in
agriculture in violation of child labor laws, nor has it routinely
followed established procedures for facilitating enforcement
coordination for better detecting illegal child labor in agriculture.
WHD's enforcement database does not identify all child labor-related
violations under FLSA, nor can WHD and other enforcement agencies
identify the extent to which children are involved in other types of
labor law violations. Limitations in available data may also affect
WHD's ability to assess its progress in reducing illegal child labor
in agriculture.
Education and Labor have many programs to improve educational
opportunities for disadvantaged school-aged children (those aged 6 to
17); however, few of these programs specifically target migrant and
seasonal agricultural child workers or children of such workers, and
most collect no information on the number of such children served.
Even for the two largest programs that target some or all of this
population--Education's Migrant Education Program (MEP) and Labor's
Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker Program (MSFWP)--program operations
and subsequent data limitations impede a national evaluation of these
programs' results for this target population. Under MEP, the
substantial flexibility given state and local educational agencies
regarding program administration results in significantly different
services being provided among the states. The MSFWP's traditional
focus on adult employment needs has prevented the establishment of
performance standards and outcome measures for children in this age
group.
PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4
INCOMPLETE DATA MAY
UNDERESTIMATE THE NUMBER OF
CHILDREN WORKING IN
AGRICULTURE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.1
Estimates derived from the Current Population Survey (CPS) show that,
on average, about 155,000 15- to 17-year-olds worked in agriculture
in 1997--
most of whom (116,000) were hired workers. About 39,000 were
self-employed and unpaid family workers. Recent estimates from the
National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) indicate that about
129,000 14- to 17-year-old hired farmworkers were working on crops.
Although these are nationally representative sources of data on
agricultural employment, each of them has limitations that may
produce estimates that understate the number of children working in
agriculture. For example, both surveys exclude workers under 15 or
14, respectively.
Work-related injuries to children working in agriculture tend to be
more severe than injuries to children working in other industries.
In addition, children in agriculture have a higher fatality rate than
children in other industries: deaths of children working in
agriculture accounted for about 25 percent of all deaths of children
working as hired workers in all industries, even though only about 4
percent of hired workers in this age range work in agriculture.
Because of the difficulties determining whether children's injuries
or illnesses are work related, however, these data most likely
understate the incidence of work-related injuries to and deaths of
children working in agriculture.
CHILDREN WORKING IN
AGRICULTURE RECEIVE LESS
LEGAL PROTECTION THAN
CHILDREN WORKING IN OTHER
INDUSTRIES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.2
FLSA and selected state laws allow child agricultural workers to work
at younger ages, for longer hours, and in more hazardous occupations
than children working in other industries. When first passed in
1938, FLSA provided few restrictions on the use of child labor in
agriculture, probably reflecting the conditions of U.S. agriculture
and national priorities--the prevalence of small and family farmers
who depended upon such labor for economic viability and generally low
educational aspirations for children. Since then, the Congress has
placed additional restrictions on how and when children may work in
agriculture, which partly reflects the decline in the small and
family farm, the concentration of agricultural employees in large
agricultural firms, a greater focus on protecting children's safety
and health, and a greater emphasis on children's academic
achievement.
WEAKNESSES IN ENFORCEMENT
AND DATA COLLECTION
PROCEDURES MEAN VIOLATIONS
ARE NOT BEING DETECTED
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.3
The number of agricultural inspections performed by Labor's WHD has
generally declined in the past 5 years as have the numbers of
inspections performed by OSHA, EPA, and some state enforcement
agencies. Meanwhile, the number of cases involving violations of
child labor law in agriculture detected by WHD nationwide declined
from 54 in fiscal year 1993 to 14 in fiscal year 1997. WHD
inspectors lack clearly documented procedures for agricultural
inspections to help them determine whether a child is too young to be
working or whether the child is, in fact, working--key conditions for
demonstrating that a violation has occurred. Furthermore, even
though WHD and federal and state enforcement agencies have
established procedures and agreements for conducting joint
inspections, referring potential child labor cases to the appropriate
agency, and exchanging information to facilitate enforcement efforts,
these procedures are not routinely followed.
WHD's and other enforcement agencies' databases do not provide
information on violations involving children except for those
specifically related to child labor laws. For example, the WHD
database does not identify when employers have been cited for not
having valid proof of children's ages, as FLSA requires. In
addition, neither WHD nor other enforcement agencies can identify the
extent to which children are involved in violations of minimum wage,
housing, or other labor laws, but available data indicate that these
types of violations sometimes involve children. Finally, WHD's
database also lacks key data about violations that have been detected
such as the penalties assessed for child labor violations.
PROGRAM OPERATIONS AND DATA
LIMITATIONS IMPEDE THE
ASSESSMENT OF MEP AND MSFWP
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.4
Poverty, limited English ability, and rural and social isolation
place children in migrant and seasonal agriculture at considerable
risk of academic failure. The considerable mobility and other
conditions of agricultural work add to these difficulties, resulting
in school enrollment rates and high school completion rates among the
lowest in the nation. Children aged 14 to 17 face particular
educational challenges, especially those children who live
independently of their families. Program operations and a lack of
data, however, impede an evaluation of the results for MEP and MSFWP
on the academic achievement of children aged 14 to 17 in migrant and
seasonal agriculture. Because of MEP's decentralization and
flexibility, certain activities, such as how funds are used and which
eligible children are served, vary by state. This variation makes it
difficult to determine uniform measures to identify results. In
addition, resources available from MEP are relatively minor compared
with the resources provided by state and local programs, and the
effects of MEP cannot be separated from these larger efforts.
Education collects no information from the states on the outcomes for
children whom MEP serves.
Because of MSFWP's traditional focus on the employment needs of
adults, Labor has not established specific outcome measures for
children aged 14 to 17. Farmworker advocates, selected program
officials, and others believe MSFWP has an important role in serving
these children, particularly those not in school. About 30 percent
of individuals completing the program are younger than 22 years old.
Although age and outcome information is collected for each
participant at the local level, Labor aggregates program
participation and outcome data into broad age categories when
collecting these data, so it cannot describe services provided to
children aged 14 to 17 or outcomes for this group.
MATTER FOR CONGRESSIONAL
CONSIDERATION
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:5
Considering the evolutionary changes that continue to transform the
agricultural industry and the increased national emphasis placed on
children's health, safety, and academic achievement, the Congress may
wish to formally reevaluate whether FLSA adequately protects children
working in agriculture.
RECOMMENDATIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:6
GAO is making recommendations to the Secretary of Labor aimed at
improving procedures for conducting inspections and better
identifying the number of violations involving children. GAO is also
making a recommendation that would lead to a better understanding of
the extent to which MSFWP is effectively serving children aged 14 to
17 in agriculture.
AGENCY COMMENTS AND GAO'S
EVALUATION
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:7
GAO provided copies of this report to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA), EPA, the Departments of Labor and Education, and
the states included in this review for comment. EPA, Education, and
the states provided technical comments to improve the clarity and
accuracy of the report, which were incorporated as appropriate. USDA
concurred with GAO's recommendations (see app. II).
In its response, Labor generally concurred with GAO's recommendations
to issue enforcement guidance and adhere to coordination procedures
(see app. III). Regarding the recommendations about collecting
better data on violations involving children, Labor acknowledged that
such data may be beneficial but identified cost and the practicality
of collecting such information as major issues that would need to be
considered. Although these issues must be considered, given the
Results Act environment that seeks to encourage data-driven
measurable goals and objectives and the emphasis WHD has placed on
detecting illegal agricultural child labor, collecting this
information would enhance the agency's ability to protect children
working in agriculture.
Labor did not directly comment on GAO's recommendation to develop and
analyze data on MSFWP services and outcomes for children aged 14 to
17 to determine the number of these children served, the services
provided, and the outcomes experienced by these children. Labor
said, however, that this information is included in the collapsed
data collected on all participants aged 14 to 22. This inability to
isolate key information prompted GAO's recommendation; by combining
the experiences of youths with adults, Labor cannot analyze the
services provided to participants under 18.
Labor also disagreed with GAO's observation that the decline in
enforcement resources devoted to agriculture resulted in fewer
opportunities to find potential child labor violations. Instead, it
asserted that no direct correlation exists between the decline in
resources devoted to agricultural inspections and WHD's ability to
detect potential child labor violations. Although GAO recognizes
that the detection of illegal child labor is not solely determined by
the number of inspections conducted, past enforcement history has
shown that when WHD has dedicated increased resources to enforcement,
it has detected more violations (see ch. 6).
INTRODUCTION
============================================================ Chapter 1
Millions of adolescents in this country work to earn spending money,
gain responsibility and independence, help their parents financially,
or enhance their educational experience. Although these children
work in all different industries, those working in agriculture as
migrant or seasonal workers (those constantly on the move to stay
employed or those who are only able to find intermittent employment)
or whose parents work as migrant and seasonal workers may face
economic, social, and educational challenges that distinguish them
from children working in other industries.
Over the years, commissions, farmworker advocates, and policymakers
have commented on the conditions of hired agricultural workers.
Although the exact number of workers in agriculture is difficult to
estimate, the Commission on Agricultural Workers in 1992 reported
that the United States had about 2.5 million hired agricultural
workers.\2 Other sources report that the majority of hired
agricultural workers work in producing crops, such as fruits and
vegetables, and in horticulture. Even though defining agriculture is
difficult,\3 it is generally acknowledged to be a high-hazard
industry; in 1995, the incidence rate (the number of injuries and
illnesses for every 100 workers) for agriculture was 9.7, higher than
private industry's in general (8.1), and third in severity behind
manufacturing (11.6) and construction (10.6).
Many federal and state agencies are responsible for enforcing laws
that protect workers--including children--in agriculture. The
Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) is responsible for
enforcing the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal law that
establishes child labor and other labor standards (for example, the
minimum wage) governing employers engaged in interstate commerce.
WHD is also responsible for enforcing the Migrant and Seasonal
Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA), which governs housing,
transportation, and other work conditions for agricultural workers.
In addition, state labor departments are responsible for enforcing
their own child labor and other laws that apply to children and
others working in agriculture. Labor's Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA)--along with its state counterparts--is
generally responsible for enforcing safety and health standards for
workers of all ages in all industries, although in 1997 Labor
transferred some of OSHA's authority over agricultural employers'
provision of temporary housing and field sanitation to WHD.\4
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state agencies, under
the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), are
responsible for protecting agricultural workers from pesticide
exposure.\5 EPA's Worker Protection Standard, enforced by state
agencies under the guidance of EPA, provides for various
risk-reduction practices that cover all pesticide handlers and
workers involved in cultivating and harvesting crops. This standard
requires employers to follow instructions on pesticide labels that
specify periods of restricted entry into fields after pesticides have
been applied and the use of personal protective equipment by
pesticide handlers when applying pesticides or for workers who must
enter treated fields before the restricted entry time has expired.\6
Employers must also provide other services, such as basic training on
pesticide hazards, information about pesticides that have been
applied, and emergency assistance for treating a worker's illness or
injury. All agricultural employers, regardless of the size of their
establishment, are required to provide these protective measures to
their agricultural workers. Children are not distinguished from
other workers. The standard largely excludes others who may be
living on the farm premises who are not workers (such as family
members of farm owners) or children of hired farmworkers who may be
in the fields with their parents while the parents are working.
Labor and the Department of Education also oversee billions of
dollars in federal aid that helps educationally and economically
disadvantaged children--which includes migrant and seasonal children
in agriculture. While the Department of Agriculture (USDA) has no
enforcement authority over agricultural employers for labor or safety
and health laws that affect children or other workers, it does
oversee the collection of information about selected farm
characteristics such as cultivated acreage and dollar sales. In
addition, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
(NIOSH), of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS),
conducts independent research on work place safety and health issues.
As we and others have noted in the past, federal wage and safety and
health protections are typically less stringent for agricultural
workers--of all ages--compared with those for workers in other
industries and, in general, agricultural workers receive lower hourly
wages than workers in many other industries.\7 FLSA exempts small
agricultural employers (defined as those employers who did not use
more than 500 days of agricultural labor, which equals about seven
full-time workers, in any calendar quarter of the preceding calendar
year) from paying the minimum wage to their employees.\8 In addition,
agricultural employers of all sizes are not required by FLSA to pay
their workers overtime.\9 Agricultural employers are also exempt from
most safety and health standards enforced by OSHA, and OSHA is
prohibited by an appropriations rider from conducting inspections on
certain small agricultural employers (those who employ 10 or fewer
workers and provide no temporary housing for those workers), even if
it receives a complaint about unsatisfactory working conditions from
a worker or if a worker is fatally injured.\10 In other industries,
an OSHA inspector must respond to a complaint and investigate work
place fatalities.
Several recent initiatives specifically address conditions affecting
children. Executive Order 13045, for example, created a high-level
task force composed of the Secretaries of Agriculture, Education, and
Labor and the Administrator of EPA, among others. The task force is
responsible for recommending actions to the President to reduce risks
to children. In addition, in documents prepared in compliance with
the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (the Results Act),
Labor's WHD introduced a 5-year enforcement effort targeted toward
employers producing particular agricultural commodities with an
emphasis on detecting violations of child labor law.\11 EPA
highlighted as a guiding principle its efforts to identify and assess
environmental health risks, such as pesticides, that may affect
children disproportionately and pledged to develop six centers to do
such research. Finally, Education reported that its goal is to help
all children meet challenging academic standards to prepare them for
responsible citizenship and further learning--as measured through
improved high school attendance and graduation rates--particularly
for those students at the greatest risk of school failure, such as
children in migrant and seasonal agriculture.
In 1998, the President also announced a national Child Labor
Initiative to fight abusive child labor and enhance educational
opportunities for children working in agriculture as migrant and
seasonal workers. In response to this initiative, Labor's WHD
requested an additional $4 million in its fiscal year 1999 budget to
increase the enforcement resources dedicated to detecting child labor
violations in agriculture. Labor has also requested $5 million to
develop a pilot program that would provide educational alternatives
for migrant and seasonal agricultural child workers so they would
stay in school. In its budget request, Education sought an
additional $50 million for its Migrant Education Program (MEP) that
would allow it to serve 70,000 to 100,000 more migrant children.
--------------------
\2 The Commission on Agricultural Workers was established by the
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. The Commission's role,
among other tasks, was to evaluate the conditions of the U.S.
agricultural industry.
\3 Definitions of agriculture typically vary. In most cases,
agriculture includes the harvesting or cultivating of crops, working
with livestock, and providing agricultural services (such as farm
labor and management services). In some cases, however, agriculture
may also include work in fisheries, forestry, hunting, and trapping.
\4 States may operate their own safety and health programs under the
guidance of OSHA as long as they are determined to be at least as
effective as the federal OSHA program. When this authority was
transferred to WHD, 14 OSHA-approved state plan states kept their
authority. As a result, in some states, the state OSHA is still
responsible for enforcing temporary labor camp and field sanitation
requirements.
\5 Although OSHA is responsible for monitoring chemical production
and handling in all industries, OSHA has no standards covering
agricultural workers' handling or exposure to pesticides.
\6 The premise of the standard is that if the employer adheres to the
label's instructions, then harmful exposure to workers should not
occur. Even if a farmworker or pesticide handler is accidentally
exposed to a pesticide, the employer would be in compliance with the
standard if the employer followed the pesticide label's instructions.
\7 For example, see Hired Farmworkers: Health and Well-Being at Risk
(GAO/HRD-92-46, Feb. 14, 1992).
\8 FLSA exempts employers in all industries who have annual sales of
less than $500,000 from paying minimum wages to their employees. The
additional exemption of 500 days, however, applies only to
agricultural employers.
\9 State law may require agricultural workers to receive overtime.
For example, California requires its employers to pay agricultural
workers overtime after 60 hours per week.
\10 OSHA has interpreted this prohibition as applicable to those
agricultural industries dealing with crop production and the handling
of livestock but not to agriculturally related industries such as
agricultural services, forestry, fishing, hunting, and trapping.
\11 Called the "salad bowl" initiative because the five commodities
targeted are lettuce, cucumbers, onions, garlic, and tomatoes.
OBJECTIVES, SCOPE, AND
METHODOLOGY
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:1
We were asked to (1) determine, given the data available, the extent
and prevalence of children (defined as anyone under 18) working in
agriculture, including their injuries and fatalities; (2) describe
and analyze the federal legislative protections and those in selected
states for children working in agriculture; (3) assess the
enforcement of these laws as they apply to children working in
agriculture; and (4) identify federal educational assistance programs
and describe how they address the needs of children in migrant and
seasonal agriculture, focusing on those aged 14 to 17. On March 20,
1998, we provided preliminary results of this work (see
GAO/HEHS-98-112R). We conducted our work in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards between October 1997
and May 1998.
COLLECTING AND ASSESSING
DATA ON THE NUMBER OF
CHILDREN WORKING IN
AGRICULTURE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:1.1
To determine the prevalence of child labor in agriculture and the
conditions under which these children work, we obtained and evaluated
data from a variety of sources, reviewed the methodologies used to
collect these data, and interviewed officials responsible for
collecting these data. We explored several data sources, both public
and private, to determine an estimate of the number of children
employed in agriculture and the hazards they face. We reviewed
information and databases from the Departments of Labor, Agriculture,
Commerce, HHS, and other government agencies, such as the Consumer
Product Safety Commission. For example, the Bureau of Labor
Statistics in the Department of Labor is responsible for several main
sources of data, including the Current Population Survey (CPS), the
Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, and the Census of
Fatal Occupational Injuries. Labor's Office of the Assistant
Secretary for Policy is responsible for the National Agricultural
Workers Survey (NAWS). HHS' NIOSH, a federal agency that conducts
independent research on working conditions, sponsors the National
Traumatic Occupational Fatalities Surveillance System and the
National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, major sources of
occupational fatality and injury data. We also reviewed information
from private entities, such as the National Safety Council, the
Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, the National Bureau
of Economic Research, the National Farm Medicine Center, and various
university studies.
