Human Rights Watch releases long awaited report on child labor – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

The National Consumers League welcomes Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) long-awaited report Fields of Peril – Child Labor in US Agriculture. HRW is a longtime and invaluable partner with NCL and the Child Labor Coalition in pressing for protections for farmworker kids in the United States.

HRW’s report is an update from its 2000 “Fingers to the Bone: United States Failure to Protect Child Farmworkers,” and the conclusions from the 2009 report are all the more sobering because, as HRW concluded, “Shockingly, we found that conditions for child farmworkers in the United States remain virtually as they were a decade ago.”

NCL co-chairs the Child Labor Coalition with the American Federation of Teachers. The CLC is the only coalition of its kind in the US that brings together organizations dedicated to eradicating child labor, both in the US and abroad. Our domestic priority, led by our child labor director Reid Maki, is the adoption of the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment or CARE Act, which will give the same child labor protections to farmworker kids that all other kids enjoy.

HRW interviewed 59 children in 14 states. What they found is that children who work picking crops toil in the fields at far younger ages, for far longer hours, and under far more hazardous conditions than all other working children. As the report notes, this means:

an end to childhood, long hours at exploitative wages, and risk to their health and sometimes their lives. Although their families’ financial need helps push children into the fields – poverty among farmworkers is more than double that of all wage and salary employees– the long hours and demands of farmwork result in high-drop-out rates from school. Without a diploma, child workers are left with few options besides a lifetime of farmwork and the poverty that accompanies it.

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which regulates child labor, children in agriculture receive much less protection than children working in other jobs. Under the law, on small farms with parental permission, outside of school hours, there is no minimum age for workers. Children ages 12 and 13 can work for any size farm with their parents’ consent outside of school hours; children 14 and 15 can work on any size farm without parental consent outside of school hours; there are no restrictions on employing children ages 16 and older, including in hazardous agricultural occupations.

By comparison, kids doing nonagricultural work are prohibited from almost all jobs—except for baby sitting, delivering newspapers, and a few other rare exceptions—when they are under age 14, and children ages 14 and 15 may work only in certain jobs designated by the Secretary of Labor and only for limited hours outside of school. Children in nonagricultural jobs are also prohibited from performing hazardous work before age 18.

The condition of farmworker kids in the United States is a national disgrace. These kids don’t get the education they need to break out of this cycle of poverty. But their situation is not really so different from the condition of children working in factories, mines or bakeries in America at the turn of the 20th Century. Florence Kelley, in heading the NCL’s work back then, would have made the same arguments to authorities and poor  families that we are making today – get these kids out of the fields and into schools and they won’t end up as their parents are: still poor and without other employment options.  And while we are at it, let’s pay farmworkers a decent wage, ensure clean water and toilet facilities close to their worksite, and give them access to housing that is more than a shack with an outdoor toilet.

We are indebted to our colleagues at HRW, Jo Becker and Zama Coursen-Neff, for this excellent new report, which should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers and legislators across the United States.

Even educational programs deceive consumers, and even consumer advocates are taken in – National Consumers League

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By Courtney Brein, NCL Food Safety and Nutrition fello

I love the issues on which I focus as the Linda Golodner Food Safety and Nutrition Fellow, and I really enjoy working at NCL, but I also eventually plan to return to school to pursue a higher degree. With my future plans in mind, I decided that it made sense to take the requisite standardized test this spring, which would enable me to apply to graduate school at any point in the next five years (after that point, scores expire). A month or so ago, I began spending a few hours each weekend doing practice problems, figuring that this method of preparation, which I have employed to ready myself for past standardized tests, would be sufficient. Hoping to experience a more realistic version of the test than the paper and pencil problems from my test prep book allow, I located a free online practice test, to be administered during a live, web-based “classroom” session provided by a certain not-to-be-mentioned test prep company (two syllables, starts with a “k,” ends with an “n”).

Several Saturdays ago, I logged into the webpage previously provided by the test prep company, listened to the instructor’s shpiel, and took the practice test. The actual test is computer adaptive, meaning that the test-taker receives harder or easier questions depending on whether she answered the previous question correctly; this test, however, was not. During the 25-minute talk, through which the attendees had to sit following the practice exam in order to receive our scores, the instructor assured us that – even though the test we took was not computer adaptive – it was an extremely accurate predictor of the score we would each have received, had we taken the real test that day. He repeated this several times, both before and after the scores were released. Not surprisingly, much of the talk focused on the various test-prep courses offered by the not-to-be-mentioned company, and how these courses would improve each of our scores.

