Future in Logging Careers Act
The Future in Logging Careers Act would revise the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to create exemptions from most child labor protections for 16- and 17-year-olds working in timber harvesting and mechanized timber harvesting operations. It defines who qualifies as a timber harvesting employer and a mechanized timber harvesting employer, broadening the types of logging-related activities covered (from felling and skidding to road/camp work and machinery maintenance). The bill also preserves a narrow safety safeguard: if a 16- or 17-year-old is employed in a occupation that the Secretary of Labor designates as “particularly hazardous,” the general child labor protections would apply, with an exception for employees whose employer is owned or operated by a parent or a person standing in the place of a parent. In short, the bill would widen teen work eligibility in many logging jobs while preserving targeted safety protections and a family-ownership carve-out. The bill is introduced in the 119th Congress and would amend specific provisions of the FLSA (Sections 3 and 13(c)) if enacted. Its sponsors and status indicate it is at the committee stage and not yet law.
Key Points
- 1Exemption for 16- and 17-year-olds in timber harvesting: The bill creates a broad exemption from certain child labor laws for teens working in timber harvesting or mechanized timber harvesting operations.
- 2Definitions of covered employers:
- 3- Timber harvesting employer: includes entities engaged in felling, skidding, yarding, loading/processing timber with machinery other than manual chainsaws/skidders, bucking/converting timber, transporting/logging-related work, road/camp construction and maintenance, machinery upkeep used in logging, and other logging-related work.
- 4- Mechanized timber harvesting employer: similar to the above but specifically involving mechanized equipment (e.g., whole-tree processors, cut-to-length processors, log loaders, various feller-bunchers, forwarders, chippers, grinders, etc.).
- 5Hazardous occupations carve-out (Section 13(c)):
- 6- For 16- or 17-year-olds employed by a timber harvesting employer in an occupation that the Secretary of Labor designates as particularly hazardous, the normal child labor provisions apply, unless the employer is owned or operated by a parent or a person standing in the place of a parent.
- 7Parental ownership exception: If the timber harvesting employer is owned or operated by a parent (or a person acting in loco parentis), the hazardous-occupation protections do not apply, effectively broadening exemptions for family-operated logging businesses.
- 8Scope and limits: The exemptions target 16- and 17-year-olds; there is a built-in mechanism to maintain safety oversight via Secretary of Labor hazard determinations, but the core exemption expands when and where teens can work in logging.