Although some of these sources had helpful information, we did not
use all of them because of their methodological constraints or
coverage limitations. For example, some estimates defined children
as anyone younger than 22 years old. In other cases, the
methodologies used for developing the estimates were based on so many
assumptions that the reliability of the estimates was questionable.
We decided to focus on those nationally representative data that
provide broad coverage of work experience by age, including CPS,
NAWS, Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, Survey of Occupational
Injuries and Illnesses, National Traumatic Occupational Fatalities
Surveillance System, and National Electronic Injury Surveillance
System. We reviewed previously published data, extracted data from
public use files, and obtained special computer runs from the
responsible agencies for key data used in this report. We extracted
relevant data within the constraints of sample size and privacy
considerations.
NAWS has been conducted by Labor's Office of the Assistant Secretary
for Policy for about a decade. During that time the survey has
evolved, making several major changes in the survey's subject matter.
The primary use of NAWS data is for describing the employment and
economic situation of hired farmworkers, and not, according to Labor
analysts, for estimating national totals of farmworkers or their
dependents. Any estimates of this population must be derived by
applying NAWS proportions to independent estimates of total
farmworkers such as the estimate developed by the Commission on
Agricultural Workers in 1992.
We obtained from Labor a preliminary public use file of data from the
survey's inception in 1988 through 1996. Because of privacy
considerations, the NAWS public use file did not contain all survey
data available; it excluded personal identifiers and other
information that could compromise confidentiality. Because the NAWS
database has more complete information than we had in the public use
file, we also requested several special tabulations of NAWS data from
Labor. These tabulations help to complete the picture of the
situation of hired farmworkers and their families, but often the data
were too sparse to use.\12
Although other relevant variables could be explored from NAWS, in
many cases (such as ethnicity of the child or season of work), the
subsamples were too small for drawing reliable inferences. For
example, in one of its data collection cycles (winter), NAWS
collected data from only 72 farmworkers under 18. NAWS has
information about hours worked by young farmworkers during the winter
data collection cycle from only 65 interviewees. When delineated by
ethnicity, no category has as many as 50 cases, the minimum
recommended by NAWS analysts as a basis for computations. Such a
distinction could be important because foreign-born hired workers
make up less than half of all young farmworkers overall but
constitute three-quarters of the young farmworkers interviewed during
the (combined) fall and winter data collection cycles, and the vast
majority of foreign-born hired farmworkers were not enrolled in
school.
--------------------
\12 Our work with the file provided a test of its usefulness to
researchers and helped uncover weaknesses in the data and
documentation provided. We presented details about the difficulties
we encountered and suggestions for improving the public use file to
Labor officials charged with conducting NAWS. The discussions
covered cases of missing or miscoded data and ways to improve the
coding and documentation.
ANALYZING THE LEGISLATIVE
PROTECTIONS FOR CHILDREN
WORKING IN AGRICULTURE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:1.2
To describe and analyze the legislative protections for children in
agriculture at the federal level and in three states--California,
Florida, and Vermont--we obtained pertinent laws and reviewed key
provisions covering children and others working in agriculture.
During on-site interviews with federal and state enforcement
officials in Washington, D.C.; California; and Florida and in
telephone interviews with Vermont officials, we discussed the
coverage of these laws and their application to children and others
working in agriculture compared with those working in other
industries. We reviewed the legislative history of FLSA, interviewed
grower and labor representatives for their perspectives on the
treatment of agricultural workers under the law, and discussed
potential implications of any changes to the law. We also
interviewed growers and their representatives, as well as farmworker
advocates, for their views on the extent of child labor used in
agriculture.
We obtained additional information about protections at the state
level for children working in agriculture and assessed how these laws
were enforced. We selected three states--California, Florida, and
Vermont--to discuss in detail states' views on child labor in
agriculture, what their laws provide, and how particular local
conditions and challenges affect the enforcement of state laws. We
used several criteria for choosing these states. First, we reviewed
state laws to determine which state laws covered children working in
agriculture. We omitted those states (such as Texas) in which the
laws did not cover children because selecting such a state would not
have been useful. We then reviewed USDA data to identify those
states ranked highest in the number of hired farmworkers and farms
and interviewed farmworker advocates for their opinions on where
problems with child labor in agriculture were most severe. Using
these criteria, we identified California and Florida as key
agricultural states as well as states that many believed faced
several challenges in detecting illegal child labor in agriculture.
We selected another state--Vermont--to provide a contrast in laws and
experiences with those of Florida and California. A large percentage
of acreage in Vermont is farmed, and Vermont relies heavily on
agriculture but has few reported hired workers.
ASSESSING ENFORCEMENT
EFFORTS FOR PROTECTING
CHILDREN WORKING IN
AGRICULTURE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:1.3
To assess the enforcement of these laws as they apply to children
working in agriculture, we obtained and reviewed established policies
and procedures for federal and state enforcement agencies for
conducting inspections and obtained and reviewed historical
enforcement statistics from federal and state agencies responsible
for enforcing child labor and other safety and health laws in the
agricultural industry. Through interviews with enforcement officials
in Washington, D.C.; California; Florida; and Vermont, we identified
issues that could affect their ability to detect illegal child labor
in agriculture.
IDENTIFYING HOW FEDERAL
EDUCATIONAL ASSISTANCE
PROGRAMS HELP CHILDREN IN
AGRICULTURE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:1.4
To identify and describe how federal educational assistance programs
address the needs of school-aged (ages 6 through 17) children working
in agriculture or whose parents work in agriculture,\13 we conducted
a literature review and interviewed education and program officials
to understand the academic challenges facing these children. We
identified the main federal programs that provide direct assistance
to these children and determined the level of program information
available about the population served. For the two largest programs
serving migrant and seasonal workers aged 14 through 17--Education's
MEP and Labor's Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker Program (MSFWP)--we
obtained and reviewed historical program data; interviewed program
officials in Washington, D.C.; California; Florida; and Vermont; and
reviewed key program operations to be considered when assessing the
type and availability of program data and outcome measures.
--------------------
\13 We decided to focus on school-aged children, which we defined as
aged 6 through 17, because we were asked to focus on the implications
of agricultural work on these children's academic achievement.
LIMITED DATA MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO
ASSESS THE NUMBER OF CHILDREN
WORKING IN AGRICULTURE AND THEIR
WORKING CONDITIONS
============================================================ Chapter 2
Although several major sources of data provide nationally
representative estimates of the number of children working in
agriculture, each has limitations that could result in undercounting.
Data are also limited concerning aspects of such children's working
conditions and the frequency of their work-related injuries and
illnesses. Nonetheless, available data indicate that children
working in agriculture have more severe injuries and a
disproportionate share of fatalities compared with children working
in other industries.
INCOMPLETE DATA MAY
UNDERESTIMATE THE NUMBER OF
CHILDREN WORKING IN AGRICULTURE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:1
Two nationally representative sources of data on agricultural
employment are CPS and NAWS. These surveys use different sampling
techniques and cover different groups of workers, but both provide
national estimates of children working in agriculture (see table
2.1).
Table 2.1
Differences in National Estimates of
Children Working in Agriculture
CPS annual CPS work
averages experience NAWS
---------------- ------------ ------------ ------------
How data National March survey National
collected household supplement survey of
survey to CPS employed
farmworkers
Time period One week Activity in Three times
measured each month prior per year
calendar
year
Ages included 15-17 15-17 14-17
Agricultural Crops, Crops, Crops
sectors included livestock, livestock,
and and
agricultural agricultural
services services
Class of worker Hired Hired Hired
surveyed workers, workers, workers
self- self-
employed, employed,
and unpaid and unpaid
family family
workers workers
Most recent 155,000 290,000 128,500
estimate (1997 annual (work (1993-96
average) experience average)
in 1996)
----------------------------------------------------------
Estimates derived from CPS\14 show that, on average, about 155,000
15- to 17-year-olds worked in agriculture in 1997.\15 Most of these
workers (about 116,000) were wage and salary workers (that is, hired
farmworkers); about 24,000 were self-employed and 15,000 were unpaid
family workers. Annual averages between 1992 and 1997 generally
showed little change in the overall number of these workers. A
second CPS estimate shows that in the past few years, about 300,000
of all 15- to 17-year-olds who worked at some point during the year
(hired workers, self-employed, and family members) reported that they
held an agricultural job the longest.\16 This estimate comes from a
yearly collection of work experience data and is distinguished from
the point estimates mentioned above because it represents work
experience for an entire year. The number who work at any time
during the year is much higher than the number who work in any given
week.
CPS has limitations that probably underestimate the total number of
children working in agriculture. For example, CPS collects labor
force information only on individuals 15 and older; it does not
collect information on workers 14 years old or younger. In addition,
because CPS is a household survey that relies on address lists and
for which most of the interviewing is done by telephone, certain
groups are harder to interview. These could include migrants, those
not living in established residences, those without ready access to
telephones, and foreign-born or non-English-speaking
individuals--conditions that apply to many farmworkers.
The Department of Labor's NAWS is an agricultural payroll-based
survey conducted since 1988.\17 Recent NAWS estimates indicate that,
on average, about 128,500 14- to 17-year-old hired farmworkers were
working in crop production from 1993 to 1996. These children make up
about 7 percent of all hired farmworkers working on crops.\18 Because
of the small sample size, NAWS trend data must be interpreted
carefully; however, these data show a slight increase in the number
of child farmworkers from an earlier period, when about 5 percent of
hired crop workers were 14 to 17 years old (about 91,000). About 70
percent of these young farmworkers are male. Moreover, NAWS data
indicate that older children are more likely to work than younger
children. Farmworkers interviewed for NAWS indicated that while few
of their children under age 14 work, about 8 percent of their
children aged 14 and 15 work, and 17 percent of their children aged
16 and 17 work, mostly at farm jobs.
NAWS data also show a growing proportion of workers between 14 and 17
years old working away from their parents as unaccompanied minors.
Recent NAWS estimates show them to total about 3 percent of all hired
farmworkers (about 47,000) but more than a third of all 14- to
17-year-old farmworkers. This trend is consistent with the
experiences of enforcement officials and farmworker advocates, who
noted an increase in young men entering the country illegally without
their parents to do agricultural work.
Though NAWS collects detailed information about certain agricultural
workers, it also has limitations. For example, NAWS focuses solely
on hired crop farmworkers; thus, it includes no agricultural workers
who are self-employed or unpaid family workers or those hired
farmworkers working with livestock. In addition, NAWS interviews
only workers 14 years of age and older. Furthermore, NAWS has an
extremely complex sampling design and small sample sizes, which may
lead to imprecise estimates for some individual variables such as
school enrollment or employment levels for different ethnic groups of
workers for different data collection cycles. As a result, NAWS data
also may underreport the total number of children working in
agriculture.
--------------------
\14 CPS, conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of
Labor Statistics (BLS), is a monthly survey of a nationally
representative sample of households. It is designed to develop
estimates of demographic, social, and economic characteristics of the
population. The monthly CPS data reflect a person's activity during
a particular week (called the reference week).
\15 These young agricultural workers made up about 5 percent of all
15- to 17-year-old workers.
\16 In supplementary questions asked each Mar., CPS asks about a
person's activities in the prior calendar year, including how many
weeks the person worked and the characteristics of the longest job
held.
\17 Three times each year, Labor surveys a sample of hired
farmworkers (for a yearly total of about 2,500) on their working and
living conditions and other information. It gathers detailed
demographic and employment information about hired farmworkers aged
14 and older working on crops.
\18 In 1992, the Commission on Agricultural Workers estimated that
the United States had 2.5 million hired farmworkers. Applying to the
Commission's estimate the proportion of agricultural workers who work
in crops or agricultural services (as reported by the 1990 census)
yields an estimate of about 1.81 million hired farmworkers who work
on crops. NAWS applies the percentage of 14- to 17-year-old
farmworkers in its survey to the 1.81 million estimate to derive
these totals.
LIMITED DATA IDENTIFY
SUBSTANTIAL WORK TIME FOR
CHILDREN
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:2
Data documenting the hours children work and the kinds of activities
they do are limited. Both CPS and NAWS collect some information
about the work of children employed in agriculture; nonetheless, this
information has the same limitations as the overall employment
estimates. Available data, however, show that children work a
substantial amount of time and their work is seasonal, physically
demanding, and primarily in vegetable crops.
CHILDREN WORK A SUBSTANTIAL
AMOUNT OF TIME
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:2.1
CPS data show that about half of young agricultural workers work more
than 3 months during the year, and NAWS data indicate that, on
average, agricultural workers aged 14 to 17 work about 31 hours per
week. Some NAWS data can be separated into three broad ethnicity
categories: U.S.-born Hispanics, U.S.-born non-Hispanics, and those
born outside of the United States. As a result, NAWS identifies that
young foreign-born workers work somewhat longer hours than U.S.-born
workers--35 hours compared with 27 hours. Neither CPS nor NAWS,
however, provides information about the time of day this work takes
place, so determining when these hours were worked (for instance,
during school hours, early morning, or evenings) is impossible.
CHILDREN'S WORK IS STRONGLY
SEASONAL
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:2.2
CPS data show that children's work is mainly seasonal, with large
increases in employment during the summer months. NAWS data confirm
this pattern. NAWS has three data collection cycles during the year:
fall, winter, and spring/summer. NAWS data indicate that nearly
twice as many young agricultural workers work in the spring/summer
cycle as in the fall cycle; few work in the winter. Because the NAWS
spring/summer data collection cycle extends from mid-May to the end
of July, however, it is an imprecise measure of summer jobs because
it includes the end of the school year. These data indicate that
children are working during the seasons when school is in session.
CHILDREN WORK IN PHYSICALLY
DEMANDING ACTIVITIES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:2.3
Some data are available on the general duties children perform, but
these data are based on a small number of respondents and only
general categories of work. According to NAWS, a substantial
portion--about 40 percent--of young agricultural workers aged 14 to
17 work at harvesting tasks, which are generally considered to be
some of the most physically demanding in crop work. According to
Labor officials, harvesting tasks are activities associated with
harvesting the crops, such as bending, stooping, or climbing ladders
to pick crops, or carrying buckets of picked crops to transporting
vehicles. No nationally representative estimates exist, however, on
specific tasks children perform (such as driving tractors) for
determining whether children are doing certain tasks before they are
legally allowed to do so.
CHILDREN WORK IN VEGETABLES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:2.4
NAWS also provides limited data on which crops children work, but
these data are also based on a small number of respondents.
According to NAWS, about 40 percent of the young agricultural workers
work on vegetables and about 20 percent work on fruits and nuts.
DATA INDICATE THAT AGRICULTURE
IS A HAZARDOUS INDUSTRY FOR
CHILDREN
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:3
Agriculture is a hazardous industry, with one of the highest rates of
injuries, fatalities, and lost workdays for employees generally.
Available data indicate that although the relative number of injuries
of children working in agriculture is not as high as that for those
working in other industries, the severity tends to be greater and
these children have a disproportionate number of fatalities.
Although a number of data sources document injuries and illnesses to
children working in agriculture, methodological constraints result in
estimates that may understate injuries to and fatalities of these
children.
SEVERE SAFETY PROBLEMS MORE
LIKELY FOR CHILDREN WORKING
IN AGRICULTURE THAN IN OTHER
INDUSTRIES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:3.1
For 1992 through 1995, BLS data show that between 400 and 600 workers
under 18 suffered work-related injuries each year while working in
agriculture.\19 In addition, recent estimates from NIOSH show that
the estimated injury rate for 14- to 17-year-old workers in
agriculture was 4.3 per 100 full-time-equivalent workers--less than
the rate of 5.8 for 14- to 17-year-old workers in all industries.
Fractures and dislocations, however, were more common in agriculture
(14 percent) than in other industries (3 percent), which indicates
that agricultural injuries tend to be more severe than those in other
industries.\20
Available data show that children working in agriculture account for
about 25 percent of all fatalities of children working in all
industries.\21 BLS data show that between 1992 and 1996, 59 children
under 18 died while working as hired agricultural workers. CPS data,
however, show that 15- to 17-year-
olds working as hired agricultural workers make up only 4 percent of
all 15- to 17-year-old hired workers. BLS data indicate that many of
these fatalities involved transportation incidents, often overturned
vehicles. In addition, NIOSH reported recently that work-related
deaths of children aged 16 and 17 working in agriculture accounted
for about 30 percent of all work-related deaths in this age group
between 1980 and 1989 (in cases for which industry information was
known).\22
Children's exposure to pesticides also poses serious concerns. EPA,
a major source of national data on children's exposure to pesticides,
is required to collect data on occupational and nonoccupational
exposure to pesticides. According to EPA, between 1985 and 1992,
over 750 cases of occupational exposure occurred involving children
under 18, which accounted for about 4 percent of all reported cases.
Our review of records from the past several years from the California
and Florida pesticide incident monitoring systems from which EPA's
data derive show that 1 percent or less of such exposure involved
individuals under 18. These databases are limited, however, and
officials agreed that they may not capture all exposure, especially
exposure to children. For example, the EPA database neither includes
data from all states nor differentiates between exposure occurring on
a farm or in some other location.\23
--------------------
\19 These data, from the Survey of Occupational Injuries and
Illnesses, are collected from a sample of records that employers with
11 or more workers must complete to report any work-related injury or
illness requiring more than first aid. Although these data cannot be
disaggregated by type of worker, they most likely represent hired
workers because an employer would probably not record an injury to a
family member.
\20 The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System collects this
information on emergency room visits from a nationally representative
sample of hospitals. These estimates represent only the last 6
months of 1992; more recent data are not yet available.
\21 These data are from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, a
database BLS maintains to track work-related fatalities. The data
are based on several types of administrative records such as death
certificates and state workers' compensation records.
\22 For these data, agriculture includes not only crop production,
agricultural services, and livestock, but forestry and fishing as
well. These data are from the National Traumatic Occupational
Fatalities Surveillance System, which is based on death certificate
information for victims at least 16 years old whose death resulted
from an injury at work. This information is provided by vital
statistics reporting units nationwide.