When I viewed my score, I was alarmed. I had not scored nearly as well as my practice problem results and pencil-and-paper diagnostic test suggested that I would. What was I to do? Based on this exam, I would do not receive the score I wanted – and felt I needed – if I were to take the real test without a meaningful, strategic study plan. As the instructor droned on about the various course offerings provided by K—-n, and the fact that each option guaranteed students a higher score, it seemed to me that I had no other option than to enroll. The following morning, I signed up for K—n’s online course – the cheapest offering, but one that still cost a pretty penny.

Lo and behold, when I took the computer adaptive diagnostic exam – my first step as an enrollee in the expensive prep course – that determines the official score that K—-n uses as a baseline in demonstrating a student’s improvement between enrollment and test day, I did not score as I had the previous evening. This time I scored much higher, achieving the target score I had originally set for myself, a score I would be more than happy to submit to graduate programs.

Given the significant discrepancy between my two scores, I cannot help but believe that the following took place: To entice me to purchase its products, K—-n provided me (and thousands of other prospective students) with a free exam designed to suggest that I (and thousands of other prospective students) would perform at a level below that of competitive applicants, were I to take the test without further preparation. Yet, according to a more representative version of the exam – available only after purchasing course materials – I would actually score toward the upper end of the range achieved by successful applicants to my desired program.

In the end, of course, the fault lies with me. I took the instructor’s insistence about the accuracy of the free diagnostic test at face value, trusting that a company with the goal of educating youths and young adults would not engage in deceptive practices just to earn a buck (or, in this case, many, many bucks). In this situation, however, I faced an enormous information imbalance, skewed in the direction of the test prep company. They had access to computer adaptive exams; I did not. They knew the accuracy (or lack thereof) of their free diagnostic test; I did not. They had hundreds of thousands of success stories on which to draw; I had no reason to assume they’d deceived any prospective students before, and therefore operated under the assumption that I could trust the diagnostic score they’d generated for me.
This experience taught me a lesson that one can never learn too many times as a consumer advocate, or as a consumer in the marketplace. There nearly always exists an imbalance of information between company and consumer; the company knows everything (or almost everything) about its product or services, while the consumer knows only what the company chooses to tell her and what she can find out on her own. While K—-n’s deceptive behavior is not acceptable, consumer deception is not unique to K—-n, or really all that surprising. As a consumer, it is my job – and yours – to remain alert, inquisitive, and slightly dubious in the marketplace; to “trust but verify”; and to do my due diligence before making a significant purchase.

So, if it does nothing for my exam score, at least my overpriced, unnecessary K—-n test prep course will have taught me something. In the meantime, I’ll work my way through the practice materials, mostly because I paid for them.

Traveling youth crews top 2010 Five Worst Jobs list – National Consumers League

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May 17, 2010

Contact: 202-835-3323, media@nclnet.org

WASHINGTON, DC –Many teenagers around the country are about to begin the search for that elusive summer job. With economic times and a teen unemployment rate nearing 30 percent, the National Consumers League (NCL) fears that teens may be tempted to take jobs that may endanger their health. In its new report, the Five Worst Teen Jobs of 2010, NCL warns teens and parents which jobs are best avoided. Based on statistics from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), a teen American worker dies from a workplace injury every eleven days, and nearly 150,000 youth sustain work-related injuries and illnesses each year—that’s more than 400 injured teen workers per day.

The National Consumers League (NCL), which coordinates the Child Labor Coalition, has issued this year’s Five Worst Teen Jobs report to remind teens and parents to think about hidden dangers that many jobs hold. “Some jobs—construction, for example—have obvious dangers, while others like retail may pose hidden dangers when teens are asked to work alone at night and may be vulnerable to robberies and assaults,” said Reid Maki, NCL’s Director for Social Responsibility and Coordinator of the Child Labor Coalition. “It’s absolutely critical that parents talk with their kids about possible work dangers and empower them to ask their supervisors questions about their safety at work.”

In 2008—the last year for which there are complete records—an estimated 2.3 million adolescents aged 16 to 17 years worked in the United States, and that figure does not include hundreds of thousands of agricultural workers who work at ages younger than 16 because of loopholes in our child labor laws.

