The Department of Labor has laws regarding Child Labor. Some of the specific issues relate to children between the ages of 14-15 and 14-16.
Permissible work hours for 14- and 15-year-old are:
* 3 hours on a school day;
* 18 hours in a school week;
* 8 hours on a non-school day;
* 40 hours in a non-school week; and
* between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., except from June 1 through Labor Day, when nighttime work hours are extended to 9 p.m
There's also a section that applies to the RMA wood corral where we used what was known as an Egyptian Slave Wheel which is considered a "hoisting apparatus" and cannot be operated by children. Occupations requiring the use of machinery, including power-driver equipment could apply to chain saws. Also in the kitchen, children are not permitted to perform cooking over a flame, which when I was there in 1984 was the way everything was cooked. Also boilers are prohibited and would likely include stocking the furnaces with logs as boilers and furnaces are considered dangerous. Also in the kitchen, the use of machines like slicers would be prohibited. Here is a little section of the rules showing that certain work we performed at RMA could have been illegal. These rules apply to kids as old as 16, which many of us were. I added notes of my own in CAPS.
b) Paragraph (a) of this section shall not be construed to permit
the application of this sub-part to any of the following occupations in
retail, food service, and gasoline service establishments:
(1) All occupations listed in Sec. 570.33 except occupations
involving processing, operation of machines and work in rooms where
processing and manufacturing take place which are permitted by paragraph
(a) of this section;
(2) Work performed in or about boiler or engine rooms; (THIS WOULD LIKELY APPLY TO STOCKING WOOD-FIRED FURNACES)
(3) Work in connection with maintenance or repair of the
establishment, machines or equipment; (THIS WOULD LIKELY APPLY TO ALL OF THE CONSTRUCTION WORK KIDS PERFORMED)
(4) Outside window washing that involves working from window sills,
and all work requiring the use of ladders, scaffolds, or their
substitutes; (THOUGH WE DID NOT USE SCAFFOLDS, LADDERS WERE USED TO WASH THE HUGE MAIN HOUSE WINDOWS)
(5) Baking and cooking are prohibited except:
(i) Cooking is permitted with electric or gas grilles which does (EVEN THOUGH WE USED A CONVECTION OVEN LATER FOR BREAD, I THINK WE STILL
USED THE WOOD-FIRED STOVE AT LEAST TILL 1986 WHEN I GRADUATED RMA)
not involve cooking over an open flame (Note: this provision does not
authorize cooking with equipment such as rotisseries, broilers,
pressurized equipment including fryolators, and cooking devices that
operate at extremely high temperatures such as ``Neico broilers''); and
(ii) Cooking is permitted with deep fryers that are equipped with
and utilize a device which automatically lowers the baskets into the
hot oil or grease and automatically raises the baskets from the hot oil
or grease;
(6) Occupations which involve operating, setting up, adjusting,
cleaning, oiling, or repairing power-driven food slicers and grinders,
food choppers, and cutters, and bakery-type mixers; (I KNOW WHEN I WORKED IN THE KITCHEN WE HAD TO USE AND CLEAN SLICERS ALL THE TIME)
(7) Work in freezers and meat coolers and all work in the (WE DID NOT WORK INSIDE THE FREEZER BUT WE DID STOCK IT AND USE IT)
preparation of meats for sale except as described in paragraph (a)(9) of
this section;
(
Loading and unloading goods to and from trucks, railroad cars, (WHEN THE DELIVERY TRUCK ARRIVED, WE UNLOADED IT)
or conveyors;
I will continue to look to see whether "jobs" are different than what we are calling forced labor, agreed to by our parents. As we were not paid, I think there are two topics here. Did we need to be paid? Was any work performed illegal whether paid or not? This would also cover whether a school can have kids perform labor, as opposed to simply having them keep their dorms cleaned. And I think requiring them to clean their dorms might not be the same thing as requiring them to clean the entire campus.
So labor laws cover subjects such as age. And there were kids who were 16 and under so many of these laws cover them.
Then comes the question of how dangerous the work is. Whether paid or not, I am pretty sure a school cannot have kids working with chain saws, slave wheels, unloading trucks, working in the kitchen using dangerous machines, stocking furnaces, and possibly even working with axes and mauls. Additionally any forestry work could potentially be considered extremely dangerous. So even though we weren't paid, we might not have been legally allowed to perform many of the tasks we were forced to perform.