\23 We have reported in the past that EPA's database has several
limitations, such as limited coverage, potential underreporting of
likely exposure, and lack of key data. See Pesticides on Farms:
Limited Capability Exists to Monitor Occupational Illnesses and
Injury (GAO/PEMD-94-6, Dec. 15, 1993).
DIFFICULTIES DETERMINING
WHETHER INJURIES AND
ILLNESSES ARE WORK RELATED
MAY RESULT IN INCOMPLETE
ESTIMATES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:3.2
Although the data provide indications of the hazards that
agricultural work poses for children, the data are most likely
understated because of difficulty relating the injury, illness, or
fatality to the work place. First, employers self-report much of the
data on occupational injuries, so whether employers always report
events accurately is unknown. Accuracy may be especially affected if
an injury or fatality involves transient or undocumented workers or
if an employer or child is not covered by applicable workers'
compensation, child labor, or safety and health laws.\24 Second,
health practitioners may have difficulty determining whether an
injury to a young child is occupationally related. This is
especially true of chronic injuries or illnesses from sustained
exposure to pesticides. Several concerns have been raised about
whether health care professionals are adequately trained to recognize
the effects of pesticide exposure on children or know the appropriate
questions to ask to determine whether the exposure is work related.
Third, children commonly work with their hired farmworker parents on
evenings or weekends but are not considered to be official employees.
As a result, their injuries, illnesses, or fatalities are probably
not reflected in available data.\25
--------------------
\24 For example, only three work-related deaths of children under 18
were reported to OSHA by employers engaged in any type of
agricultural operation for fiscal year 1997--two of which involved
crop production, in which most hired agricultural workers work.
Although employers are required by law to report work-related deaths
to OSHA, the difference in number of deaths reported by OSHA and BLS
indicates that employers are not notifying OSHA of work-related
deaths as required. OSHA officials said this also may reflect the
lack of authority OSHA has over these agricultural work sites.
\25 For example, in the past several years, two children in
Florida--one as young as 4 years old--were run over by farm machinery
while with their working parents (who were hired farmworkers).
Because Florida labor authorities determined these children were not
working, these deaths would not be counted as part of these data.
INFORMATION ENHANCEMENTS WILL
IMPROVE UNDERSTANDING OF
FARMWORKER ACTIVITY AND
AGRICULTURAL SAFETY
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:4
Labor and NIOSH are leading efforts to improve our knowledge about
farmworkers' working conditions. The information gathered through
these efforts could lay the groundwork for nationwide programs to
improve data collection and prevent children's agricultural injuries.
These efforts will improve the overall level of information about
farmworkers in general and provide additional information about
children's agricultural injuries.
LABOR AND NIOSH PLAN TO
ENHANCE NAWS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:4.1
Labor's proposed fiscal year 1999 budget includes an increase of
about $800,000 in funding for NAWS. According to Labor officials,
this increase was requested as a part of the President's Child Labor
Initiative and seeks to expand NAWS coverage for all agricultural
crop workers, including children. The funding, if provided, would be
used to double the sample size from about 2,500 interviews per year
to 5,000 and refine the sampling procedure to allow easier
computation of confidence intervals. Under this funding, Labor may
also undertake other activities specific to obtaining detailed
information about children's work experience--such as expanding the
survey to include workers under 14 or including a proportionately
greater number of workers under 18 to allow for greater reliability
of key data variables. Labor and NIOSH are also implementing an
interagency agreement under which NIOSH will provide funding for an
expanded survey that will yield additional safety and health data.
NIOSH EFFORT WILL ADDRESS
AGRICULTURAL CONDITIONS AND
SAFETY
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:4.2
Several groups have noted the need for a better understanding of the
magnitude and scope of children's agricultural injuries, improved
targeted research and prevention efforts, and an assessment of the
progress made over time. In the mid-1990s, representatives from a
variety of public and private, academic and industrial, medical, and
educational organizations formed the National Committee for Childhood
Agricultural Injury Prevention. Through consensus, the Committee
refined and prioritized recommendations for action. Working with
NIOSH, the Committee's work culminated in a National Action Plan that
specified 13 objectives and 43 recommended action steps for meeting
those objectives. Among those recommendations was that the Congress
designate NIOSH to lead an effort to establish and maintain a
national system for preventing children's agricultural injury. The
National Action Plan recommended a systematic approach, including
research, education, program interventions, and public policy.
Subsequently, the Congress allocated $5 million in 1996 to NIOSH to
support an initiative to prevent children's agricultural injuries.
This effort is envisioned as a 5-year initiative with annual funding
of $5 million.
The NIOSH initiative seeks to address critical data needs, such as
surveillance of agriculture-related injuries, health implications of
pesticide exposure, and consequences of farm injuries. This
initiative will also establish an infrastructure to make better data
available for developing and improving prevention efforts and
encourage the use of effective prevention strategies by the private
and public sectors. As part of the initiative, NIOSH is conducting
or supporting research in the following areas: migrant and seasonal
worker injury surveillance, risk-factor research, outcomes research,
intervention strategies, migrant workers' health, pesticide exposure
in children, ergonomics, farm children's attitudes and behaviors, and
evaluation of safety and health educational programs. These research
projects are limited in scope but should improve knowledge about
promising strategies and may lead to improved data collection, more
effective interventions, and better injury prevention programs
nationwide.
CHILDREN WORKING IN AGRICULTURE
RECEIVE LESS LEGAL PROTECTION THAN
CHILDREN WORKING IN OTHER
INDUSTRIES
============================================================ Chapter 3
FLSA and state laws provide less protection for children working in
agriculture than they do for children working in other industries;
therefore, children may work in agriculture in settings that would be
illegal in other industries. Nonetheless, FLSA's current provisions
are more protective now than when the law was first passed 60 years
ago and reflect the dynamic changes that are transforming U.S.
agriculture and the increased national emphasis on the safety,
health, and academic achievement of children.
FLSA PROVIDES LESS PROTECTION
TO CHILDREN WORKING IN
AGRICULTURE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:1
The Congress enacted FLSA in 1938 to provide protections for children
and others working in all industries. The need to impose
restrictions on child labor in agriculture was recognized by
President Roosevelt who sent a message to the Congress urging it to
pass legislation to, among other things, protect against "the evil of
child labor" in factories and on farms. Nonetheless, 60 years after
FLSA was passed, although it covers children working in both
agriculture and other industries, children working in agriculture are
legally permitted to work at younger ages, in more hazardous
occupations, and for longer periods of time than children working in
other industries. For example, a 13-year-old may not, under federal
law, be employed to perform clerical work in an office but may be
employed to pick strawberries in a field. A 16-year-old may not
operate a power saw in a shop or a forklift in a warehouse but may
operate either on a farm. Finally, under current law, a 14-year-old
hired to work in a retail establishment may work only between the
hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. (9 p.m. in the summer) and may not work
more than 18 hours in a school week or 3 hours in a school day; the
same child may work an unlimited number of hours picking grapes as
long as he or she is not working during school hours.
CHILDREN MAY WORK AT YOUNGER
AGES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:1.1
As shown in table 3.1, in agriculture, children as young as 12 years
old may work in any nonhazardous occupation with the parents' written
consent or if working on a farm that employs their parent as long as
the work is done outside of school hours. On small farms, children
even younger than 12 may work with their parents' written consent.\26
In nonagricultural industries, the youngest age at which a child may
work is 14 (outside of school hours) and, even then, only in
specified allowable occupations. In agriculture, children who work
on a farm owned by their families may work at any age. In other
industries, children under 16 employed by their parents may perform
any work as long as it is not in mining or manufacturing and has not
been declared hazardous by the Secretary of Labor.
Table 3.1
Comparison of FLSA Child Labor
Protections for Agricultural and
Nonagricultural Workers Under 18
Agricultural occupations Nonagricultural occupations\a
--------------------------------------- --------------------------------------
Allowable Allowable Other Allowable Allowable Other
Age occupations hours conditions occupations hours conditions
-------- ------------ ------------ ----------- ------------ ------------ ----------
16 and All All None Nonhazardous All None
17 \b
14 and Nonhazardous Unlimited None Nonhazardous Up to 40 None
15 \c hours explicitly hours in
outside of permitted by nonschool
school Labor\d week; up to
18 in school
week; up to
8 on
nonschool
day; up to 3
on school
day; between
7 a.m. and 7
p.m. (9 p.m.
in summer)
12 and Nonhazardous Unlimited Written None None Not
13 \c hours consent of applicable
outside of parent or
school work on
farm where
parent
employed
Younger Nonhazardous Unlimited On small None None Not
than 12 \c hours farm with applicable
outside of written
school consent of
parent\e
10 and Hand harvest Up to 5 Under terms None None Not
11 short season hours a day of waiver applicable
crops and 30 hours issued by
(nonhazardou a week Labor,
s) outside of which
school includes
various
protections
, including
parental
consent
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\a Does not include the following occupations that have statutory
exemptions allowing children to work regardless of age: newspaper
deliverers, actors, and makers of certain live wreaths.
\b Occupations not declared particularly hazardous or detrimental to
health or well-being by the Secretary of Labor under 29 C.F.R.
570.50 et seq. for children between 16 and 18 years old.
\c Agricultural occupations not declared particularly hazardous under
29 C.F.R. 570.70 et seq. for children under 16 years old.
\d Nonmanufacturing and nonmining occupations declared permissible
under 29 C.F.R. 570.31 et seq.
\e A small farm is an agricultural employer who did not use, during
any calendar quarter in the preceding year, more than 500 days of
agricultural labor.
--------------------
\26 Although the law allows for children as young as 10 to work on
hand harvest or short season crops under a special waiver granted by
the Secretary of Labor, Labor officials said they have not granted
any such waivers since the 1980s.
CHILDREN MAY WORK IN MORE
DANGEROUS OCCUPATIONS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:1.2
As indicated in table 3.1, children as young as 16 may work in
agriculture in any capacity, including in some occupations declared
hazardous by the Secretary of Labor, such as operating certain
tractors, cotton pickers, hay balers, power post drivers, trenchers
or other earth-moving equipment, forklifts, or power-driven saws; or
driving a bus, truck, or automobile. In nonagricultural industries,
children generally may not perform such tasks until age 18.\27
Furthermore, in agriculture, parents do not have to adhere to
hazardous occupation requirements, which means a parent may allow his
or her 7-year-old to operate a power saw or drive a tractor, although
a parent would not be able to allow his or her 7-year-old to operate
a similar machine in a nonagricultural setting.
--------------------
\27 In its fiscal year 1999 budget, Labor requested funding to
reevaluate these hazardous occupations to determine whether they need
to be updated. Officials could not say whether Labor is considering
making the hazardous occupation limitations for agriculture more
stringent; rather, the goal is to determine whether other dangers,
such as exposure to pesticides, should be incorporated into the
revised hazardous occupations orders.
CHILDREN MAY WORK LONGER
HOURS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:1.3
Table 3.1 illustrates that a child under 16 may generally work in
agriculture for an unlimited number of hours as long as the child is
not working during school hours. Conversely, in other industries, a
14- or 15-year-old child may only work for a limited number of hours
not only when school is in session, but also when it is not in
session. Children who work for their families--in any industry--may
work an unlimited number of hours.
STATE LAWS ALSO GENERALLY
PROVIDE LESS PROTECTION TO
CHILDREN WORKING IN AGRICULTURE
THAN TO CHILDREN WORKING IN
OTHER INDUSTRIES
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:2
Thirty-four states have laws that provide some protections for
children working in agriculture. State laws play an important role
in supplementing FLSA's protections because they may apply to those
employers not covered under FLSA. Moreover, if an employer is
covered under FLSA and the state laws, the more stringent provision
applies. In other words, in a state with a law with provisions that
are more protective than FLSA's, the state provision would apply.
Much like FLSA, however, state laws generally provide less protection
to children working in agriculture than to children working in other
industries.\28
With the exception of states such as Florida (whose child labor law
generally applies equally to children working in all industries), in
general, state protections provided to children working in
agriculture are less stringent than those for children working in
other industries. Sixteen states have no protections at all for
children working in agriculture,\29
and over half of the 34 states that do have protections for children
working in agriculture allow them to work more hours per day or per
week than children in other industries. For example, California
allows exemptions for employers operating agricultural packing plants
to employ 16- and 17-year-
olds during any day when school is not in session for up to 10 hours
per day during peak harvest seasons. Although these exemptions are
only to be granted if they do not materially affect the safety or
welfare of the children and are needed by the employer to prevent
undue hardship, California labor officials said, after an initial
inspection of the employer, they generally grant all requests for
such exemptions. In addition, most of these states allow children in
agriculture to work in hazardous occupations at younger ages than
children in other industries.
Compared with FLSA, about two-thirds of the 34 states allow children
to work at about the same ages (12 to 14), although several allow
younger children to work in agriculture. For example, Vermont has no
lower age limitation for children working in agriculture outside of
school hours. More protective than FLSA, most of these states limit
the number of hours a child under 16 may work in agriculture. For
example, California prohibits a child under 16 from working more than
18 hours a week while school is in session. Florida prohibits a
child under 16 from working more than 15 hours a week when school is
in session and does not even allow 16- or 17-year-olds to work during
school hours as allowed by FLSA and other states. Moreover, in
California, all children who wish to work in any industry (including
agriculture) must be issued a work permit verifying their age and
specifying the hours they are permitted to work. If the number or
range of hours on the permit are more stringent than those allowed by
California law, then those on the work permit are what the employers
are held to. Over 70 percent of these 34 states provide either the
same or less protection as FLSA for agricultural child workers
regarding the occupations they may perform. Several, however, have
more stringent protections. For example, Florida prohibits anyone
under 18 from operating or helping operate a tractor of a certain
size; any trencher or earth-moving equipment; any harvesting,
planting, or plowing machine; or any moving machinery (FLSA allows
16-year-old agricultural workers to operate this type of equipment).
California has also instituted what it calls an agricultural "zone of
danger" provision that prohibits children under 12 from working or
accompanying an employed parent near unprotected water hazards,
unprotected chemicals, or moving equipment.
--------------------
\28 For a detailed discussion of California's, Florida's, and
Vermont's child labor laws as they apply to children working in
agriculture, see app. I.
\29 According to WHD, those states whose child labor laws do not
cover children working in agriculture are Alabama, Georgia, Kansas,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North
Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia,
and Wyoming.
CHANGES TO FLSA HAVE REFLECTED
CHANGES IN AGRICULTURAL
INDUSTRY AND EDUCATIONAL
PRIORITIES
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:3
FLSA as originally enacted provided few restrictions on the use of
child labor in agriculture, probably reflecting the conditions
existing in U.S. agriculture at the time. Since FLSA's original
passage, however, the Congress has repeatedly revised FLSA's
protections for children working in agriculture to provide more
protections regarding children's ages, working hours, and types of
occupations they may perform. These changes accompanied dynamic
changes in the U.S. agricultural industry and increased public
concern for children's safety and education.
VARIOUS CONDITIONS MAY
EXPLAIN FLSA'S ORIGINAL
TREATMENT OF CHILDREN
WORKING IN AGRICULTURE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:3.1
FLSA as originally enacted only prohibited children from working in
agriculture during the hours they were legally required to attend
school, although it provided many additional protections for children
working in other industries. Several conditions existing at that
time may explain why children working in agriculture were treated
differently from children working in other industries:
-- Significance of small farm production: When FLSA was passed,
small and family farmers formed an important part of the U.S.
agricultural industry. Given the industry's seasonality and
instability and the interest in preserving its economic
viability, restricting the use of labor, especially child labor,
may have placed undue economic and other hardships on these
farmers.
-- Benefits to children of agricultural work: When FLSA was
enacted, agriculture may have been considered to provide a
beneficial work environment for children. In addition, because
agriculture had lower levels of mechanization and use of
pesticides than it does today and was performed out of doors, it
may have provided a safer alternative for children than other
industries. In fact, one view expressed at the time was that
work on the farm was free from the moral turpitude of city
sweatshops and that farm labor taught children valuable lessons
and skills.
-- Little national emphasis on academic achievement: Few
compulsory education attendance requirements existed during the
1930s, and children were expected to find work at the earliest
age possible. Because the use of child labor in many industries
was common and accepted, children were likely to stop attending
school at 14 or 15 to work or take over the family farm.
CONGRESSIONAL AMENDMENTS TO
FLSA HAVE EXPANDED
PROTECTIONS FOR CHILDREN
WORKING IN AGRICULTURE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:3.2
Since the 1930s, several dynamic changes have taken place not only in
the U.S. agricultural industry, but also in the emphasis our nation
has placed on children's health, safety, and academic achievement.
During this same period, the Congress has amended FLSA on several
occasions and has provided children working in agriculture with
additional protections. These changes, which addressed limiting the
hours and ages that children may work and the type of work that they
may perform, reflected the changing views about the industry and the
focus on children's safety and academic achievement. The legislative
changes include the following:
-- Prohibition against work during school hours (1949): FLSA was
expanded to prohibit children from working during school hours.
Before this, children working in agriculture were only excluded
from coverage "while not legally required to attend school." In
other words, children not legally required to attend school
could work at any time. Under the 1949 amendment, these
children, though not required to attend school under state law,
were still prohibited from working as agricultural employees
during school hours.
-- Prohibition on work in hazardous occupations (1966): FLSA was
expanded to prohibit children under 16 from working in various
hazardous agricultural occupations. Before this amendment,
children of any age could perform any occupation. This change
most likely reflected the growing awareness that the
agricultural industry was becoming more mechanized and was
increasing the use of pesticides, which posed possibly greater
dangers to young children.
-- Prohibition on the employment of young children (1974): FLSA
was expanded to prohibit the employment of children under 12
(except if working on the family farm or on a small farm with
parental consent). The law also prohibited children working at
age 12 or 13 unless a parent consented or employment was on the
same farm on which a parent worked.\30
Following are changes in the agricultural industry and in the
importance of children's safety and academic achievement:
-- Decline of the small farmer: The agricultural sector as a
percentage of total U.S. economic activity dropped from 27
percent in 1930 to 16 percent in 1990. Meanwhile, the number of
farms declined from over 6 million in 1930 to about 2 million in
1992. As the number of farms declined, the relative size of
farms (in market value of agricultural products sold in 1982
dollars) increased substantially; the market value of a farm in
1930 was less than $10,000, but by 1992 it was over $80,000. In
1995, 6 percent of farms accounted for almost 60 percent of
production. In addition, over half of the hired workforce works
on farms employing more than 10 workers.\31 Today, rural
communities obtain less of their income from farms, and farmers
are leasing out their acreage to large agricultural producers to
reduce costs and increase production efficiencies.