“Each year, the National Consumers League issues our Five Worst Teen Jobs report to remind teens and their parents to choose summer jobs wisely,” said Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director and co-chair of the NCL-coordinated Child Labor Coalition. “Summer jobs play an important role in a child’s development and maturity and teach young workers new skills and responsibilities, but parents and teens should carefully consider the safety of each job. Even good-intentioned employers and federal child labor laws do not always protect young workers from dangerous tasks.”

NCL’s Five Worst Teen Jobs of 2010 (read full report)

  1. Traveling Youth Sales Crews
  1. Construction and Height Work
  1. Outside Helper: Landscaping, Grounds Keeping and Lawn Service
  1. Agriculture: Harvesting Crops
  1. Driver/Operator: Forklifts, Tractors, and ATV’s

NCL compiles the Five Worst Teen Jobs each year using government statistics and reports, including monitoring reports from state labor officials and news accounts of injuries and deaths. Statistics and examples of injuries for each job on the list are detailed in a report available here.

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About the National Consumers League

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

Consumer groups advocating for import safety – National Consumers League

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by Sally Greenbreg, NCL Executive Director

Too often in the past, when products imported into the United States by foreign manufacturers proved dangerous to American consumers, these consumers found themselves without a remedy. The Chinese drywall product disaster is a case in point: hundreds of thousands of homes across the United States were built with Chinese drywall that has disintegrated and given off dangerous chemical fumes, forcing homeowners to abandon their homes.

Last month, eight consumer groups, including NCL, signed a letter in support of the Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act, HR 4678, sponsored by Rep Betty Sutton (D-OH). The bill will help consumers harmed by unsafe foreign products get redress for their injuries. Foreign manufacturers will have to post a bond to cover liability should their products prove dangerous and will be required to name an agent in the United States to take service of process.

Allergies 1: Mimi 0 – how I’m preparing for next year’s re-match – National Consumers League

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By Mimi Johnson, NCL’s Director, Health Policy

It seems this year, there’s little I can do to beat the tree pollen. Allergy sufferers everywhere are plagued with itchy eyes, stuffy noses, and tight chests. According to experts, the wet season and early, warm spring led to a breeding ground for allergens.

Aside from keeping windows closed, keeping the house – and myself – clean of pollen, and trying to avoid the outdoors in the early hours of the day, I’ve also tried a variety of treatments. With allergies, symptoms – and pollen – vary throughout the season. While it’s important to follow a treatment plan and take medications as prescribed, it can be a real challenge during allergy season as symptoms, treatments, weather, and pollen counts are often changing.

One thing I’ve learned this allergy season, however, is the value of keeping a diary of my trials and tribulations. I’ve documented – on a somewhat daily basis – how my medication regimen and the weather are making me feel. This “diary” proved to be very useful when meeting with my doctor at a recent appointment.

Though there is little to do but ride it out and try to minimize the symptoms with a variety of over-the-counter and prescription products, next winter I can work together with my doctor to develop a regimen … well in advance of the first trace of pollen!

Whether you’re sick with allergies or the flu, or you’re caring for someone else who is feeling under the weather, you can help improve your immediate and longer-term care by keeping track of the symptoms, reactions to medication, and your thoughts along the way.

Teens, avoid these jobs in 2010 – National Consumers League

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It’s that time of the year. Teenagers are starting to think about their summer jobs. Where will they work? What kind of work will they do? What will it pay?

2010’s Five Worst Teen Jobs 

  1. Traveling Youth Sales Crews
  2. Construction and Height Work
  3. Outside Helper: Landscaping, Groundskeeping and Lawn Service
  4. Agriculture: Harvesting Crops
  5. Driver/Operator: Forklifts, Tractors, and ATV’s

In 2008, approximately 2.3 million adolescents aged 15 to 17 years worked in the U.S. Unfortunately, the global recession has impacted teen hiring here in the U.S. and jobs are particularly hard to come by for teens these days. According to the New York Times in April 2010, the U.S. economy lost 8.2 million jobs in the previous two years and the teen unemployment rate had risen 26 percent, compared to 9.7 percent for the nation at large. Increasingly, teens are competing with more experienced adults for jobs. The National Consumer League (NCL) worries that the difficulty in finding jobs will lead teens to take jobs that are too dangerous for them.

Jobs for teens are an important part of youth development, providing both needed income and teaching valuable work skills, but we urge teenage workers to ask an important question: Will the job I take be a safe one? The wrong choice could harm you or even kill you.

Each day in America, 14 workers die. In 2008, 34 workers under 18 died in the workplace.

