本頁全文尚未翻譯，因此以下以英文顯示。上方的摘要、標籤及安全資訊已經翻譯。
Everything else on this site about teenage work assumes non-agricultural employment. Agriculture is governed by a separate part of the Fair Labor Standards Act with its own age thresholds, its own hazardous-occupations list, and its own exemptions. The differences are substantial, and they run in the direction of permitting more, at younger ages, than any other sector.
Different ages, and hours tied to school
In agriculture, the Department of Labor's rules allow youths aged 16 and above to perform any farm job, including hazardous ones, for unlimited hours. Youths aged 14 and 15 may perform any non-hazardous farm job outside of school hours, and 12- and 13-year-olds may do non-hazardous farm work outside school hours with written parental consent or on a farm where a parent is also employed. Children under 12 may perform non-hazardous jobs outside school hours on farms not subject to the minimum wage provisions, with parental consent.
The recurring phrase is outside school hours, which is doing a lot of work: it means agricultural employment is generally structured around school attendance rather than prohibited during it.
The parental exemption
There is a significant exemption for a young person employed by a parent, or by a person standing in the place of a parent, on a farm owned or operated by that parent. On a parent's own farm, the federal age and hazardous-occupation restrictions largely do not apply in the same way.
This is why family-farm work looks so different from any other employment a young person might do, and it is genuinely how the statute is written rather than an oversight. It also means the practical safety questions on a family farm are not answered by federal law and fall to the family itself.
Hazardous agricultural work, and where safety rules still apply
Agriculture has its own list of hazardous occupations barred to those under 16 — including operating many tractors and much power-driven machinery, working in a confined space like a silo or a manure pit, handling certain agricultural chemicals, and working with certain animals. Agriculture is consistently among the most dangerous sectors, so these are not formalities.
OSHA's protections and the right to report an unsafe condition without retaliation, covered in our article on filing a complaint, still apply. So do state laws, which in agriculture sometimes go further than federal rules. If a young worker is being asked to do something on the hazardous list, or to work with pesticides without training, that is a reportable safety issue regardless of what the child-labor rules permit at their age.
記住這些
- Agriculture has its own federal child-labor rules that permit work at younger ages than any other sector.
- At 16 and above a youth may do any farm job including hazardous ones; younger ages are tied to working outside school hours.
- A significant exemption applies to a young person working on a farm owned or operated by their own parent.
- OSHA safety protections and the right to report hazards without retaliation still apply on farms.
資料來源
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