-- Enhanced national focus on safety and health of children:
During these years, scientific and technological innovations
have led to greater use of machinery and pesticides to protect
and preserve agricultural commodities. As a result, the country
became more aware of and concerned with workers' health in
general and the special needs of children. Pesticides' effect
on children has prompted much study and concern. Researchers
continue to identify relationships between health problems and
occupational exposure to pesticides or farm work, such as
physically demanding farm tasks that hired children do, for
example, kneeling or bending for long time periods. Partly
because of these dangers, some agricultural producers have
policies not to hire anyone under 18.
-- Greater national emphasis on children's academic achievement:
The nation has placed great importance on children's academic
achievement by establishing compulsory education requirements
and seeking to improve school attendance rates; graduation
rates; and reading, math, and science skills. Educators and
policymakers have realized that ensuring a skilled labor force
requires better preparing children for an increasingly
competitive global marketplace. In addition, researchers have
found that children's working more than 20 hours a week
adversely affects their educational achievement; however,
according to NAWS, hired agricultural workers aged 14 to 17 work
over 30 hours a week when they work.
--------------------
\30 In 1977, the 1974 amendment was relaxed somewhat to allow the
Secretary of Labor to waive, at the request of an agricultural
employer, the child labor restrictions to permit the employment of
children between the ages of 10 and 12 under certain circumstances
and for limited periods of time to do hand harvesting. According to
Labor officials, however, since the 1980s, this waiver has not been
granted.
\31 Growers we interviewed said that when they have surplus labor,
they can hire adults, who are generally more productive than
children. Even if they have a labor shortage, growers would prefer
not to hire anyone younger than 18 because they incur inefficiencies
due to potential liability and bureaucratic hassle.
WEAKNESSES IN ENFORCEMENT AND DATA
COLLECTION PROCEDURES MEAN
VIOLATIONS ARE NOT BEING DETECTED
============================================================ Chapter 4
Weaknesses in current enforcement and data collection procedures
limit enforcement agencies' ability to detect all violations of
illegal child labor in agriculture. The characteristics of the
agricultural industry and its workforce pose several challenges to
enforcement agencies for effectively detecting violations of child
labor laws. However, resources devoted to agriculture by federal and
selected state enforcement agencies have declined in the past 5 years
as have the number of cases of detected agricultural child labor
violations. In addition, WHD and the states lack procedures
necessary for detecting illegal child labor in agriculture, and
enforcement agencies are not following established coordination
procedures for facilitating detection of illegal child labor in
agriculture. Moreover, enforcement databases lack information on
children's involvement in many violations, and data limitations may
affect WHD's ability to assess its progress in reducing illegal child
labor in agriculture.
THE AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY POSES
SEVERAL CHALLENGES TO
ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:1
The agricultural industry poses several challenges to enforcement
agencies because agricultural work is unstable, its work locations
are dispersed, and it offers few benefits or little job security. In
addition, agricultural workers often have reason to avoid enforcement
authorities (see table 4.1). Enforcement authorities must deal with
these challenges to effectively detect violations of child labor or
other labor or safety and health laws.
Table 4.1
Characteristics of the Agricultural
Industry and Challenges They Pose to
Enforcement Agencies
Characteristic Challenge
------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------
Instability, The nature of the work results in mobility of labor and
temporary nature short duration of work, making work sites, employees, and
of agricultural violations difficult to detect. In addition, workers may
field work only report violations after completing their work.
Geographic Because work sites are rural and geographically dispersed
dispersion of work (such as orange groves or strawberry fields), it is
locations difficult to find workers or witness violations.
Low wages, lack of Workers may not report potential violations for fear of
benefits and job employer retaliation.
security
Incentives exist for children to work to support the family,
which can lead to informal work arrangements in which
children work under their parents' payroll number or help
out before and after school or on weekends. Because the
children may not be considered by the employer to be
officially working, their employment history may not be
documented.
Informal Word spreads quickly when inspectors are in an area, so
communication after a few inspections in which violations are found,
networks workers or growers know not to have children working until
inspectors have completed their enforcement activities in
that area.
Worker Workers who are working illegally, have not enrolled their
demographics children in school, or do not speak English well may not
have documentation of the children's age and therefore may
fear and distrust enforcement agencies and want to avoid
detection.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES HAVE
DEVOTED DECLINING RESOURCES TO
AGRICULTURE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:2
The number of recorded inspections in agriculture by WHD, OSHA, EPA,
and the states in our review has generally declined in the past 5
years, resulting in fewer opportunities to find potential child labor
violations. The number of WHD inspections of the agricultural
industry declined from about 5,400 in fiscal year 1993 to 3,500 in
fiscal year 1997. Although these inspections accounted for about 14
percent of all inspections in the 5-year time period, the percentage
of annual inspections devoted to agriculture declined. In the same
period, the percentage of direct enforcement hours devoted to
enforcement of child labor law by WHD in all industries stayed at
about 8 percent; however, in fiscal year 1997, it was less than 6
percent. Although the decline in agricultural inspections must be
viewed in light of declines in WHD enforcement resources over the
decade and new responsibilities assigned to WHD, the decline in
agricultural inspections was greater than the relative decline in the
number of inspectors, for example. Inspections devoted to
agriculture declined similarly in California, a state we reviewed.
In addition, Florida and Vermont, the other states we reviewed, did
not track agricultural inspections or devoted relatively few
resources to agriculture in the past 5 years.
OSHA and EPA, which are responsible for enforcing safety and health
laws and regulations for agricultural workers, have also devoted
declining resources to agriculture in the past 5 years. Although
these agencies have no responsibility for detecting child labor
violations, farmworker advocates have said the presence--or
absence--of other enforcement agencies in agriculture affects the
number of violations of all labor laws, including child labor. In
addition, because enforcement agencies have established procedures
calling for referrals of potential violations of respective laws,
OSHA or its state counterpart if detecting a potential child labor
violation during one of its agricultural inspections could refer the
violation to WHD or the state enforcement agency. In the past 5
years, OSHA and its state counterparts conducted less than 3 percent
of all their inspections in agriculture, and, while the total number
of inspections OSHA conducted in all industries declined by almost 11
percent, the number conducted in agriculture declined almost by
half.\32 States, with guidance and funding from EPA, have also
reduced the number of inspections conducted in agriculture--from
about 11,000 in fiscal year 1993 to 7,000 in fiscal year 1997,
accounting for about 15 percent of the federally funded inspections
by states during this period.\33
--------------------
\32 According to OSHA officials, the relatively few resources devoted
to agriculture are due in part to the few standards OSHA has that
apply directly to agricultural workers and the prohibitions OSHA
faces in inspecting agricultural work places. A recent OSHA
initiative to identify those industries and employers with high rates
of injuries and lost workdays specifically excluded employers engaged
in agriculture.
\33 No EPA data are available on the extent of these resources
devoted solely to the use provision of the Worker Protection
Standard--the provision protecting farmworkers from occupational
pesticide exposure. In addition, EPA does not collect information
from the states on the types of violations they have found, such as
lack of personal protective equipment or workers entering areas
treated with pesticides before the restricted entry interval has
elapsed.
WHD AND SELECTED STATES HAVE
FOUND FEW AGRICULTURAL CHILD
LABOR VIOLATIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:3
According to WHD officials, one of the first things inspectors do in
every inspection is determine whether children are present, which
means that WHD looks for violations of child labor law in every
inspection. WHD and state enforcement agencies, according to our
review, however, detected few cases of child labor violations in the
past 5 years, and the number of cases has generally declined during
this period. In fact, WHD detected agricultural child labor
violations in less than 1 percent of all agricultural inspections
conducted between fiscal years 1993 and 1997. Recently, the
Secretary of Labor said that it was difficult to know whether the
decline in the number of recorded child labor violations was due to
WHD's reduced enforcement activity or a reflection of actual
conditions.\34 As shown in table 4.2, WHD detected agricultural child
labor violations in only 14 cases (involving 22 children) in fiscal
year 1997 under FLSA, which was a decline from the 54 cases
(involving 146 children) in fiscal year 1993.\35 Texas had the most
WHD cases (44), followed by New Mexico (24), Florida (14), California
(12), and Georgia (11). The other states had six or fewer cases
each. Most violations involved children too young to work, and about
40 percent of the violations involved children working in vegetable
commodities (such as onions, tomatoes, and peppers); another 30
percent involved children working in grain production; 10 percent
involved children working in berry planting or harvesting. Similar
to the federal experience, states in our review also reported
declining cases of child labor violations in agriculture (California)
or reported few or no violations (Florida and Vermont). ( For more
information on these states' experiences with child labor in
agriculture, see app. I.)
Table 4.2
Characteristics of Agricultural Child
Labor Violations Found by WHD, Fiscal
Years 1993-97
Fiscal Number of cases with Number of children
year violations involved in cases
---------- ---------------------- ----------------------
1993 54 146
1994 46 203
1995 36 113
1996 24 62
1997 14 22
----------------------------------------------------------
Source: WHD.
In addition, according to WHD officials, when they target enforcement
activities to detect violations of child labor laws, they see little
evidence of violations; the work these children are doing is often
within the confines of FLSA. If FLSA's nonagricultural protections
for child labor were applied to agriculture, the number of violations
found would increase, WHD officials said. Nonetheless, as a result
of WHD's first few salad bowl enforcement activities in Texas, New
Mexico, and Louisiana, WHD found about 40 children working illegally
in the fields, more than found in all of fiscal year 1997.\36
--------------------
\34 WHD, other enforcement officials, and grower representatives said
that the small number of violations may reflect the decline in the
number of children working in agriculture during this period. They
said the number of children working in agriculture was smaller than
in the past and less than often assumed. Even if the children were
in the fields, these officials said, the children may not necessarily
be working. If they are not working, then child labor laws do not
cover them.
\35 A child may be working in an agricultural industry but performing
an occupation considered nonagricultural under FLSA. For example, a
child may be employed by an apricot grower but actually be working in
a packing house, packing apricots into crates. In such cases, other
FLSA protections may apply--those covering nonagricultural work.
This type of situation accounted for over 600 additional child labor
violations during this time.
\36 WHD officials said they have also successfully threatened the use
of FLSA's "hot goods" provision during salad bowl enforcement efforts
to get growers to pay fines or agree to remedial action. The hot
goods provision prohibits interstate commerce of any goods produced
in violation of the child labor provisions. To do this, Labor must
request a temporary restraining order that prohibits a grower from
selling these goods. According to WHD officials, however, this has
been difficult to apply in the past in agriculture because of crops'
time-sensitive nature.
WHD AND STATE ENFORCEMENT
AGENCIES LACK PROCEDURES FOR
DOCUMENTING CHILD LABOR
VIOLATIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:4
The special challenges presented by the agricultural industry, its
dangerous nature as evinced by high injury and fatality rates for its
child workers, and its relatively larger number of child workers
compared with other industries\37 indicate an important role for
enforcement agencies for detecting violations. The limited resources
enforcement agencies have devoted to agricultural inspections in
general and the decline in such resources in the past few years mean
that inspectors must be as efficient as possible when in the field if
they are to detect illegal child labor in agriculture. In addition,
documented procedures must provide clear guidance to inspectors so
they know what to do to detect violations. WHD and the states we
reviewed, however, lack documented procedures for use during
agricultural inspections to determine whether a child is too young to
be working or whether a child is, in fact, working--key conditions
required for demonstrating that a violation has occurred. In
addition, even though WHD has established coordination procedures
with other federal and state enforcement agencies for conducting
joint inspections, referring potential child labor cases to
appropriate agencies, and exchanging information to facilitate
enforcement efforts, these procedures are not being followed
routinely. Finally, it is not clear whether the criteria WHD uses
for determining where and when to conduct inspections reflect the
potential presence of children.
--------------------
\37 Hired children aged 15 to 17 make up about 4 percent of the hired
agricultural workforce but only 2 percent of the hired
nonagricultural workforce.
AGENCIES LACK PROCEDURES FOR
DOCUMENTING AGE AND
EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN
WORKING IN AGRICULTURE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:4.1
The two key conditions required for inspectors to document child
labor violations are the child is (1) underage and (2) works for the
employer. Although federal and selected state enforcement agencies
have general procedures that inspectors must follow for all
inspections to detect and document child labor violations, these
procedures do not account for the special conditions facing labor law
enforcement in agriculture and therefore may be insufficient to
detect illegal agricultural child labor.
WHD's Field Operations Handbook specifies policies and procedures for
inspectors to follow for all inspections. For documenting child
labor violations under FLSA, the handbook requires inspectors to
independently verify a child's age through a birth certificate,
passport, or some other valid document to determine if the child is
old enough to be working or performing a certain task. The states in
our review have similar requirements. Both federal and state
enforcement officials said, however, that the lack of this kind of
documentation or the use of fraudulent documentation is common for
children working in agriculture. In many cases, inspectors cannot
find adequate documentation to independently verify a child's age.
Neither WHD nor the states we reviewed had documented procedures for
instructing inspectors in handling this situation, although WHD
officials said they had verbally conveyed to inspectors the
importance of conducting other activities (such as interviewing
workers or teachers) to independently verify a child's age. Given
the constrained and declining resources allocated to agriculture,
inspectors may not be able to perform these additional activities,
especially since they are not specified in official agency
documentation. In these cases, inspectors would not be able to cite
an employer for an FLSA child labor violation.
If an employer does not have a child's age on file as required by
FLSA, an inspector may cite the employer for a record-keeping
violation, which carries a maximum initial civil monetary penalty of
$275. Enforcement action may end at that point if the inspector
cannot independently verify the child's age. The lack of documented
procedures for additional activities for verifying the child's age
suggests that at least, in some cases, inspectors would detect a
record-keeping violation rather than a child labor violation.
The second condition required for inspectors to document a child
labor violation is that the child is working. Children working under
their parents' payroll number or helping out before or after school
and on weekends are common work arrangements in this industry.
Therefore, documents such as payroll records may not reflect
children's work. These are the types of records, however, that
enforcement guidance requires inspectors to examine for initially
determining whether children are working. Neither WHD nor these
states have issued formal documented procedures for instructing
inspectors in situations in which they sense children are working at
the work site such as interviewing workers off site. WHD officials
said they have trained inspectors and issued informal guidance in the
past to inspectors about what activities to perform during
agricultural inspections to address these problems. Our review of
this guidance failed to identify any such specific instruction to
inspectors for detecting illegal child labor or actions inspectors
should take when available information fails to identify a child's
work history. WHD officials said, however, that some inspectors have
used videotapes to document children working, and, under the salad
bowl initiative, inspectors have used still photographs to document
children working.\38 Without documented, official procedures,
however, and given the scarce resources allocated to agriculture and
the low incidence of detected child labor violations, little
assurance exists that all inspectors are taking photographs,
interviewing workers, or doing other activities necessary for
systematically and consistently documenting violations.
--------------------
\38 For an upcoming enforcement effort in California, state
inspectors will have cameras for photographing violations.
PROCEDURES FOR FACILITATING
COORDINATION NOT ROUTINELY
FOLLOWED
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:4.2
Inspectors may not be detecting violations because procedures WHD has
established for facilitating coordination with other federal and
state enforcement agencies are not always being followed. The
patchwork of laws, many federal and state agencies involved, limited
resources each agency has devoted to agriculture, and characteristics
of this industry make coordination and cooperation vital for
detecting illegal child labor in agriculture. WHD has acknowledged
the role of coordination in helping to identify child labor and other
violations by establishing agreements with the state labor
enforcement agencies, OSHA and its state counterparts, and the
Department of Justice's Immigration and Naturalization Service, among
others. These agreements establish an understanding that cooperative
efforts are to be taken to ensure that the employment conditions of
agricultural workers, including children, fully comply with federal
and state statutes. Among other things, the agreements call for (1)
referring complaints of or suspected violations of applicable
statutes, when appropriate, to the agency with jurisdiction; (2)
conducting joint investigations of employers when appropriate; or (3)
exchanging records and information, including information on which
employers have been cited or subject to remedial or punitive
sanctions.
According to our interviews with federal and state officials and a
review of available data, agencies' actions fell short of the
agreements' requirements, and, in many cases, no controls were in
place to alert WHD that procedures were not being followed.
JURISDICTIONAL CONFUSION
AND LIMITED REFERRALS
------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 4:4.2.1
Enforcement officials we interviewed generally could not recall any
specific cases they had referred or that had been referred to them
regarding illegal child labor in agriculture. In addition, databases
maintained by WHD and other enforcement agencies collect little
information on referrals given or received, although at least one
agreement specifies that agencies establish systems to monitor and
track referrals. Moreover, several officials told us that if they
were not legally responsible for looking for children during
agricultural inspections, they would probably not even recognize a
potential child labor case so they would most likely not refer it.
Furthermore, enforcement officials also disagreed about who has
jurisdiction for particular cases or for certain employers. WHD
officials could not identify whether a procedure existed for
determining how to handle case referrals, and at least one state
enforcement agency told us that WHD hesitated to take such referrals.
LIMITED PARTICIPATION IN
JOINT FEDERAL-STATE
INSPECTIONS
------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 4:4.2.2
At least some of the agreements between WHD and state labor agencies
call for joint inspections to present a unified front to employers
and take advantage of the varying strengths of federal and state
laws. Other than as a part of California's Targeted Industries
Partnership Program (TIPP),\39 however, officials believe few, if
any, joint inspections have been conducted by WHD and the states. In
addition, databases do not consistently identify whether inspections
are conducted jointly. Even TIPP is not as unified an effort as it
used to be, according to California's state Commissioner of Labor.