Teenagers are particularly vulnerable to accidents both in normal life and at work. Accidents are the leading cause of death for children between the ages of 10 and 19. In fact, more youth between 10 and 19 die from injuries than die from all other causes combined.

The last six months have seen a number of gruesome news stories about teen work deaths:

  • A 14-year-old in Poquoson, Virginia who was working for a lawn care company was killed instantly when he was pulled into a wood chipper last November;
  • A 17-year-old doughnut shop worker fell into a normally-covered cesspool and drowned in Smithtown, New York this March (authorities believe the cover got knocked off during snow plowing); and
  • The body of 18-year-old Jennifer Hammond—last seen six years earlier selling magazines door-to-door—was discovered in Saratoga County, New York. Hammond was the apparent victim of a homicide.

Could these deaths have been prevented? Two of the jobs mentioned above are on our list of “Worst Jobs for Teens” that we recommend teenagers avoid. The 14-year-old killed by the wood chipper, Frank Gornik, was too young to be legally working with potentially deadly equipment like a wood chipper. Better knowledge of the law, which requires a worker to be 18 to work with a wood chipper, may have prevented his death.

 Deaths from Driving

The most common way for a teen worker to die is in a traffic accident. According to one recent study on unintentional injuries, seven in 10 accidental deaths result from car crashes. In 2008 data from the federal government, 43 of 97 deaths of workers under 19 came in transportation accidents.

We encourage young workers to look for jobs in which they do not drive, are not regularly driven by others or are not driven great distances. When in a car, young workers should wear their seat belt. They should ask that their driver not be distracted by using a cell phone, eating, or other disruptions. They should insist that they drive at safe speeds. According to several studies, the perception that driving in rural areas is safe is very misleading. Rural crashes are more frequent and more severe on a per capita or per mile basis. One report estimated that some rural counties are 100 times more dangerous than many urban counties.

Restaurants, Grocery Stores & Retail Stores

In terms of raw numbers, retail establishments, restaurants, and grocery stores are three of the largest employers of teen workers.

Many teens work in restaurants are at risk of burns and other kitchen-related injuries. In some states, restaurants rank first in the number of youth work injuries, although the injuries are often less severe than in many of the occupations cited in this report. Fryers, meat slicers, knives, compactors, and wet, greasy floors can all combine to form a dangerous work environment.

At times, teenagers work in what is typically a safe environment but do unsafe tasks. For example, grocery stores employ a lot of teen workers and for the most part they provide a safe work environment. However, when workers are rushing or are improperly trained accidents can happen. Workers under 18 are allowed to load trash compactors—found in most grocery stores—but they are prohibited from operating them because of a number of gruesome accidents that have occurred to users in the past. Safety specialists worry that improperly trained youth will not obey the law. Similarly, minors—unless they are working in agriculture–are not allowed to drive a forklift, but young people will sometimes get behind the wheel anyway.

Last year, a woman, barely 18, working in a grocery in Indiana, lost her hand trying to clean a grinder in a grocery store. In April, a New York supermarket was cited for illegally employing a 17-year-old to slice deli meat in violation of child labor hazardous orders.

Retail stores may seem like a safe environment but teens can get hurt lifting boxes, cutting boxes open, crushing boxes, and falling from ladders.

Mall and grocery parking lots are often the site of car accidents and can also be dangerous for young workers.

Nearly all work places hold some danger. Our goal is not to paralyze teen workers with fear but to get them and employers to minimize the risks involved. 

Workplace Violence

Restaurants and retail establishments also hold risks of workplace violence. According to 2008 federal data, 17 workers between the ages of 16 and 19 died from workplace violence.

In January, an Illinois teenager was beaten and sexually assaulted after being abducted from the sandwich shop where she worked alone at night. In some inner cities, young fast-food workers have reported routinely having to deal with gang members who come in to harass and rob them.

Teen workers should not be asked to work alone at night. Employers should discuss security procedures with employees in detail. The Illinois teen who was abducted had become aware that a suspicious person was watching her but did not call the police. She texted her concerns to her boyfriend who rushed to the workplace. He arrived too late to prevent the abduction

Causes of Injuries

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the causes of workplace injuries typically fall into these seven categories:

  • Unsafe equipment;
  • Stressful Conditions;
  • Inadequate safety training;
  • Inadequate supervision;
  • Dangerous work that is illegal or inappropriate for youth;
  • Trying to hurry; and
  • Alcohol and drug use.

