Children Don't Belong on Tobacco Farms Act
The Children Don't Belong on Tobacco Farms Act would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to bar employment of anyone under 18 in tobacco-related agriculture. Specifically, it adds a new criterion to oppressive child labor: if a person under 18 has direct contact with tobacco plants or dried tobacco leaves, that employment is deemed oppressive child labor. It also closes an exemption by adding tobacco-related agriculture to the list of activities that are not exempt from the general prohibitions, effectively making tobacco farming a sector where under-18 employment is prohibited. The bill aims to protect minors from the hazards associated with tobacco farming and shifts federal enforcement to treat tobacco-related agricultural work as oppressive for youths.
Key Points
- 1Creates a new condition within the oppressive child labor standard: any employee under 18 who has direct contact with tobacco plants or dried tobacco leaves is treated as engaging in oppressive child labor.
- 2Removes tobacco-related agriculture from the set of exemptions that allowed some child labor in other agricultural or non-manufacturing/mining contexts, placing tobacco farming under the general oppressive-child-labor prohibition.
- 3Enforced under the Fair Labor Standards Act, with enforcement authority and penalties aligned with existing FLSA provisions (through the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division).
- 4Applies specifically to tobacco-related agriculture; does not broadly ban all agricultural work by minors, only those involving direct contact with tobacco plants/leaves.
- 5Introduces a federal standard intended to protect minors from the occupational hazards of tobacco farming, potentially affecting labor supply for tobacco farms and requiring compliance by employers in the tobacco sector.