Wage and Hour Division April 17, 2007 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Department of Labor (Department or DOL) is proposing to revise the child labor regulations in order to implement an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act's child labor provisions, contained in the Department of Labor Appropriations Act, 2004 (Pub. L. 108-199), which authorizes under specified conditions the employment of certain youth between the ages of 14 and 18 years inside and outside of places of business that use machinery to process wood products. The Department is proposing to revise Child Labor Regulation No. 3, subpart C of 29 CFR part 570, which governs the employment of 14- and 15-year-olds in nonagricultural occupations by revising the lists of occupations and industries in which such youth may and may not be employed. The Department is also proposing to clarify, but not change, the standards addressing the permitted periods and conditions under which such youth may be employed and to create a limited exemption from those standards for certain academically motivated youth enrolled in work-study programs. The Department is also proposing to revise several of the nonagricultural Hazardous Occupations Orders (HOs) to implement specific recommendations made by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in its 2002 report entitled National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Recommendations to the U.S. Department of Labor for Changes to Hazardous Orders. The HOs affected by this proposal concern occupations involved with logging and sawmilling; meat processing; and the operation of power-driven hoisting equipment, bakery equipment, compacting and baling equipment, and certain cutting, shearing, and guillotining equipment. In addition, the Department is proposing to provide clarity by incorporating into the regulations three long-standing enforcement positions regarding the cleaning of power-driven meat processing equipment, the operation of certain power-driven pizza-dough rollers, and the definition of high-lift trucks. The Department is also proposing to expand the HO that prohibits youth from operating power- driven circular saws, band saws, and guillotine shears to include prohibitions concerning the operation of power-driven chain saws, wood chippers, and reciprocating saws. Finally, the Department proposes to revise subpart G of the child labor regulations, which is entitled General Statements of Interpretation of the Child Labor Provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as Amended. The proposal would incorporate into this subpart all the regulatory changes made since this subpart was last revised in 1971.