TIPP calls for federal and state agencies to develop their inspection
agendas together and provide staff from federal and state agencies
for all inspections. What actually happens, however, is that each
agency develops its inspection agenda for the year and agrees to do
joint inspections when possible. A comparison of the number of TIPP
inspections conducted (from California's database) with the number of
inspections conducted by California's WHD (from WHD's database)
highlighted fewer inspections performed by WHD than California, even
though both agencies are supposed to be involved in all TIPP
inspections.
--------------------
\39 Instituted in 1992, TIPP is a joint federal-state effort to
leverage resources, while focusing on two high-risk
industries--garment manufacturing and agriculture. Partners in TIPP
include the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, WHD,
California's OSHA, and the California Employment Development
Department. Representatives from the state labor agency, WHD, and
OSHA are supposed to jointly conduct inspections as well as education
efforts and outreach to employers.
POOR EXCHANGE OF
INFORMATION
------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 4:4.2.3
A general lack of communication and exchange of information exists
among WHD and OSHA, EPA, and selected state enforcement agencies.
Even in TIPP, which is a key example of federal-state cooperation,
individuals from both federal and state enforcement agencies involved
told us of difficulties exchanging information and coordinating
enforcement agendas. In addition, neither California nor Florida
labor officials had been involved in any of WHD's decisionmaking
about which employers to target or when or how to conduct the
inspections under the salad bowl initiative. In June 1998, WHD held
a half-day stakeholders meeting in Washington, D.C., to discuss
enforcement priorities for the next several years. According to
several state representatives present, although this event was a
positive step toward enhancing communication with the states, it
appeared that WHD had already decided on its priorities because
little time was allotted for state input and feedback.
CRITERIA USED TO DETERMINE
WHERE AND WHEN TO CONDUCT
INSPECTIONS MAY NOT REFLECT
LIKELY PRESENCE OF CHILDREN
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:4.3
Inspections may not be conducted where and when children are most
likely to be working, possibly resulting in the detection of fewer
child labor violations. According to WHD officials, WHD targets its
agricultural inspections to employers with a history of low-wage
payments, those who use imported workers, or those with excessive
injury rates but not necessarily to those who are suspected of
employing children. In addition, WHD officials acknowledged that
finding children requires inspectors to be in the fields early in the
morning or on weekends, but it is not clear how many of WHD's
agricultural inspections in the past 5 years have been conducted at
those times. Because staffing decisions are made by local WHD
offices, it is also unknown whether WHD's staff, which is bilingual
(over 25 percent, according to WHD), is involved in agricultural
inspections to help communicate with workers.
For example, although the salad bowl initiative has a major emphasis
on identifying illegal child labor, these commodities were not chosen
because of the likely presence of children; and the commodities
covered under this initiative (cucumbers, lettuce, onions, garlic,
and tomatoes) may not be the only ones on which children work. WHD
officials said the criteria for selecting the employers and work
places that produce these commodities were the low-wage nature of the
work, compliance history of these types of employers, and widespread
production of these commodities; therefore, many WHD local offices
could be involved in the initiative. However, employers in cucumbers
do typically employ families, according to reports officials have
heard. Prior enforcement data indicate that children also work on
commodities, such as peppers and grains, and farmworker advocates
said that children also probably work in berries. Therefore, the
salad bowl inspections may not be targeting the major employers of
child workers. In addition, officials did not know the number of
WHD's bilingual inspectors involved in the salad bowl inspections, so
whether inspectors will be able to talk to workers to identify
potential violations is unclear.
ENFORCEMENT DATABASES DO NOT
IDENTIFY CHILDREN'S INVOLVEMENT
IN ALL LABOR LAW VIOLATIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:5
Because the enforcement databases used by WHD and other enforcement
agencies do not provide information on children's involvement in
particular violations, the extent to which children are involved in
other labor law violations in agriculture is underreported.
WHD DATABASE DOES NOT
IDENTIFY FLSA CHILD LABOR
RECORD-KEEPING VIOLATIONS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:5.1
FLSA requires employers to have the age of their child workers on
file. If employers do not do this, they may be cited for a
record-keeping violation under FLSA--the only record-keeping
violation under FLSA that has a civil monetary penalty. The
information recorded on the violation would not, however, identify
this as a labor violation. Because of the characteristics of this
industry and its workforce and the lack of documented procedures for
inspectors in conducting additional activities to independently
verify the children's age, inspectors sometimes use this particular
provision to cite employers who cannot be cited for child labor
violations because of the missing records.
WHD, however, cannot identify the number of record-keeping violations
involving children each year. In addition, WHD's penalty database (a
separate financial database that tracks all penalties assessed and
collected) does not identify specific violations; therefore, WHD
cannot determine the amount of penalties assessed or collected
resulting from record-keeping violations involving children. The
lack of information about FLSA violations involving children
indicates that WHD is underestimating the amount of child labor
activities that violate FLSA.\40
--------------------
\40 It is instructive to contrast this situation with California, a
state that requires employers to have work permits (a document
validating the child's age and the hours the child is allowed to
work) on file for each child under 18 employed. If employers do not
have these permits, they can be cited for violating California's
child labor law. Although this situation is similar to the FLSA
record-keeping violation, California tracks these types of violations
as child labor violations. According to the California state
Commissioner of Labor, a work permit violation also constitutes a
work hours violation because a child cannot work for any number of
hours without a work permit. Work permit violations accounted for
the majority of violations that California detected in the past
several years.
CHILDREN'S INVOLVEMENT IN
OTHER LABOR LAW VIOLATIONS
IS NOT RECORDED
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:5.2
Children's involvement in violations of laws other than FLSA's child
labor provisions is unknown because enforcement agencies, such as
WHD, OSHA, and EPA, have traditionally had a narrow view of what
constitutes illegal child labor. WHD is the only federal enforcement
agency required to collect any age information on individuals
involved in violations but only does so when inspectors believe a
potential child labor violation may exist. Because other agencies do
not have to identify child labor violations, they do not collect age
information on individuals involved in violations. These practices
may obscure violations of other labor or safety and health laws
involving children. If these agencies' data systems could identify
the extent to which violations of these other laws involve children,
enforcement efforts could be targeted to those employers or areas
that systematically exploit working children.
Citations issued by WHD to employers for not paying their workers the
minimum wage may involve a substantial number of children.
Minimum-wage violations occur when employer records reflect wages
paid only to the parent when the work was actually performed not only
by the parent, but also by a child. In addition, unaccompanied
minors (which NAWS reported made up a significant portion of hired
farmworkers between 14 and 17 years of age) may be especially
susceptible to being paid less than the minimum wage because of their
youth and lack of adult supervision and protection. NAWS reported
that about 8 percent of 14- to 17-year-old hired farmworkers reported
they do not receive the minimum wage. Although WHD found over 350
minimum-wage violations for agricultural employers in fiscal year
1997, WHD has no data on the number of citations, if any, issued for
minimum-wage violations that involved children. If such data were
available, it would not only better reflect children's involvement in
all violations, but it might also reveal the extent to which
agricultural employers may purposely exploit families and their
children in this way or systematically prey on younger workers.
In addition, other types of labor law violations most likely involve
children. Last year, WHD found more than 900 MSPA violations (MSPA
requires employers to provide promised wages, adequate housing
conditions, and safe transportation). OSHA found over 175 violations
of employers not providing hired farmworkers adequate housing
conditions, but the extent to which the violations involve children
under 18 is unknown. NAWS reported that over a quarter of
farmworkers had children living with them and about a tenth of
farmworkers interviewed said that at least occasionally they took
children 5 years of age or younger to the fields with them when they
worked. Moreover, NAWS data show that about 9 percent of young
agricultural workers help to apply or otherwise work with pesticides,
but they are less likely to have been trained in pesticide handling
than older workers. Finally, EPA rarely collects specific
information on the type of violations under the use provision of the
Worker Protection Standard, although state agencies may collect such
data; children's involvement in these violations, however, is not
captured.
LIMITED DATA AFFECT ASSESSMENT
OF PROGRESS IN REDUCING ILLEGAL
CHILD LABOR IN AGRICULTURE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:6
The Secretary of Labor has stated that reducing illegal child labor
in agriculture is a major agency priority, and, under the Results
Act, WHD has committed to a 5-year effort to reduce such labor. WHD
collects a considerable amount of information on its enforcement
activities regarding child labor. It has several different databases
in operation; however, several inconsistencies, omissions, and other
limitations in these databases may affect the usefulness of the data
for program oversight. WHD has committed, through the Results Act,
to developing new databases by the year 2002, but it is unclear
whether these new databases will address these limitations.
For example, data from WHD's enforcement database\41 were internally
inconsistent or were not comparable with other databases, which
affects their usefulness for program evaluation. Data for historic
yearly inspections conducted, violations detected, and children
involved changed in different data runs provided by WHD. Officials
said this was to be expected because the system is updated
continuously. In another instance, a case that WHD headquarters data
showed to be a violation was not a violation according to the local
WHD office that investigated the case. Large discrepancies also
existed between the historical number of inspections conducted by WHD
in California and those recorded by California for TIPP. For
example, 286 WHD inspections were conducted in agriculture in fiscal
year 1997 compared with 455 TIPP inspections in calendar year 1997,
even though WHD and California labor inspectors should be involved in
all TIPP inspections. Neither federal nor state officials could
sufficiently explain these discrepancies.
Also, despite the amount of data collected by WHD, it has been unable
to determine which child labor violations resulted in civil monetary
penalties. According to WHD officials, its financial database (which
tracks the civil monetary penalties assessed on employers for
violations of FLSA, MSPA, and other laws) is not comparable with its
enforcement database. If the databases were comparable, WHD could
determine which violations have resulted in which penalties. WHD
officials said the only way they could determine penalties for
individual violations would be to manually review individual case
files. This inability to compare and disaggregate types of
violations with penalties is related to an issue that surfaced in
1997--that agricultural employers were being assessed lower penalties
than employers in other industries for similar child labor
violations.\42
--------------------
\41 This database--called the Wage and Hour Information Management
System--tracks enforcement activity such as number of inspections
conducted, number and type of violations found, and number of
children involved in the violations.
\42 Another reason for the difference in penalties is that the guide
inspectors used to determine penalty amounts for employers provided
for lower penalties for agricultural employers than for employers in
other industries. WHD standardized this guide in 1998 to equalize
recommended penalty amounts for employers in all industries for
similar child labor violations.
INFORMATION IS NOT AVAILABLE FOR
ASSESSING RESULTS OF EDUCATION AND
LABOR PROGRAMS ON CHILDREN IN
MIGRANT AND SEASONAL AGRICULTURE
============================================================ Chapter 5
The social and economic disadvantages experienced by many children in
migrant and seasonal agriculture place them at great risk of academic
failure. Although both Education and Labor administer programs that
target children with educational and economic disadvantages, the
extent to which children involved in migrant and seasonal
agricultural work participate in, or are helped by, these programs is
generally unknown. Except for the programs that target only migrant
and seasonal farmworkers and their children, Education and Labor's
program information does not classify participants by occupational
status. Even those few programs that target children working in
agriculture or children whose parents work in migrant and seasonal
agriculture have limited data. Of these programs, Education's MEP
and Labor's MSFWP are the largest ones providing services to youths
in the critical ages of 14 to 17, the ages when students are most
likely to drop out of school. In the case of MEP, decentralization
and flexibility complicate the collection of data needed to measure
results. In the case of MSFWP, the program's focus on adults'
employment needs discourages the collection or analysis of
information on children.
CONDITIONS FACING CHILDREN IN
MIGRANT AND SEASONAL
AGRICULTURE ADVERSELY AFFECT
THEIR ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:1
Poverty, limited English ability, and rural and social isolation
place children in migrant and seasonal agricultural work--like any
other group of children affected by these social conditions--at
considerable risk of academic failure. For these children, however,
the difficulties associated with these social conditions are
compounded by mobility and other conditions of agricultural work that
result in school enrollment rates and high school completion rates
among the lowest in the nation. For example, according to one
source, 45 percent of migrant youths had dropped out of school,
entering the full-time workforce without the credentials and skills
needed to compete for any but the lowest paying jobs.\43
--------------------
\43 Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, 1998.
EXCESSIVE MOBILITY AFFECTS
EDUCATIONAL PERFORMANCE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:1.1
Migrant children in agriculture experience two types of mobility that
compound the other social problems they face. The first type
concerns moves from one geographical area to another. For low-income
children, particularly those who are migrant workers or children of
migrant workers, schooling is frequently interrupted and school days
are lost because of moves among school districts and states. Migrant
children move, on average, 1.2 times a year. Such moves not only
disrupt schooling, but also often prevent the development of social
and community ties that can facilitate school attendance and
educational achievement.\44
The second type of mobility concerns movement in and out of schools.
Economic pressures drive many of these children, particularly those
aged 14 and older, from the schools into the fields. According to
some estimates, between 169,000 and 200,000 youths were working in
agricultural migrant jobs, and, of this group, almost half were
living independently; that is, their families were not with them.\45
Although girls are less likely than boys to work in agriculture,
girls' schooling can nonetheless also be interrupted because they
must care for other family members.
--------------------
\44 Problems associated with transferring educational records
exacerbate the effects of mobility. Transferring records between
school districts often takes from 2 to 6 weeks. Transferred
information is often insufficient to ensure appropriate placement.
The Migrant Student Record Transfer System (MSRTS), a computerized
system designed to track the educational progress of individual
migrant students and to transfer records, tried to solve these
problems. We previously reported that MSRTS was slow, incomplete,
and infrequently used. See Elementary School Children: Many Change
Schools Frequently, Harming Their Education (GAO/HEHS-94-45, Feb. 4,
1994). The Congress terminated funding for MSRTS in 1994.
\45 This particular estimate is from the National Commission on
Migrant Education but is consistent with NAWS data that unaccompanied
minors make up over a third of all 14- to 17-year-old agricultural
workers.
WORKING LONG HOURS HAS
NEGATIVE EFFECTS ON
EDUCATIONAL PERFORMANCE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:1.2
Working long hours can also negatively affect the academic
performance of young farmworkers. To the extent that children are
working instead of attending school, they cannot benefit from
school-based programs or interventions. Even if children are
attending school, working too much can interfere with their learning.
Research findings indicate that working more than 20 hours a week
during the school year can negatively affect student achievement to a
significant degree. NAWS data show, however, that many children in
agriculture work 35 hours a week or more. Although some of these
work hours might be during the summer, peak demand periods for
agricultural work also take place during the fall and spring when the
school year begins and ends.
HIGH SCHOOL COMPLETION AND
SCHOOL ENROLLMENT RATES OF
CHILDREN IN AGRICULTURE ARE
AMONG THE LOWEST IN THE
NATION
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:1.3
Children in agriculture are less likely to be graduated from high
school and to attend school than are other groups of youngsters,
although estimates vary. For example, estimates of dropout rates
ranging from 45 to 90 percent have been cited for migrant and
seasonal agricultural workers. In comparison, data from the 1990
Decennial Census indicate that dropout rates of 16- to 24-year-old
individuals ranged from 10.3 percent for non-Hispanic white youths to
30.5 percent for Hispanic youths. For low-income Hispanics, the rate
increased to 35.5 percent, far lower than the rates reported for
migrant youths, although these groups have common ethnic and income
characteristics.\46
Although school attendance is a problem for all children in
agriculture, it is particularly so for children of foreign-born
agricultural workers. According to NAWS data, the children of
farmworkers born in the United States are twice as likely as the
children of foreign-born farmworkers to be enrolled in U.S. schools
in the prior 12 months. Seventy-six percent of children of U.S.-born
non-Hispanic farmworkers were enrolled in school compared with 34
percent of children of foreign-born farmworkers. For children who
are farmworkers, school attendance rates are even more problematic.
According to NAWS, about 68 percent of 14- to 17-year-old farmworkers
born in the United States were enrolled in school when they were
interviewed compared with 16 percent of farmworkers in this age group
born outside the United States.
--------------------
\46 These rates are not directly comparable because agricultural
workers and Hispanic individuals are different groups. Although most
agricultural workers are Hispanic, most Hispanics are not
agricultural workers. Of all 16- to 24-year-old Hispanic dropouts,
about 36 percent were U.S. born and 64 percent were born outside the
United States.
YOUTHS IN AGRICULTURE AGED
14 TO 17 FACE PARTICULAR
EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:1.4
The years between ages 14 to 17 are critical educational years
because during these years youths are most likely to drop out of
school. For many of these youths, the pressures to leave school may
be particularly great. Beginning around age 14, these youths become
legally and competitively employable for farm work, which allows them
to supplement their family's income, and, in some cases, to try to
achieve economic independence. Meanwhile, some of these youths,
particularly those who are older and overaged for their grade, may
associate school experiences with failure and the opportunity for
them to be graduated might appear remote. For example, according to
NAWS, more than 90 percent of farmworkers' children aged 13 or
younger who were in school were "on grade level," that is, had
completed a grade appropriate to their age, but this measure dropped
to about 80 percent for 14- to 16-year-old students and to 71 percent
for 17-year-old students.
MANY PROGRAMS PROVIDE
EDUCATIONAL ASSISTANCE TO
DISADVANTAGED YOUTHS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:2
Education and Labor administer many programs that target
educationally and economically disadvantaged children and youth.
Tables 5.1 and 5.2 list major programs that provide direct
educational services of about $14 billion to millions of
educationally and economically disadvantaged youths of all ages,
including those we defined as school aged (6 to 17). Children and
youths in agriculture are eligible for services from all these
programs on the same basis as others--except for those programs that
specifically target children in agriculture. Program data that
describe the participation of children in migrant and seasonal
agriculture is only available from programs that target only these
groups such as MEP, the Migrant High School Equivalency Program, and
MSFWP.
