Horrors! Children working on a farm!!

Working, learning self discipline and diligence, earning money, being outdoors, not sitting around the house on facebook or playing Nintendo DS! OMG! Poor things!


Almost like being a kid growing up in the south! Cant have that!


Link to ABCnews

Nearly two years after ABC News cameras uncovered young children toiling away in Michigan's blueberry fields, federal investigators have found yet another disturbing example of illegal use of child labor in the berry industry.

Three southwest Washington strawberry growers were fined $73,000 last week after the U.S. Department of Labor found children between the ages of six and 11 working in their strawberries fields in June.

While an exemption in the federal child labor law allows 12- and 13-year-olds to work for unlimited hours on large agricultural operations, children under the age of 12 are strictly prohibited from working under similar conditions.

Andrea Schmitt, an attorney with Columbia Legal Services in Olympia, said that the low wages made by workers in the Northwest berry industry are a key factor driving young kids into the fields. She said that berry pickers, who are usually paid a piece rate instead of an hourly wage, often struggle to make the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

The law was intended to prevent exploitation of children, on it's face.  It may also protect union jobs, the concept of minimum wage, etc.,.

But if parents and children both agree that when school is out for the summer that it is OK for kids to work in this manner for these wages, then the law becomes another stupid law: Prosecution of a victimless crime. 

Moral of the story: Let it be a personal choice of parents, no government interference, keep government out of our lives.

Notice they don't say how many kids are involved here.  Could be three in total and a story like this is written that implies an exploitative evil in our midst.