need to add title here

The debate on child farm labor

May 22, 2011 5:59 PM

In agriculture, children as young as 12 are allowed to work unlimited hours outside of school. Byron Pitts reports on the "Migrant Stream" and the families who are part of it whose children work alongside them in the fields for minimum wage.

The debate on child farm labor
Add a Comment See all 21 Comments
by Mary_Jo1 June 6, 2011 12:32 AM EDT
It does not hurt the children to work. The hours should be set so they do not work too long and they should be paid a decent wage. As for drop-out rates, our local school has a drop out rate of 40% and 3 out of 10 of the girls are pregnant by the 10th grade. I think work would be better for them, don't you?
Reply to this comment
by abctuck May 31, 2011 9:06 AM EDT
Great story! Most of the comments appear to be from people who worked on family or area farms as children. This is the big difference. When you add the word "migrant" to the equation it is akin to comparing apples with oranges. The fact that they must travel from their homes and pay to work for minimum wage creates a system that children who worked on family or neighbor farms know nothing about. Yes a 'good ethic' is desirable for anyone, but what has it done for the father in this story? It is unfortunate that there are still industries in our country that do not provide a living wage.
Reply to this comment
by rtbartlet May 29, 2011 4:10 PM EDT
Like the young men portrayed in your child farm labor story on May 22, I weeded cotton (it is referred to even today as "chopping cotton" which is a misnomer, because it is the weeds in the cotton row that are being chopped)when I was in junior high and high school in western Oklahoma during the late '50s and early '60s. The labor rate then was $1.00/hr and I worked 10 - 12 hours/day six days per week. I did this because there was no other source of income for kids my age at that time.

i think your story completely misses the point. The young men portrayed in the story were intelligent, respectful and well-spoken. I commend their father for doing what he has to do to keep his family together. These young men are learning what many other American youth need to learn: If you want a good life, you have to work hard for it. There is nothing wrong with hard work. When I was a couple of years older, I "graduated" to work grinding and sacking salt for my cousins after school, on the week-ends and during the summer for the grand sum of $1.25/hr. Again, if you wanted spending money, this was what one had to do.

Frankly, I think you also missed the point that these kids are lucky to be able to get this work, given the tough economic situation Wall Street bankers have put us in! Additionally, many farm manual labor jobs have been automated out of existance. Chopping cotton is one of the few manual labor jobs left in agriculture.

I watch "60 Minutes" as often as possible and respect what you do, but this story does not reflect reality.

Respectfully,

Robert T. Bartlett
Reply to this comment
by ChildLaborCoalition May 24, 2011 12:17 PM EDT
It's great to see some coverage of this important child labor issue, but this story ended on a much too hopeful note. The high school dropout rate for most migrant kids is 60-80 percent. Many migrant kids do not make it to college because work and migration causes them to miss school and fall behind their classmates. The did get right the part about our desire for cheap fruit and vegetables being a source of the problem. Can't we all pay a couple of pennies more a pound and pay adults a living wage so children do not have to sacrifice their childhoods and their educational futures?

Reid Maki/Child Labor Coalition
Reply to this comment
by 2011MAY May 24, 2011 2:34 AM EDT
Its good to see respectful, hard working kids - y'all will grown up with very , very strong work ethics. I take my hat off to y'all and bless the ground that y'all walk on.
Reply to this comment
by anonworker May 23, 2011 8:09 PM EDT
Nothing wrong with some hard work at 12 or older. At 11 I would get up at 4am to deliver papers for 3 hours, go to school, do chores around my house for hours after school, then mow neighbors' lawns until dark. During summer, school was replaced with additional work. At 16 I was working around 40 hours a week over and above school. All my money went into my college account. I graduated with my BS degree from a top university, then worked hard to obtain my PhD at another top university. Hard work produces character, fosters responsibility, and puts one's life in perspective. The kids interviewed appear to be well-adjusted with, quite obviously, an excellent work ethic. As US citizens, we often lose sight of the fact that virtually everyone in human history and the vast majority of current members of the human race have to work for a living. Life isn't always that portrayed in a "housewives of XYZ" episode and earning a living isn't done through an "American Idol" competition.
Reply to this comment
by iamindie May 23, 2011 5:41 PM EDT
I was very positively impressed by the Latino family featured on 60 Minutes last night. The kids went to school during the school year and worked with their father and uncle during the summer. They were respectful of their fathers, uncomplaining and understood why they were doing it. I grew up in rural IA and as a petite girl from 12 on, I worked in bean and corn fields. It was hot and hard work. The corn work was called detassling - a method to create seed corn - which has a short window, so we worked sun up to sun down. I felt pride in earning money and it was plenty hot pushing through sharp corn leaves with the tassles at the top. I see nothing wrong with hard work even in the hot sun, so long as you go to school. BTW, I didn't drop out - I went to law school. I think work is good for kids' self esteem.
Reply to this comment
by working-person May 23, 2011 3:58 PM EDT
Unreal. There's nothing wrong with work. The problem lies in the fact that physical labor is not valued, so our society and legislators don't give our food growers and harvesters their due. I respect farm workers. Their fundamental values are very much in line with that of a Puritan work ethic. If you don't work, you don't eat. And, every person has to make his own way. It's unfortunate that not all parents can earn enough to feed and care for a family. So, the whole family has to work. I know what that's like, I've been there. Feeding calves at six years of age, washing eggs at the family poultry farm at eight, picking cotton at ten, heading shrimp at twelve and sweeping manure at the dairy at age sixteen. My hands were always rough and blistered in the summer. But, guess what, I survived and so did my other siblings who share similar stories. Poverty is not the worst thing in the world if you have noble and dignified god-fearing parents like mine. They didn't drink nor do drugs nor did they abandon us. They protected us and loved us as they should and that made all the difference. The rest was up to us kids. With the help and guidance from my parents and teachers I went to college. Point? All people really need are fair wages and and an opportunity to rise out of a temporary fallen state. However, family is the first line of defense again poverty, so the sooner people accept this and work to get out, the sooner the family can exit from poverty. Escaping poverty is not easy, but, god favors industry. A hand up is very appreciated, but to live on the public dole is not acceptable for for a dignified people. In fact it's not biblical. For these reasons, I nominate this industrious father and his hardworking sons as my persons for the week. May the good Lord continue to smile on them and may he bless them with perseverence and strenth to make it through this hard, but temporary season of their lives.
Reply to this comment
by nomad2003 May 23, 2011 3:17 PM EDT
hard work is good... they still go to school in the year. Besides, farm work is the reason that there is not school in the summer. So the kids could farm... Perhaps if 12 years old and up in the cities, would learn to farm (great use of sections of the city parks) they would less time for gangs.

When I was stacking concrete with a shovel, down in a hole, in the Florida sun, I kept on asking myself do I want to do this for the rest of my life... NO.. it kept me in school and studying for this was easier than shoveling concrete. If I was not doing this I would have to mow grass. If none of these, I had to work with my Dad on the milk truck for no monies.
Reply to this comment
by nicolasnaranja May 23, 2011 12:08 PM EDT
In rural America, there simply is no other ways for kids to make money. I think every child should do manual labor for a period of their life. They will be able to carry with them for the rest of their lives the meaning of a dollar and they will appreciate how hard it is to put food on the table.
Reply to this comment
See all 21 Comments
Recent Segments

60MinutesOverTime

60 Minutes Overtime is a weekly web show that begins where the weekly television broadcast ends

  • 48 Hours iPad App

    Big changes for the 2012-2013 season! Watch the current week's episode for FREE up to a week after it airs or subscribe for access to all shows, classic episodes and more!