Table 5.1
Education Programs Providing Direct
Instructional Assistance to
Educationally Disadvantaged Children and
Youth
Total Average
funding spending
Examples of in per
Program Program Program funded Funding millions particip
name purposes beneficiaries services mechanism \a ant\b
---------- ------------- -------------- -------------- ---------- -------- --------
Title I To help LEAs Children who For schools Formula $7,541 $1,000
Grants to and schools are failing, operating grants
Local improve the or at most schoolwide
Education teaching and risk of programs,
Agencies learning of failing, funds are used
(LEA) children challenging in combination
failing, or state with funds
at risk of standards and from other
failing, who attend federal,
challenging schools with state, or
state high local funds to
standards percentages of upgrade the
low-income school's
children instructional
program and
for other
schools to
support
targeted
assistance
programs
Special To provide Children and To provide Formula 3,249 600
Education grants to youths aged 3 special grants
Grants to states to to 21 with education and
States assist them disabilities related
in providing services to
a free all eligible
appropriate children
public
education to
all children
with
disabilities
Bilingual To develop Children of To establish, Discretion 199 Not
Education and carry out limited- operate, or ary\ availabl
Grant activities to English improve e
Programs meet the proficiency programs of
educational bilingual
needs of instruction or
children of alternative
limited- methods of
English instruction
proficiency
and to build
the capacity
of local
educational
programs
MEP To help Children, aged To support Formula 299 400
states ensure 0-21, of high-quality, grants
that migrant migrant comprehensive
children have agricultural educational
the workers or of programs that
opportunity migrant address the
to meet the fishers, needs of
same including migrant
challenging children who children
state are workers
standards and their
that all spouses, who
children are have moved
expected to across school
meet district lines
during the
past 36 months
to obtain
employment
in
agriculture,
fishing, or
related
employment
Immigrant To provide Immigrant To provide Formula 150 57
Education assistance to children supplementary grants
states for enrolled in educational
educational public and and
costs and private instructional
services for elementary and services and
immigrant secondary in-service
children schools training
Education To ensure Homeless For a wide Formula 27 Not
for that homeless children and variety of grants availabl
Homeless youths have youths in activities e
Youth equal access elementary and that benefit
to the same secondary homeless
free schools and children and
appropriate homeless youths,
education as preschool including
other children and tutoring,
children, to parents of summer
provide homeless enrichment
services to children programs, the
ensure that provision of
they enroll, school
attend, and supplies, and
succeed in professional
school, and development
to establish designed to
an office in increase
each state educators'
educational understanding
agency (SEA) of and
for sensitivity to
coordinating the needs of
the education homeless
of homeless youths
youths to
heighten
awareness of
their
specific
problems and
provide
grants to
LEAs
Star To encourage Elementary and To assist Discretion 26 2
Schools improved secondary telecommunicat ary million
instruction school ions per
in academic students and partnerships grant
subjects and teachers within and
serve among states
underserved in schools
populations with high
percentages of
title I-
eligible
students,
particularly
those schools
that serve
traditionally
underserved
populations;
individuals
traditionally
excluded from
careers in
mathematics
and science;
areas with
scarce
resources and
limited access
to courses in
mathematics,
science, and
foreign
languages
Migrant To assist People aged 16 To recruit and Discretion 7.6 2,067
Education students who and older who provide ary
High are engaged lack a high academic and
School or whose school diploma support
Equivalenc parents are who are services to
y Program engaged in engaged or migrant
migrant or whose parents students to
other are engaged in obtain the
seasonal migrant and equivalency of
farmwork to other seasonal a high school
obtain the farmwork or diploma
equivalent of who have
a high school participated
diploma and in MEP or
subsequently MSFWP
to gain
employment or
attend an
institution
of higher
education or
other
postsecondary
education or
training
Migrant To explore Children of To obtain and Discretion 3 500,000
Education the use of migrant worker use technology ary per
Technology technology to families to extend grant
Grants combat opportunities
problems of to migrant
disruption, children and
lack of to leverage
resources, funds to
and language increase
difficulties resources
that have
plagued
children of
migrant
workers
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\a Fiscal year 1998 estimates of total federal spending.
\b Obtained by dividing total estimated spending by estimates of
number of participants.
Sources: Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance and the Department
of Education.
Table 5.2
Labor Department Programs Providing Job
Training and Educational Support to
Economically Disadvantaged Youths
Average
estimated
Total spending
Program Examples of federal per
Program Program beneficiarie funded Funding funding in participan
name purposes s services mechanism millions\a t\b
----------- ------------ ------------ ------------ ----------- ---------- ----------
Job To establish Economically Basic and Formula $871 (CY) 1,600
Training programs to disadvantage remedial grants to
Partnership prepare d youths education, states
Act (JTPA) youths aged 14- on-the-job
Title II- facing 21\c training,
B-Summer barriers to work
Youth employment experience,
Employment for and
and participatio employabilit
Training n in the y assessment
Program labor force
JTPA Title To establish Economically Tutoring, Formula 130 (FY) 1,000
II-C- programs to disadvantage mentoring, grants to
Economicall prepare d youths on-the-job states
y youths aged 16-21 training,
Disadvantag facing or 14-21 if work
ed Youth barriers to provided for experience,
Training employment in a job and
Program for training educational
participatio plan\c assistance
n in the
labor force
Job Corps To prepare Economically Occupational Discretiona 1,203 (PY) 17,000
youths for disadvantage exploration, ry
independence d youths world of
and aged 16-24 work and
productive from social
employment disruptive skills
environments training,
\c and
competency-
based and
basic
education
MSFWP To provide Migrant and Classroom Grants 69 (PY) 500
job training seasonal training, awarded
and search farmworkers, on-the-job competitive
and aged 14 to training, ly,
supportive adult, and work allocations
services to their experience, determined
enable dependents and by formula\
farmworkers educational
and their assistance
dependents
to obtain
and retain
jobs
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\a Fiscal (FY), calendar (CY), or program year (PY) 1998 estimates of
total federal spending.
\b Obtained by dividing total estimated spending by estimates of
number of participants.
\c Members of families that receive public assistance or whose annual
income does not exceed the higher of either the poverty level or 70
percent of the lower living standard income level.
Sources: Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, Guide to Federal
Funding for Government and NonProfits, and the Department of Labor.
Although Education does not collect program data on the participation
of migrant children in the programs that do not specifically target
migrant children, data from a national program evaluation suggest
that migrant children may not receive services from many of these
programs to the extent that they are eligible. A 1992 assessment
found that only about half of the migrant students receiving services
from MEP who were also eligible for services funded through the title
I program received title I services.\47 In addition, about 9 percent
of the students receiving assistance through MEP participated in the
federal bilingual education program (although about 84 percent come
from families that speak little or no English), and only 5 percent of
children receiving assistance from MEP were in special education
(compared with about 10 percent of all school-aged children).
Interviews with Education officials indicated that migrant children
may continue to be underrepresented in programs that do not
specifically target these children.
Although programs administered by Labor collect extensive information
on participants, data from these programs, except for MSFWP, do not
classify participants according to whether they are in migrant or
seasonal agriculture. For example, data collected by the Job
Training Partnership Act's (JTPA) title II-C program for economically
disadvantaged youths classifies participants on their status
regarding 13 employability barriers, including substance abuse, lack
of significant work history, and homelessness, and on 19 other
characteristics, including family composition, reading skill level,
and preprogram hourly wage but does not classify individuals who are
migrant or seasonal agricultural farmworkers.
In contrast to services from Education's title I and special
education programs that are available through almost every school
district nationwide, accessibility issues limit the potential of
Labor programs to help youths in migrant and seasonal agriculture.
First, to establish eligibility, youths must have records that
document their citizenship or work authorization, work experience,
and family income level.\48 Second, the number of individuals who
want to participate in these programs far exceeds the number that can
be served. For example, funds for JTPA title II-C are available to
serve only 5 to 10 percent of the eligible population. Third,
distance and transportation costs may prevent these youths from
participating because services are not available in all farm
communities. Finally, the design of some programs limits their
ability to serve agricultural workers. For example, JTPA title II-B,
the Summer Youth Employment and Training Program, offers only summer
services, which is when youths are most likely to be working in
agriculture. Although we do not know the extent to which migrant and
seasonal farmworker youths participate in job training programs that
do not specifically target them, only 8 percent of the individuals
under age 22 who terminated from MSFWP in 1996 participated
concurrently in any other federally funded training program while
they were receiving services from MSFWP. In comparison, 19 percent
of out-of-school youths served by the JTPA II-C program received
concurrent services from another federal program.
--------------------
\47 This assessment collected data from a sample of schools to obtain
data that were not available through program operations and routine
data collection efforts. Descriptive Study of the Chapter I Migrant
Education Program, Research Triangle Institute (Research Triangle
Park, N.C.: 1992).
\48 Title II-C grantees may operate schoolwide projects to serve all
students in a high-poverty school. In this case, individual students
need not be certified as meeting eligibility requirements.
PROGRAM OPERATIONS AND DATA
LIMITATIONS IMPEDE ASSESSING
MEP AND MSFWP RESULTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:3
Of the key educational and labor programs that serve disadvantaged
youths, MEP and MSFWP are the largest that target youths in migrant
and seasonal agriculture. These programs, therefore, have the most
potential to provide educational opportunities to these youths
between the ages of 14 and 17 who may be at the greatest risk of
educational failure. Program operations and associated data
limitations preclude, however, measuring program results for these
youths.
PROGRAM DECENTRALIZATION AND
FLEXIBILITY COMPLICATE
MEASURING MEP RESULTS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:3.1
MEP, the largest Education program that targets these youths, is a
federal assistance program administered largely by the states.
Within broad federal guidelines, state educational agencies (SEA)
determine how funds will be redistributed to the local educational
agencies (LEA) and other eligible entities and, in cooperation with
LEAs, decide how MEP funds can best be used to support state and
local programs to help migrant children. This decentralization and
flexibility limit the ability to evaluate MEP on a national level
because program goals and activities vary by site. In addition,
because MEP is an assistance program, its effects cannot be separated
from those of the much larger state and local efforts that it
supports.
STATES HAVE SUBSTANTIAL
FLEXIBILITY IN USING
FUNDS AND PROVIDING
SERVICES
------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 5:3.1.1
The Improving America's Schools Act of 1994, which reauthorized MEP,
requires recipients of MEP funds to give priority for services to
eligible children who are failing, or at risk of failing, to meet the
state's educational standards and to those who are currently migrant
and whose education has been disrupted during the regular school
year. Under these priorities, however, the parameters of state and
local decisionmaking are broad. States and localities determine if
funds will be used for regular term or summer term activities, which
grade levels will be served, which instructional or supportive
activities will be provided and by what type of service provider, and
whether funds will be used to provide separate services or combined
with other funds to support common activities.
As a result of this flexibility, the probability that a child will be
identified as eligible for MEP services and the type of services that
will be received depend largely on where the child attends school
because SEAs and school districts differ in the emphasis placed on
recruiting, the age group recruited,\49 and the services provided.
Typically, active outreach takes place only in areas that have
received MEP funds. Some outreach efforts are aimed at particular
age groups, such as preschool children or out-of-
school youths. In general, national program data from recent years
indicate that proportionately more children in grades 1 to 6 are
served than those in other grades. Also, although the percentage of
preschool participants has increased, the percentage of secondary
school participants has actually decreased.
--------------------
\49 For example, although preschool children average about 20 percent
of MEP participants at the national level, at the state level,
preschool participation ranges from 46 percent (in Maryland) to 0
percent (in Washington, D.C.).
MEP'S EFFECTS CANNOT BE
DISAGGREGATED FROM
EFFECTS OF LARGER STATE
AND LOCAL EFFORTS
------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 5:3.1.2
MEP's effects on educational outcomes are difficult to measure
because MEP funds are used in combination with funds from state,
local, and other federal programs to achieve common educational
goals. The relatively small size of MEP's contribution adds to this
difficulty. Estimated resources available from MEP, an average of
$400 per participant, constitute only a small fraction of the
resources that a participant typically receives through state and
local school programs. Because of this, MEP funds are generally used
to provide educational activities that improve children's
achievements in regular classroom activities. Usually, these
activities consist of academic tutoring; before- and after-school
programs; professional development activities for educators; and
supplemental services such as health, social service, outreach, and
coordination services.
If schools meet certain criteria, they may combine MEP funds with
other federal, state, and local sources to support activities that
aim to improve the learning of all children in the school, including
those who are not educationally disadvantaged. In school year
1995-96, 1,541 schools used MEP funds to support schoolwide efforts.
USEFULNESS OF MEP DATA
FOR ACCOUNTABILITY AND
PROGRAM IMPROVEMENT IS
LIMITED
------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 5:3.1.3
No program data are available to assess state compliance with MEP's
legislatively mandated service priorities or to measure MEP results.
Education collects a considerable amount of information from the
states on MEP participation, staffing, and services, and has for many
years, but these data cannot be used to measure program
accomplishments or states' progress in meeting national service
objectives.
Although the Improving America's Schools Act requires states to give
priority in the MEP program to serving students who are achieving at
low levels and who have moved within the academic term, Education
collects no data on either of these characteristics. The lack of
achievement data is understandable because of the decentralized
nature of U.S. education.\50 Collecting data on mobility, however,
is feasible and would provide information to determine the extent to
which states are following national priorities. Before 1993,
Education routinely collected counts of MEP participants according to
their status as actively or formerly migrant. As we and others have
reported, this distinction is important because MEP has historically
served more children classified as formerly migrant than children
classified as currently migrant, suggesting that some children may
have gotten priority because they were not mobile and therefore
easier to serve.\51
--------------------
\50 This is because the United States has no national educational
standards or a national test that might provide a common measure of
educational need. In addition, states' progress in developing
standards and standard-based assessments differs, and many states
have no such systems yet.
\51 See GAO/HEHS-94-45, Feb. 4, 1994.
EDUCATION IS TAKING
POSITIVE STEPS TO ADDRESS
MEP DATA LIMITATIONS
------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 5:3.1.4
Education has begun several initiatives designed to obtain
information on the academic achievement of migrant children and to
increase information on the use of MEP funds. Such information will
most likely facilitate program assessment in future years. By the
year 2000, Education plans to collect data from each state on the
results of assessments of student proficiency in meeting state
standards. Results will be reported in a way that allows data to be
disaggregated for various student populations, including migrant
students. Thus, outcome information on the academic level of all
migrant children will be available, and changes in proficiency can be
measured over time. Education's Planning and Evaluation Service is
completing a congressionally mandated study of the relationship
between schoolwide programming, in which funds from several programs
are combined to improve services for all students and for migrant
children. This study will address questions about possible changes
in the levels of services provided migrant children as a result of
schoolwide programming.
In addition, Education plans to use its standard data collection
systems for collecting additional information on migrant children.
This information will include counts and descriptions of services
received by migrant students from funding sources other than MEP; the
types of activities undertaken by school districts; information on
record transfer practices; and district-level counts of migrant
children in summer and regular term programs. Education also now
publishes individual state profiles as part of the state title I
Migrant Participation Report, providing policymakers and
practitioners with state-by-state descriptions of services provided
by MEP.
ADULT FOCUS AND RESOURCE
CONSTRAINTS AFFECT MSFWP'S
SERVICES FOR YOUTHS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:3.2
MSFWP is a federally administered employment and training program for
individuals aged 14 and older that has traditionally focused on the
employment needs of adults. Reflecting this focus, MSFWP does not
report information for participants aged 14 to 17 or track program
results separately for this age group. Although many believe that
MSFWP can play a key role in improving the employability of these
youths, the focus on adults constrains the resources available for
youths and the attention given to them. Consequently, Labor has
neither established nor encouraged service delivery standards or
outcome measures for youths under 18.
PROGRAM ACTIVITIES AND
OUTCOME MEASURES REFLECT
FOCUS ON ADULTS
------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 5:3.2.1
Unlike other JTPA programs that serve either children or adults,
MSFWP has the broad mission of serving both youths and adults. It is
a job training program designed to help migrant and seasonal
agricultural workers aged 14 and older obtain or retain upgraded
agricultural employment or nonagricultural employment. It also aims
to provide educational and support services to farmworkers and their
families that contribute to their occupational development, upward
mobility, and economic self-
sufficiency. The program is administered through discretionary
grants awarded by Labor to 52 grantees who are held accountable for
complying with many uniform federal regulations and meeting national
performance outcome standards.
The program's procedures, operations, and outcome measures primarily
reflect the employment needs of adult participants, and Labor has not
developed separate requirements, guidelines, or outcome measures to
gauge its effectiveness in serving youths. For example, youths must
meet the same eligibility requirements as adults, even though such
requirements may deter some youths from participating. This can be a
particular deterrence for unaccompanied youths because they often
have no receipts to document earnings or records to verify family
earnings.\52 In addition, grantees are held accountable for meeting
or exceeding two national program outcome measures, regardless of the
age mix of participants served. These outcome measures--placement
rates and the average wage at placement--reflect employment rather
than educational goals. Education-related outcomes, such as
returning to full-time school, completing high school or entering
other training, are also reported for participants by grantees, but
these outcomes are not used to measure program results.
These employment-related outcome measures may be more appropriate for
adults than youths. Although adult and some youth participants may
want jobs, academic instruction and work-related behavioral skills
outcome measures may be more appropriate for most youths because
their work experience is probably more limited than adults' and the
job market they will face in the future will probably be more
competitive. This may be the case for out-of-school youths
especially, who will probably need additional education and skills to
find long-term productive employment.
--------------------
\52 To receive program services, applicants must document that they
performed qualifying employment during 12 consecutive months out of
the 24 months before the application and that they are a member of a
family that receives public assistance or whose annual income does
not exceed the higher of the poverty level or 70 percent of the lower
living standard income. In addition, as in other job training
programs, applicants must be U.S. citizens or be authorized to work
in the United States and have met Selective Service registration
requirements.
FUNDING LEVELS MAY
RESTRICT YOUTHS'
PARTICIPATION
------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 5:3.2.2
MSFWP resources are not adequate to serve all eligible adults, much
less all eligible youths, and the lack of resources might have a
larger impact on youths' program participation than adults'.\53
Program officials told us that MSFWP often operates as a "triage
program" because resources are not adequate to serve all who are
eligible. Although officials could not tell us the number of
eligible individuals who were denied services or their
characteristics because this information is not collected, they
agreed that the demand for MSFWP services exceeds available
resources. Expenditure constraints apply to all grantees, regardless
of the ages of individuals served. Consequently, decisions might be
made favoring the participation of more employable individuals, which
might exclude those under 18.
