News piece child labor in U.S. tobacco fields

[Omaha Steve]

Below are links to two CNBC videos investigating the use of child labor in agriculture that ran Wednesday evening. Without living wages and very few protections—the vast majority of farmworkers are not unionized—many farmworker families feel they must have their children work in these dangerous conditions in order to survive.

The reporters did a good job, though it would have been better if they had noted that the U.S. Tobacco Cooperative’s statement, “We condemn strongly “ labor law violations, does not apply to this situation, since it is perfectly legal for children as young as 12-years-old to work an unlimited amount of hours, outside of school hours, under these circumstances. Also, (I helped work on this story and was present for interviews) several of the workers shared that they are forbidden to wear gloves by some employers because it could result in the tearing of the leaves. Farmworkers are often reluctant to speak out about wage theft and dangerous working conditions due to a very real fear of retaliation.

We would love to get some comments on these stories; please help us share this important story.

Part 1:

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000117111&play=1



Part 2:

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000117119&play=1

Our tweet:

@AFOPNational: US Kids as young as 12 legally allowed to work harvesting tobaccohttp://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000117119 … via @CNBC #childlabor #labor#farmworkers