Stossel Takes on Outdated Child Labor Laws
Aug. 9 -- The Labor Department has been raiding workplaces for years, looking for children working illegally. They almost always find what they are looking for.
The law says no child under 14 may hold a job. And there are strict rules about 16-year-olds. The laws were passed in the 1930s to protect children who might be exploited by factories, or forced to work by their families.
But when we watched the bureaucrats at work these days, we didn't see "victims" who wanted rescue.
In Georgia, a newspaper caught a minor league baseball team, the Savannah Cardinals, with an underage batboy.
"The day the story was published, the Labor Department was at my front door," remembers Rick Sisler, the team's general manager. Your tax dollars at work.
The crime? Some baseball games last later than 7 p.m., and the child labor laws say that a child under 16 may not work that late on school nights.
So was this batboy being exploited? He didn't think so. "I was disappointed that somebody would take somebody's dream away like this," said the boy, 14-year-old Tommy McCoy.
Why stop him? If it's terrible for him to be at the ballpark past 7 p.m., then how come it's OK for so many little kids to watch the game?
When the batboy was fired there was so much publicity that the Department of Labor, intervened. Tommy lucked out and was reinstated.
Special Breaks for Actors and Baby-Sitters?
Child actors luck out, too. The Labor Department gives them a special exemption. Farm workers, too and — get this — wreath-makers. But is that how the law should work? Give special breaks to some?
Isn't something off here? Kids routinely baby-sit until 10 p.m., if not midnight. They do yard work and deliver newspapers. Isn't this good for them?
Some businesses are eager for workers. Many kids are hanging around after school, bored stiff. Wouldn't it be better if they did some work, say at Wendy's? But they can't — Wendy's won't hire anyone younger than 16. Why? Because Labor Department regulations require so much time-consuming record-keeping, plus a risk of a big fine if you make amistake, that Wendy's says it's safer just not to hire young people.
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