In addition to inadequate MSFWP funds, the availability of external
funding limits program participation. Although grantees may receive
funds from other federal, state, or local programs, almost all rely
heavily on MSFWP funds. A 1994 MSFWP evaluation found that, from a
sample of 18 grantees, 6 had limited in-kind or no resources other
than MSFWP funds and an additional 8 grantees received external
funding that made up 15 percent or less of their total budget. Four,
however, received substantial external resources that made up 50
percent or more of their budget. According to most estimates,
however, the need for services has increased in the last few years,
while resources have not. For example, grantees in California told
us that the availability of external funds, including funds from
Education, has declined, while the funding level of MSFWP declined
from 1995 to 1996 but has remained level since.
Program officials said that limited resources seriously affected
their ability to serve youths because they hesitated to divert funds
from adults to youths, who might be better served in schools. They
indicated that priority for services is given to adults who have less
access to alternative programs and who may be more likely to benefit
from the services than youths. Officials mentioned that a program
set-aside, such as the one that exists for Native American youths,
would allow them to provide services to youths that would not detract
from the services they offer to adults.
--------------------
\53 In addition to overall funding limitations, grantees are also
limited in allocating the funds they receive. Although grantees have
some discretion for allocating these funds, all must spend no more
than 20 percent on administration, no less than 50 percent on
training, and no more than 15 percent on nontraining supportive
services.
MSFWP COLLECTS NO
SPECIFIC PARTICIPATION
AND OUTCOME DATA FOR
YOUTHS AGED 14 TO 17
------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 5:3.2.3
Educators, farmworker advocates, and others believe that MSFWP
provides essential services for youths, particularly out-of-school
youths, because program services are geographically accessible to
agricultural workers and the program recognizes the special
educational and economic needs of these youths (for example, basic
education instruction and evening classes). The grantees we visited
in California and Florida said MSFWP can play an important role in
furthering the educational achievement of these youths. Although
grantees collect age data on each participant, Labor collects and
reports participation and outcome data in only three age groups--all
participants under 22, a category that combines the experiences of
school-aged youths with young adults (those aged 22 to 44) and those
aged 45 and over. Labor does not disaggregate data for individuals
aged 14 to 17. Without national program information for the 14- to
17-year-old group, Labor and other groups cannot assess program
involvement or outcomes for youths alone.
The lack of national program or outcome data for this population may
not reflect current MSFWP operations. MSFWP is authorized to serve
youths as young as 14 and is serving many youths or young adults.
Although no national data are available to show the number of program
participants aged 14 to 17, the data that are available show that
3,657--over 30 percent of program terminees in 1996\54 --were 21
years old or younger. Moreover, data from one grantee we visited
showed that 17 percent of MSFWP participants were under 18, and, of
these, 31 percent were under 16. Evidence also indicates that youths
may require different training and supportive service experiences
than adults. At the MSFWP sites we visited, trainers and
administrators told us that young participants stayed in the program
longer and required more expensive services than older participants.
Others believed that teenage participants required combinations of
services that were hard to provide under current guidelines.\55
Because the needs of youths might differ from those of adults,
participation and outcome data breakdowns for ages 14 to 17 may be
necessary to verify whether the program is helping youths and to
identify services that are most likely to affect youths positively.
Such information would also be useful for determining whether a
special allotment of funds to be set aside to serve only youths would
be an appropriate way to provide services to these youths. Labor
officials stated that this information may be helpful but that
approval from the Office of Management and Budget would be required
to alter the type of data Labor collects from grantees.
--------------------
\54 A "terminee" is a program participant who leaves the program for
any reason.
\55 These concerns are consistent with previous work we have done
that studied the effect of services provided by JTPA Title II A and
C--services similar to those provided by MSFWP. We reported in Job
Training Partnership Act: Long-Term Earnings and Employment Outcomes
(GAO/HEHS-96-40, Mar. 4, 1996) that activities provided through JTPA
title II positively affected the short-term earnings and employment
rates for adult men and women but not for male and female youths.
INFORMATION FROM MSFWP
COULD HELP IDENTIFY
EFFECTIVE ACTIVITIES
PLANNED UNDER DOMESTIC
CHILD LABOR INITIATIVE
PROPOSAL
------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 5:3.2.4
In response to the President's Child Labor Initiative, Labor, in its
fiscal year 1999 budget has requested an additional $5 million from
the Congress to support a pilot and demonstration project for 14- to
18-year-old dependents of migrant agricultural workers. This project
aims to develop innovative strategies to decrease child labor in
agriculture through economic and educational incentives, including
subsidized nonagricultural employment and individualized educational
opportunities, additional to those provided by the child's assigned
school, that provide credit for graduation. Because this program
will most likely target youths with characteristics like those of
young MSFWP participants, an analysis of MSFWP data on participation,
services, and outcomes for youths in this age range could demonstrate
what combinations of job training activities and supportive services
have been most associated with positive educational and employment
outcomes.
CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS, AND
AGENCY COMMENTS AND OUR EVALUATION
============================================================ Chapter 6
CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 6:1
Sixty years after the passage of FLSA, questions about the conditions
of children employed as migrant and seasonal agricultural workers
continue to surface. Although basic, reliable data on the number of
children working in agriculture, their duties, and the consequences
to their health and safety are limited, available data indicate that
these children tend to be at greater risk of serious injury and death
than those employed in other industries. In addition, children hired
to work in agriculture receive less protection under the law than
children who work in other industries. Furthermore, weaknesses in
enforcement and data collection procedures indicate that violations
of child labor law may not be detected, or the violations reported
may not accurately reflect the extent to which children are employed
illegally. Moreover, although Labor and Education administer many
programs that target educationally and economically disadvantaged
children generally, we know little about whether those programs are
helping children in migrant and seasonal agriculture overcome the
serious educational challenges they face.
Several changes could improve Labor's detection of illegal child
labor in agriculture and thus improve the protection of these
children's health, safety, and educational opportunities. The
procedures WHD currently has for identifying a child's age and
employment history do not account for potentially fraudulent or
missing age documentation or ambiguous employment relationships,
which are common to this industry. As a result, WHD inspectors
probably miss potential violations of illegal child labor in
agriculture. National guidance for inspectors that specifies what
activities they should conduct to address these conditions would
enable WHD to detect more violations. In addition, WHD and other
enforcement agencies are not taking advantage of the procedures
established to facilitate enforcement, such as referring potential
cases, conducting joint inspections, or exchanging information. This
situation results in confusion and lost opportunities for detecting
potential violations. If WHD followed these procedures and, as
required in some cases, ensured that systems provided information to
determine whether such procedures were being followed, it would also
bolster detection of illegal child labor in agriculture by more
efficiently using resources.
Labor has an excellent opportunity to improve its processes with its
salad bowl enforcement initiative. The issuance of documented
procedures that should be followed for adequately identifying
children's ages and employment would ensure that inspectors act in a
systematic, consistent way to detect illegal child labor. In
addition, because a specific number of these inspections are to be
conducted, WHD should be able to work with other federal and state
labor agencies to conduct joint inspections, exchange information,
and determine the best way to make sure these procedures are followed
on an agencywide basis.
We realize that establishing and following such procedures may affect
the level of resources allocated to agriculture and child labor,
resulting in a possible decrease in enforcement activity in other
areas. Such tradeoffs, however, are inherent in establishing
enforcement priorities, and Labor has already established the
reduction of illegal child labor in agriculture as a key enforcement
priority. The Secretary established this priority, which is
indicated by the salad bowl enforcement initiative and by Labor's
fiscal year 1999 requested budget increase to enhance enforcement in
agriculture. In that respect, Labor already plans to increase its
allocation of enforcement resources to agriculture and child labor;
improved guidance to inspectors and emphasis on coordination would
ensure more efficient use of those resources.
WHD's reporting of violations involving children could also be
improved. Methods used by WHD and others to collect data on
enforcement actions understate the extent to which children are
involved in the hundreds of other labor law violations, such as
record-keeping and minimum-wage violations, that are detected each
year. The lack of such data masks the true extent of labor law
violations involving children. WHD's inability to identify the
number of FLSA child labor record-keeping violations is mainly a data
problem because WHD's data system does not identify any
record-keeping violations, even though FLSA child labor
record-keeping violations have a civil monetary penalty. WHD needs
to establish a way to identify the number of child labor FLSA
record-keeping violations detected each year to provide more complete
information about the types of FLSA child labor violations as well as
better reflect the level and type of child labor violations detected
by WHD.
Regarding the identification of other labor law violations involving
children, WHD already looks for child labor in every inspection it
conducts, and, according to WHD officials, inspectors will try to
identify the ages of children on site and their conditions of work.
Because these procedures are already in place, it would appear that
for minimum wage and other labor laws under WHD's authority, WHD
inspectors may be able to obtain age information. This kind of
information would help Labor and policymakers better understand the
extent to which labor law violations involve children. Such
information, for example, could help evaluate the validity of the
view held by many that some agricultural employers systematically
target children to pay them less than the minimum wage or pay a
family of workers wages that do not reflect the entire family's work.
The availability of such information could also help WHD identify
regulatory or enforcement actions to correct this problem. We
recognize the collection of this information may cause additional
work for inspectors and may result in other unanticipated
difficulties. For that reason, we believe this data collection
effort could be tested during salad bowl inspections. During these
inspections, WHD inspectors could obtain information on violations
involving any individuals under 18 to determine what resources would
be needed in collecting such age information. After WHD has tested
this procedure and determined the results of these activities, Labor
could determine whether it would be worthwhile to collect such
information for all agricultural inspections.
Labor could also assess the impact of MSFWP on the educational
opportunities of children in migrant and seasonal agriculture aged 14
to 17. Although the program serves children as young as 14, program
administrators have traditionally focused on adults' employment
needs, which has affected the program's ability and desire to serve
children. Yet, the program may have a special role for serving
children aged 14 to 17--especially those who may not be in school,
who may already be working, or who cannot be served by traditional
education-related programs--and, in fact, this program serves a
substantial number of children and young adults. Local programs
maintain data on participation, service provision, and outcomes for
children in migrant and seasonal agriculture in this age range, but
Labor collapses the data into broad age groupings (such as ages 14 to
22) when it collects the data. If Labor developed and analyzed
information on youths aged 14 to 17, it would help resolve the
disagreement about the program's role in serving this age group
within its broad mandate of serving both youths and adults. If the
data indicate that this program plays an important role in providing
services to children, it will help decisionmakers determine the most
appropriate program orientation for children and adults.
Changes in enforcement and data collection procedures will improve
the detection and reporting of illegal child labor in agriculture;
however, our review indicates that protections provided by FLSA to
children working as hired migrant and seasonal agricultural workers
in today's modern agricultural environment may not be adequate. In
addition, these protections may be inconsistent with the increased
emphasis on the safety, health, and academic achievement of children.
The rise in dominance of large agricultural producers and the
associated decline in the number of small and family farms has
created a new type of child labor on U.S. farms. These children or
their parents work in agriculture on a migrant or seasonal basis,
and, unlike in the past, most are not related through family or
community ties with their employers. In addition, many young
agricultural workers live independently of their families. Growing
reliance on mechanization and pesticides has increased the safety and
health hazards associated with agricultural work. Current laws allow
children to work in agriculture at younger ages, for longer hours,
and in more dangerous occupations than children working in other
industries. As we have reported, children working in agriculture are
more likely to have severe work-related injuries and work-related
deaths than children working in other industries. Furthermore, they
are less likely to be enrolled in school and less likely to be
graduated from high school than other children. Given the changing
character of the agriculture industry, the allowable working
conditions for child agricultural workers may be contributing to the
health, safety, and education problems that these children face.
MATTER FOR CONGRESSIONAL
CONSIDERATION
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 6:2
Considering the evolutionary changes that are transforming the
agricultural industry and the increased emphasis on the safety,
health, and academic achievement of children, the Congress may wish
to formally reevaluate whether FLSA adequately protects children who
are hired to work as migrant and seasonal farmworkers.
RECOMMENDATIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 6:3
To improve Labor's detection and reporting of illegal child labor in
agriculture, we recommend that the Secretary of Labor direct the
Assistant Secretary of Employment Standards to take the following
actions:
-- issue national enforcement procedures specifying the actions WHD
inspectors should take during agricultural inspections when
documentation for verifying a child's age is missing or
potentially fraudulent or when existing documentation does not
reflect a child's possible employment;
-- take steps to ensure that procedures specified in the existing
agreements among WHD and other federal and state
agencies--especially regarding referrals to and from other
agencies, joint inspections, and exchange of information--are
being followed and, as required in some agreements, are being
recorded and tracked;
-- develop a method for identifying the number of record-keeping
violations resulting from employers not having children's ages
on file as required by FLSA; and
-- test the feasibility of collecting data on the number of
minimum-wage and other labor law violations that involve
individuals under 18.
We also recommend that the Secretary of Labor direct the Assistant
Secretary of the Employment and Training Administration to develop
and analyze data on MSFWP services and outcomes for children aged 14
to 17 to determine the number of these children served, the services
provided, and the outcomes experienced by these children.
AGENCY COMMENTS AND OUR
EVALUATION
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 6:4
We provided copies of this report to USDA, EPA, the Departments of
Labor and Education, and the states included in our review for
comment. EPA, Education, and the states provided technical comments
to improve the clarity and accuracy of the report, which were
incorporated as appropriate. USDA concurred with our recommendations
(see app. II).
In its response, Labor concurred with the intent of our
recommendation to issue national enforcement guidance specifying the
actions WHD inspectors should take during agricultural inspections to
verify a child's age or employment status (see app. III). Labor
has, in fact, provided additional guidance on this matter on the
regional level in at least two regions, and the Department said it
will determine if additional guidance is needed. We believe this
recently issued guidance includes the additional procedures necessary
to better detect illegal child labor in agriculture. At this time,
however, the guidance has only been distributed to particular WHD
local offices. Although this represents a positive first step toward
implementing our recommendation, we still believe that this guidance
needs to be issued to all WHD inspectors so they can systematically
and consistently take these actions to adequately detect illegal
child labor in agriculture.
Labor also concurred with our recommendation aimed at ensuring that
coordination procedures specified in existing agreements with federal
and state agencies are followed, recorded, and tracked. It said that
WHD does have specific procedures for responding to and issuing case
referrals and is now streamlining this process. As we reported,
however, whether these procedures are followed is not always evident.
Ideally, in streamlining these procedures and implementing this
recommendation, WHD will focus on documenting adherence to these
procedures to preclude the communication problems we detected among
WHD and other agencies.
Regarding our recommendations to develop a method for identifying the
number of FLSA child labor record-keeping violations and to test the
feasibility of collecting data on children's involvement in other
violations, Labor acknowledged that such data may be beneficial but
identified cost and the practicality of collecting such information
as major issues requiring consideration. We agree that these are
important issues, but given the Results Act environment that seeks to
encourage data-driven measurable goals and objectives, the emphasis
WHD has placed on detecting illegal agricultural child labor and
WHD's efforts to revise its databases to better reflect enforcement
activities and outcomes, we still believe that collecting this
information--even on a limited basis--would enhance the agency's
efforts to protect children from exploitation in the work place. In
addition, the lack of data contributes to the general lack of
information about the nature, magnitude, and dynamics of illegal
child labor in the United States. Only WHD, as an enforcement agency
tasked with protecting children, can collect these kind of data.
Although NAWS may be useful for understanding some aspects of the
child labor problem, its self-reporting nature and sampling
limitations make it less appropriate for grasping issues concerning
illegal employment of children.
Labor did not directly comment on our recommendation to develop and
analyze data on MSFWP services and outcomes for children aged 14 to
17 to determine the number of these children served, services
provided, and outcomes achieved by these children. Labor said,
however, that this information is included in the aggregated data
collected on all participants aged 14 to 22. We recognize this, and,
in fact, the inability to isolate information on children aged 14 to
17 is the main reason why we are making this recommendation. By
combining the experiences of youths with adults, Labor cannot analyze
the services provided to participants under 18.
Labor also raised several issues related to our characterization of
WHD's enforcement efforts. For example, it disagreed with our
observation that the decline in enforcement resources devoted to
agriculture resulted in fewer opportunities to find potential child
labor violations. Instead, Labor asserted that no direct correlation
exists between the decline in resources devoted to agricultural
inspections and WHD's ability to detect potential child labor
violations. Although we agree that detecting illegal child labor is
not solely determined by the number of inspections conducted, we know
from experience that when WHD targets particular commodities or
employers with additional inspection resources, it has found a
substantially larger number of violations--as evinced by the ongoing
salad bowl initiative and past child labor targeting efforts.
Furthermore, Labor highlighted the additional resources it has
requested for fiscal year 1999 to better detect illegal child labor
in agriculture, which indicates Labor's belief that increased
resources are important to detecting illegal child labor. Labor also
provided technical comments, which were incorporated as appropriate.
STATE EXPERIENCES WITH CHILD LABOR
IN AGRICULTURE
=========================================================== Appendix I
This appendix describes California's, Florida's, and Vermont's
experiences with child labor in agriculture, including the
protections provided by these states' child labor laws, numbers and
characteristics of violations detected, state officials' views on the
magnitude of child labor in agriculture, and key issues affecting
these states' ability to detect illegal child labor in agriculture.
(For a discussion of the criteria used to select these states, see
ch. 1.)
STATE PROTECTIONS FOR CHILDREN
WORKING IN AGRICULTURE
--------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1
California, Florida, and Vermont all have child labor laws that
provide protections for children working in agriculture (as shown in
table I.1), but, generally, the laws provide less protection for
children working in agriculture than those for children working in
other industries. Compared with protections the state laws offer
children working in other industries, only the provisions in
Florida's law apply equally to children working in agriculture and
other industries.\56 Vermont allows children to work in agriculture
at younger ages than in other industries and for longer hours.
