Last month, California Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard
introduced a bill that would bring the age and work hour standards for
children working in corporate agriculture up to the standards set for all
other forms of child labor. On Tuesday, a survey was released in
Washington, DC that would support her bill.

[Flores] I've had to work in the same cornfields and even keep up with
the same work my parents had to, since even before the age of twelve.

That was Norma Flores, a migrant worker that has been in the fields
since she was 10 years old. She is now 20. The survey sponsored by the
National Consumers League and Child Labor Coaltion, found that
out of more than 1,000 U.S. adults a majority would not allow their
own children to work on a commercial farm at ages that the
government currently allows. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act,
minors as young as 10 can work on corporate agricultural farms. Linda
Chavez-Thompson executive vice president of the AFL-CIO was also a
child laborer.