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Child Labor Laws

Who is an "agricultural employer"?

For purposes of this section, an agricultural employer means any person who owns or operates a farm, ranch, processing establishment, cannery, gin, packing shed, or nursery, or who produces or conditions seed and who either recruits, solicits, hires, employs, furnishes, or transports any migrant or seasonal agricultural worker.

Who must comply?

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) sets wage, hour, and employment standards that affect most workers in the United States, including young people. The standards affecting young workers vary for different age groups and for farm employment. In addition, the Pennsylvania Child Labor Law and Seasonal Farm Labor Act have various provisions that affect employment of children in agricultural situations.

Restrictions for farm work

If you are 16 years old or older, you may work at any time in any farm job. If you are 14 or 15 years old, you may work outside of school hours in any farm job except those designated as hazardous agricultural occupations. Such occupations include:

1. Operating or having any contact with a tractor of over 20 PTO horsepower or any of its implements.
2. Operating or having any contact with other farm machinery, including a corn picker, combine, earth-moving equipment, potato combine, hay mower, forage harvester, hay baler, feed grinder, forage blower, or auger conveyor.
3. Operating a power post-hole digger, post driver, or nonwalking tiller.
4. Operating or having any contact with trenching equipment, a fork lift, or power-driven saws.
5. Working in a pen with male breeding stock or animals with newborn young.
6. Working with timber having a butt diameter greater than 6 inches.
7. Working from a ladder or scaffold above 20 feet in height.
8. Driving a bus, truck, or car to transport passengers.
9. Working inside buildings used for storage of fruit, forage, or grain designed to retain an oxygen deficient or toxic atmosphere.
10. Working inside an upright silo after silage is added or while a top-loading device is running; a horizontal silo while operating a tractor to pack the silage.
11. Working in a manure pit.
12. Having any contact with agricultural chemicals of Class I toxicity (those that use the word "poison" and have "skull and crossbones" warnings) or Class II toxicity (those that use the word "warning" on the label).
13. Handling or using a blasting agent.
14. Having any contact with anhydrous ammonia, including transportation.

Fourteen- or 15-year-olds who have specialized training may be able to obtain approval to engage in some of the preceding farm occupations. See your vocational agriculture instructor or 4-H leader for more details.

If the employee is 12 or 13 years old, he or she may work outside school hours in nonhazardous farm jobs with his or her parents' written consent, or may work on a farm where the parents are employed.

If the employee is younger than 12 years old, he or she may work with parents' written consent and outside school hours in nonhazardous tasks on farms whose employees do not have to be paid minimum wage.

On farms subject to minimum wage, local minors 10 and 11 years old may work for no more than 8 weeks between June 1 and October 15, with approval from the Secretary of Labor. This work must be confined to hand harvesting short-season crops outside school hours, under very limited and specified circumstances as prescribed by the Secretary of Labor.

Pennsylvania child labor laws and Seasonal Farm Labor Act

Pennsylvania's child labor law and Seasonal Farm Labor Act also have provisions that are applicable to employment of youth. The following list describes some of these additional restrictions and limitations:

No child under 18 years of age shall be employed to work in any establishment or in any occupation for more than 6 consecutive days in any 1 week, or more than 44 hours in any 1 week, or more than 8 hours in any one day.

No child under 18 years of age shall be employed for more than 5 hours continuously in any establishment without at least 30 minutes for a lunch period and no period of less than 30 minutes to interrupt a continuous period of work.

No child under 18 years of age, who is enrolled in regular day school and working outside school hours, shall be employed to work for more than 28 hours during a school week.

No child under 18 years of age shall be employed or permitted to work in any establishment between the hours of 12:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. if such minor is enrolled in regular day school. Children who are 16 and 17 years of age may be employed until, but not after, 1:00 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and on days preceding a school vacation occurring during the school year, excepting the last day of such vacation period.

No child under 16 years of age shall be employed to work in any occupation before 7:00 a.m. or after 7:00 p.m. of any day except during school vacation period from June to Labor Day, when such minor may work between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. No child who is enrolled in school and working outside school hours can be employed or permitted to work in any occupation more than 4 hours on a school day, or more than 8 hours on any other day, or more than 18 hours during a school week.

A child under 16 years of age employed on a farm by a person other than the farmer in the hatching, raising, or harvesting of poultry may be employed or permitted to work until 10:00 p.m. as long as the minor is not working in an agricultural occupation declared hazardous by the United States Secretary of Labor.

Students 14 years of age and over whose employment is part of a recognized school-work program, supervised by a recognized school authority, may be employed for hours which, combined with the hours spent in school, do not exceed 8 a day.

It is unlawful for any child under 16 years of age who is not a resident of this Commonwealth to be employed to work in this Commonwealth in any factory or cannery, or in berry, fruit, and vegetable raising and harvesting, during the time in which the laws of the state of his residence require his attendance at school.

No child from 14 to 17 years of age inclusive who is employed or permitted to work as a seasonal farm worker can be employed between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and one hour following the end of the school day or any regular school day of the school district wherein the child is then a resident, whether or not such minor is registered as a pupil in such school district.

No child under 14 years of age can be required to work, or be penalized for failing to work, as a seasonal farm worker. At any age, a child may work in any farm job on a farm that his or her parents own or operate.

Minimum wage for youth

If the employee works in a job covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, whether farm or nonfarm, he or she must be paid the same minimum wage and overtime pay as older workers, unless a specific exemption applies.

Employment certificate

Employment of persons under the age of 18 is unlawful without an employment certificate or farm service permit. For persons under the age of 18 to be employed in Pennsylvania, an employment certificate must be obtained by the minor person and retained on file by the employer. These certificates are available at local public school district offices or school principals' offices.

In regard to employment of children on a farm, two provisions of Pennsylvania law seem to contradict each other. Under the Public School Code of 1949, as amended, no person shall, during the hours public schools are in session, accept the services from or employ any child under 18 years of age, unless the employer has on file an employment certificate or a farm or domestic service permit issued according to law. Pennsylvania's child labor law also establishes the need for an employer to obtain an employment certificate when a minor under the age of 18 is employed in an establishment. However, in its definition of the term "establishment," the child labor law states that it does not apply to children employed on the farm or in domestic service in private homes.

In light of these two provisions, a farm employer can require minor employees to produce a certificate. This provides proof of the minor employee's age and allows the employer to determine which tasks the minor is eligible to perform. The duty rests with the employer to see that all requirements concerning employment certificates and minor work attendance are met and followed.

For more information

Any questions about hazardous occupations or child labor regulations should be referred to the nearest office of the U.S. Department of Labor.