California allows employers operating agricultural packing plants to
employ 16- and 17-year-olds on any day when school is not in session
for up to 10 hours a day during peak harvest season. Although this
situation should only be allowed if it does not materially affect the
children's safety or welfare and only if needed by the employer to
prevent undue hardship, California generally grants all requests for
such exemptions after inspectors initially inspect an employer's work
site. Moreover, because California has no prohibited agricultural
occupations for children aged 16 and older (although it does for
children in other industries) and Vermont has declared no specific
agricultural occupations as hazardous, children working in
agriculture in these states may work at more dangerous occupations at
younger ages than children in other industries. Moreover, all three
states provide some exemptions from age, hour, or occupation
restrictions for children who are in farm-related training programs.
Table I.1
Child Labor Law Protections for
Agricultural Workers Under 18 in
California, Florida, and Vermont
California Florida Vermont
---------- ------------------------ ------------------------ ------------------------
Minimum age children may work
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
During 16 18 14
school
hours
Outside 14 14 Any
school
hours
Key prohibited occupations
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Under 16 Occupations declared --Using power-driven No specific agricultural
hazardous by federal machinery occupations have been
regulation, including --Manufacturing, declared hazardous.
--operating a tractor of transporting, or using Others that may apply to
a certain size; explosives or highly agricultural work
--operating or assisting flammable substances include
to operate farm --Driving motor --operating picker
machinery (such as corn vehicles machines;
picker, cotton picker, --Oiling or cleaning --using shears;
grain combine, post hole machinery --operating any machine
digger, trencher or with an unguarded belt;
earth-moving equipment, --operating any power-
forklift, or power- driven machinery other
driven saw); than that operated by
--working from a ladder foot power;
or scaffold from a --operating steam-
height of over 20 feet; generating equipment;
--driving a bus, truck, and
or automobile when --operating or cleaning
transporting passengers high-voltage equipment.
or riding on a tractor
as a passenger or
helper; or
--handling or applying
pesticides.
Children under 12 are
prohibited from working
or accompanying parents
around moving equipment,
unprotected chemicals,
or unprotected water
hazards, which are
considered agricultural
"zones of danger."
Under 18 None --Working on a None
scaffolding or ladder
from a height of over 6
feet
--Working around toxic
substances
--Operating a tractor of
a certain size, any
trencher or earth-
moving equipment, any
harvesting, planting, or
plowing machinery
Hours allowed to work (on school and nonschool days)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Under 16 School: 3 hours a day School: 3 hours a day Any
and 18 hours a week and 15 hours a week
Nonschool: 8 hours a day Nonschool: 8 hours a day
and 40 hours a week and 40 hours a week
16 and 17 School: 4 hours a day School: 8 hours a day Any
and 48 hours a week and 30 hours a week
Nonschool: 8 hours a day Nonschool: unlimited
and 48 hours a week
Other key provisions
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Work To work, children under Not applicable Any child under 16
permits 18 must obtain a work wishing to work during
permit that verifies school must get a permit
their age and allowed from the Commissioner of
hours of work. Labor verifying the
child's age, educational
performance, school
attendance, and physical
well-being.
Special The workers' The workers' No special workers'
workers' compensation award for compensation award for compensation provisions
compensati children injured while children injured while for children injured
on awards illegally employed illegally employed may while illegally employed
increases by 50 percent. double.
Major Employers operating Qualified 14-and 15- Commissioner may suspend
exemptions agricultural packing year-olds may drive all or part of this law
\a plants that employ 16- tractors for their farm for up to 2 months for a
and 17-year-olds can be work under the close business producing
granted exemptions that supervision of a farm perishable products that
allow children to work operator. require immediate labor.
up to 10 hours a day in
any day when school is
not in session during
peak harvest seasons.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: In some cases, these protections also apply to children
working in other industries. This table does not include every
protection or exemption provided by these states.
\a In addition to exemptions for parents employing their own
children.
Source: Child labor laws from California, Florida, and Vermont.
Compared with the federal FLSA (which provides less stringent
protections for child workers in agriculture than in other
industries), California's and Florida's laws have more restrictions
on the hours children may work in agriculture and the occupations
they may perform. Both states limit the number of daily or weekly
hours that children may work in agriculture, compared with no
restrictions under FLSA. Florida also requires that any child
working more than 4 continuous hours receive a 30-minute rest period
and limits the occupations children under 18 may perform. California
has a requirement that all children under 18 must obtain a work
permit that verifies the child's age and specifies the hours the
child may work. It also has an agricultural "zone of danger"
provision that restricts children under 12 from working or even
accompanying a parent around moving equipment, unprotected chemicals,
or unprotected water hazards. Like FLSA, California and Florida also
provide exemptions to parents who employ their children, but Florida
requires parents who employ their children to adhere to hazardous
occupation requirements. California, which requires parents
employing their children in manufacturing, mercantile, and other
enterprises to obtain work permits and comply with occupation
restrictions, exempts parents employing their children in agriculture
from these requirements.
Vermont's law (like FLSA) allows children to work an unlimited number
of hours in agriculture and (unlike FLSA) allows children of any age
to work in agriculture outside of school.\57 Vermont's law provides
no exemptions to parents who employ their own children; however,
Vermont officials said they have interpreted the law to allow family
farmers to employ their children without restriction.
--------------------
\56 The one notable exception to Florida's law is that children
working in agriculture at age 14 and 15 may drive a tractor under the
supervision of a parent on a family farm, and qualified 14- and
15-year-olds may drive tractors for their farmwork under the close
supervision of a farm operator. Children of similar ages in other
industries may not operate any motor vehicles.
\57 The allowance for children of any age to work outside of school
hours also applies to retail and service industries.
CHILD LABOR VIOLATIONS IN
AGRICULTURE DETECTED BY THESE
STATES
--------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2
Each of these states had either a decline in the number of cases
involving child labor violations in agriculture or reported few or no
violations in the past 5 years. The number of cases of agricultural
child labor violations has declined in California--from 153 in
calendar year 1993 to 39 in calendar year 1997. California's
Commissioner of Labor said that most of the violations detected have
been for work permit violations--the employer did not have a valid
work permit on file for the child. California has less frequently
applied its agricultural zone of danger provision. Our review of
case file documents of agricultural child labor violations in the
past several years supported this. The majority of children these
violations involved were 15 to 17 and were working without valid work
permits. The Commissioner did not know whether the special workers'
compensation provisions for illegally employed children in
agriculture had been applied.\58
Because Florida's child labor law applies equally to children working
in all industries, Florida's Department of Labor and Employment
Security does not separately track the number of cases detecting
violations of child labor law in agriculture. Florida officials
believed, however, that the majority of cases in which violations had
been detected (a total of 651 between February 1995\59 and January
1998) were in nonagricultural industries. Officials said that a
recent enforcement sweep of 170 farm labor contractors identified few
potential child labor violations. Although these inspections were
still ongoing, our review of two of these cases identified potential
violations for the child's age not being on file or for the child's
working during school hours. The Vermont Department of Labor and
Industry reported no violations of child labor in agriculture in the
past 5 years.
--------------------
\58 As noted in table I.1, California provides for workers'
compensation awards for children injured while illegally employed to
increase by 50 percent.
\59 Florida instituted a new database in Feb. 1995; as a result,
comparable data are not available for prior years.
STATE OFFICIALS' VIEWS ON THE
EXTENT OF CHILD LABOR IN
AGRICULTURE
--------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3
Officials in these states could not identify the precise number of
children working in agriculture in their states or their overall
injury or fatality rate, but they generally believed that the number
of children working in agriculture was lower than it had been in the
past or that it was not as serious a problem as depicted in the
popular press.\60
California's Commissioner of Labor said the problem is less pervasive
now then it was in years past because of the large supply of adult
workers, which means growers do not have to hire children, as well as
the success of inspection and education efforts. In both California
and Florida, officials said the agricultural industry has been
changing with the growth of large agribusinesses, which do not want
to hire anyone under 18.\61 Vermont officials said the majority of
migrant workers who enter the state to pick apples are single
Jamaican men. Otherwise, most of the workforce is local, and
officials said children probably would not work in agriculture
because they lack transportation to agricultural work sites.
State officials also said that children who are working may be
legally employed. These children may be working on the weekends or
after school, which is within the confines of the law (depending upon
the age and the number of hours worked in some cases). In addition,
the children may be working for their parents so the work would be
outside these agencies' legal authority. In Florida, for example,
"pinhookers"--hired farmworkers who contract with a grower to go into
the fields after other workers have picked over the crops to get any
remaining crops to sell directly to others--often hire their children
to work for them. In Vermont, in addition to the small local
orchards, most of the farms are dairy farms or maple syrup
operations, which are generally small family operations that hire few
children.
Officials also reported that, in many cases, even if children are in
the field, they may not be working. For example, because California
has intense, short-term harvesting seasons for various crops (such as
olives, raisins, and garlic), migrant workers often bring their
children to the fields because of the lack of day care. If these
children are not working, however, they would also not be covered by
child labor laws (except in the case of California's agricultural
zone of danger provision, which prohibits a child under 12 from even
accompanying a parent to specific hazardous locations).
Nonetheless, Florida and California officials admitted that the
potential presence of illegal child labor needs to be addressed. The
number of young independent male farmworkers entering the country
illegally from Mexico has increased in Florida. These children have
no families with them, do not attend school, have no social support
systems, and generally do not want enforcement agencies to detect
them. In California, more serious problems are children aged 16 and
17 working without work permits or working more hours than legally
allowed or families working on a piece-rate system, which may result
in children and other family members not making the legal minimum
wage.
--------------------
\60 In 1997, the Associated Press ran a series of articles about
illegal child labor in agriculture and identified over 100 children
ostensibly working in several states, including California and
Florida, whom enforcement agencies had not detected.
\61 Florida officials said that they have a serious child labor
problem with children working illegally in other industries such as
in door-to-door sales.
KEY ISSUES AFFECTING THE
ABILITY TO DETECT ILLEGAL CHILD
LABOR IN AGRICULTURE
--------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:4
During interviews with state officials and a review of enforcement
data, we identified several issues that may affect these states'
ability to detect illegal child labor in agriculture. These include
the level and type of resources devoted to agriculture and procedural
challenges to documenting a child's age or employment, which are
necessary for detecting violations.
RESOURCES ALLOCATED TO
DETECTING ILLEGAL CHILD
LABOR IN AGRICULTURE
------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:4.1
In California, agricultural inspections are conducted through the
Targeted Industries Partnership Program (TIPP), a joint federal-state
effort to leverage limited resources, while focusing on two high-risk
industries--
garment manufacturing and agriculture.\62
California officials said the majority of TIPP agricultural
inspections stem from complaints because California has actively
sought complaints. About 16 percent of California's enforcement
staff is now devoted mainly to agricultural inspections through TIPP,
but the number of TIPP agricultural inspections declined from 1993 to
1997 and the relative percentage of inspections in which violations
were found has also declined--from 23 percent in 1993 to 9 percent in
1997.\63 In addition, although children are most likely to work in
agriculture before and after school or on weekends, our review of
case file information for violations detected by California TIPP
inspectors in the past several years found that most of the
inspections take place during normal working hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Monday through Friday). According to the state Commissioner of
Labor, all of the labor inspectors in TIPP must be bilingual because
they have to interview workers--many of whom speak no English.
Farmworker advocates in California, however, report that in the
Fresno area (which has a large concentration of agricultural workers
who speak Spanish or other languages), no TIPP inspector was assigned
to the area for a long period of time,\64 and some TIPP inspectors
still do not speak the languages of these workers.
Recognizing the need to address illegal child labor and other
problems in the agricultural industry, California plans to initiate a
raisin harvesting enforcement effort this summer and conduct about
800 agricultural inspections this year. For this effort, inspectors
will identify the peak harvest times for particular employers' crops
and conduct roadside traffic stops of vans transporting workers to
the fields. By interviewing the workers, inspectors will find out
workers' destinations and whether any children will be present.
Inspectors will also conduct off-hours inspections, such as on
evenings and weekends, to detect illegal child labor.
Florida officials reported that even though they do not track
information separately for agricultural child labor inspections, they
conduct many farm labor contractor inspections in agriculture (over
3,000 in 1996) during which inspectors must look for illegal child
labor. These farm labor contractor inspectors constitute over 60
percent of Florida's inspection staff; about 40 percent of inspection
staff are bilingual. Florida officials said that although complaints
drive most child labor inspections, the state uses Florida's farm
labor contractor registrations and other criteria, such as particular
geographic areas and peak harvest seasons, for targeting inspections.
According to Vermont labor officials, because the state is small,
only one individual oversees the provisions of Vermont's labor laws
for minimum wage and child labor in all industries. This individual
typically conducts no on-site inspections, whether for agriculture or
other industries, but may refer cases to other department inspection
officials. Because all of Vermont's inspections are based on
complaints and Vermont has received no complaints either about child
labor in agriculture or agriculture generally, it has conducted no
inspections in agriculture in the past 5 years.
--------------------
\62 TIPP was designed to enforce laws more effectively by sharing the
resources of federal and state enforcement agencies such as WHD,
OSHA, California's labor department and its Employment Development
Department by conducting joint inspections, exchanging information,
and coordinating educational outreach.
\63 Commensurate with these reductions, the number of inspections,
violations, and penalties increased for the garment manufacturing
industry.
\64 California officials indicated, however, that during this time
inspectors came from other locations to cover the Fresno area.
PROCEDURAL CHALLENGES TO
DETECTING ILLEGAL CHILD
LABOR IN AGRICULTURE
------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:4.2
Although California and Florida devote resources to agricultural
child labor inspections and officials from both states emphasized
their dedication to eliminating illegal child labor, both states
reported detecting a declining number of or only a few violations.
Discussions with officials in California and Florida and a review of
their data revealed several procedural challenges that may affect
these states' ability to detect illegal child labor during
inspections. These challenges include verifying the child's age and
employment relationship with the employer, which are necessary for
detecting violations. The states also had limited data, which may
hinder their ability to assess the results of their efforts.
DOCUMENTING CHILDREN'S
AGES
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:4.2.1
Officials in Florida said locating adequate documentation to allow
inspectors to independently verify children's ages is difficult. In
many cases, the documentation may not be available because the
children may not be in school, may be illegal, or have no proof of
age. Even if documentation is available, it may be fraudulent. \65
Florida officials said that unless inspectors can prove that
documents are obviously fraudulent, the Immigration and
Naturalization Service has said inspectors may not question the
documents. Under California's work permit system, according to the
California Commissioner of Labor, inspectors may cite an employer for
illegally employing a minor when the employer has no valid work
permit for a child, even if the inspector cannot independently
validate the child's age. He also said that by definition, the
employer's failure to have a valid work permit on file for the child
equates to an hours violation because the child cannot work any hours
without a work permit. Although this is helpful, it does not obviate
the requirement for inspectors to independently validate a child's
age to cite an employer for other violations such as for a hazardous
occupation or an agricultural zone of danger. The Commissioner of
Labor said he believed because TIPP inspectors are bilingual, they
can interview the workers to determine children's real ages to detect
other violations. A review of a sample of violations since 1994,
however, showed that the overwhelming majority were detected because
employers lacked valid work permits; in few instances violations were
detected because employers violated hours, occupation, or zone of
danger restrictions. The low incidence of other violations may
indicate that inspectors have difficulty independently validating
children's ages.
--------------------
\65 In some cases, Florida officials said they actually have the
opposite problem--in some cases, workers may look 15 but are actually
of legal age.
DOCUMENTING THE
EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:4.2.2
California and Florida discussed the agricultural industry's effects
on inspectors' ability to verify a child's work history. Officials
in both states noted that their procedures call for inspectors to
review documents, including payroll, workers' compensation data, and
other records, but that these procedures were not always effective
because official documents do not always reflect the informal work
arrangements. In Florida in the past several years, two children
died on a farm while with their parents (who were hired farmworkers).
Although the parents were working when the children died, Florida
determined that neither child was actually working. Our review of
these case files showed that inspectors had spoken with the parents
and employer about the circumstances surrounding the children's
deaths; it was not clear, however, whether the inspectors had taken
additional steps to determine whether the children had previous work
history at that work site and may actually have been working when
they died. California's Commissioner of Labor said that for an
upcoming raisin harvesting enforcement effort, each inspector will
have a camera to take photos of children working, but it is not clear
that inspectors will do this for all TIPP inspections. The
Commissioner also said that inspectors know to interview workers for
information on the employment relationship, but no documented
procedures are now in place for instructing inspectors in doing this.
LIMITATIONS OF DATABASES
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:4.2.3
In California and Florida, the enforcement databases have limitations
that may affect the states' ability to assess progress made or
success with enforcement efforts. In Florida, because the law treats
children in agriculture the same as children in other industries,
Florida collects no separate data for agricultural inspections or
agricultural child labor violations. California's enforcement
database does not allow officials to readily access basic information
such as the number or ages of children involved in the violations.
In addition, California collects no information on the extent to
which other violations, such as minimum wage (California has a state
minimum wage) or overtime (California requires employers to pay
agricultural workers overtime for working over 60 hours a week),
involve children. This is the case even though the state
Commissioner of Labor has acknowledged that children of all ages are
most likely to be exploited because entire families work on a
piece-rate system, which can result in children not making the legal
minimum hourly wage.
(See figure in printed edition.)Appendix II
COMMENTS FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE
=========================================================== Appendix I
(See figure in printed edition.)Appendix III COMMENTS FROM THE
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
(See figure in printed edition.)
(See figure in printed edition.)
(See figure in printed edition.)
(See figure in printed edition.)
(See figure in printed edition.)
MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS REPORT
========================================================== Appendix IV
Charles Jeszeck, Assistant Director, (202) 512-7036
Lori Rectanus, Senior Project Manager, (202) 512-9847
Kopp Michelotti, Senior Evaluator
Kathleen D. White, Senior Evaluator
Robert G. Crystal, Assistant General Counsel
Paula Bonin, Senior Computer Specialist
*** End of document. ***