New York Amish Face Pressure Over State Child Labor Laws
by Ed Thomas
December 13, 2006
(AgapePress) - - The executive director of a New York-based constitutional rights advocacy group says he will be talking with the senator who chairs the state's Labor Committee today during a special session of the State Legislature. At issue is the attempt to resolve a growing problem for some western New York Amish families whom state labor officials say are violating labor laws. Amish families in Lyndonville have been told the businesses they run in which their minor children, ages 14 to 17, work -- including sawmilling, metalwork, and construction -- have to cease using the children. The Amherst Record newspaper reports labor officials began placing the businesses on notice earlier this summer.
Christian activist and lobbyist Duane Motley of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedom (NYCF) says it is vital to stop the erosion of the Amish families' constitutional rights before it goes any further. The violation of these families' freedoms by New York State labor officials must be checked, he contends, "because, if they can limit the Amish in just this one area, what's going to prohibit them from expanding it into other areas affecting the Amish?
"And, of course," Motley adds, "if you limit the Amish, you've got to limit everybody else." That includes New York's home schooling families, he notes, as home school students often intern with someone in the world of work instead of going to trade school.
The Christian lobbyist says any proposals to help the Amish families through labor law changes have to come through the Labor Committee, which is why he is looking to speak with State Senator George Maziarz. Unfortunately, the NYCF spokesman points out, that committee is also lobbied strongly and regularly by labor unions in the state.
Motley believes the New York unions lobbying the Labor Committee may fear unregulated competition from Amish businesses and therefore may have an interest in blocking any changes to state law that would provide an exception for Amish families or others using minor children as apprentices or workers in particular occupations.
Challenges to the old order cultural tradition of the Amish, which starts young people working with their parents after eighth grade, are causing some families to consider moves as drastic as leaving the state if area lawmakers cannot help them work out a legislative solution. State lawmakers have been quoted as saying they will investigate the issue of whether state labor laws can be modified to accommodate the Amish community's traditional religious practices with regard to their family businesses.
Steve Crampton, chief counsel with the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy, believes constitutional law is on the Amish families' side. He notes that a 1972 Supreme Court ruling in Wisconsin v. Yoder, which provided a precedent establishing Amish families right to keep their children out of public schools, would be in the New York families' favor if they end up having to take the labor matter to court.
Also, the pro-family attorney observes, "The fact that they have so faithfully adhered to their principles and their deeply-held beliefs over a period of centuries really puts them in an unusual ... and a strong factual sort of position to challenge the likes of the New York labor laws."
In other words, the Amish community tradition of introducing its young people early to the world of work has a lengthy history, Crampton explains. So, he says, decades of practice on record that this tradition has not proven hazardous to the children should help the families if the matter has to be resolved in court.
Ed Thomas, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