The most common causes of death for the 97 young workers (under 19) who died in 2008:

  1. transportation accidents;
  2. contact with objects and equipment;
  3. violent acts;
  4. exposure to harmful substances or environments,
  5. falls;
  6. getting caught in or crushed by collapsing materials; and
  7. drowning or submersion.

Of those 97 youth deaths, in 34 cases the worker was under 18. Of those 34 deaths, 23 involved 16- and 17-year-olds and 11—or 32 percent—involved workers under 16. If parents are thinking that employers would only permit older teens to do dangerous tasks and that younger teens are safer, the statistics do not support that logic.

Males are much more at risk than females. Only one in every 14 adult workers who died at work was a women. Of the 5,071 workers who died in 2008, 1.9 percent were 19 or under.

Many youth involved in workplace accidents are fortunate enough to escape death but receive serious injuries. In 2007, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) estimates that there were 48,600 work-related injuries and illnesses among youth 15 to 17 years of age that were treated I hospital emergency departments. NIOSH believes that two out of three injury victims do not go to the emergency room and that the real number of injured workers is about 146,000—or 406 every day.

The National Consumers League issues the 2010 Five Worst Teen jobs to remind teens and their parents to help youth workers to choose their summer jobs wisely. Summer jobs can contribute a lot to a child’s development and maturity and teach new skills and responsibilities but the safety of each job must be a consideration.

Many teens lack the experience and sense of caution needed to protect themselves from workplace jobs. In government speak, “young workers have unique and substantial risks for work-related injuries…because of their biologic, social, and economic characteristics.” They are reluctant to refuse to do tasks because they are dangerous or to ask for safety information.

We ask parents to be involved in their teen’s job hunting and decision making, helping them to select safe employment. An important first step in the process is for parents and teens to acquaint themselves with the laws that protect working teens. Read what a teen worker can and cannot do at www.youthrules.dol.gov. The site provides information for young workers in each of the fifty states.

Other practical advice for parents:

Be involved
Before the job search begins, make decisions with your teen about appropriate employment. Set limits on how many hours per week he or she may work. Make sure your child knows you are interested in his or her part-time job.

Check it out
Meet your teen’s supervisor, request a tour of the facilities, and inquire about the company’s safety record. Ask about safety training, duties, and equipment. Don’t assume the job is safe. Every workplace has hazards.

Talk, talk, talk – and listen, too
Ask questions about your teen’s job. Ask teachers to give you a heads-up if grades begin to slip. Frequently ask your teen what she or he did at work and discuss any problems or concerns.

Watch for signs
Is the job taking a toll on your teen emotionally or physically? How is your child’s performance at school? If there’s a loss of interest in or energy for school or social activities, the job may be too demanding.

Our tips for teen workers follow:

Know the Legal Limits
To protect young workers like you, state and federal laws limit the hours you can work and the kinds of work you can do. For state and federal child labor laws, visit Youth Rules.

Play it Safe
Always follow safety training. Working safely and carefully may slow you down, but ignoring safe work procedures is a fast track to injury. There are hazards in every workplace — recognizing and dealing with them correctly may save your life.

Ask Questions
Ask for workplace training — like how to deal with irate customers or how to perform a new task or use a new machine. Tell your supervisor, parent, or other adult if you feel threatened, harassed, or endangered at work.

Make Sure the Job Fits
If you can only work certain days or hours, if you don’t want to work alone, or if there are certain tasks you don’t want to perform, make sure your employer understands and agrees before you accept the job.

Don’t Flirt with Danger
Be aware of your environment at all times. It’s easy to get careless after a while when your tasks have become predictable and routine. But remember, you’re not indestructible. Injuries often occur when employees are careless or goofing off.

Trust Your Instincts
Following directions and having respect for supervisors are key to building a great work ethic. However, if someone asks you to do something that feels unsafe or makes you uncomfortable, don’t do it. Many young workers are injured — or worse — doing work that their boss asked them to do.

One safety expert suggests that if a job requires safety equipment other than a hard hat, goggles, or gloves, it’s not appropriate for minors. 

Five Worst Teen Jobs 

Many specific jobs pose potential dangers to young workers. The five jobs named on NCL’s list of “five worst teen jobs” have proven to be especially dangerous based on anecdotal evidence and federal statistics.

Traveling Youth Crews Performing Door-to-Door Sales

The startling discovery of the remains of a long-missing 18-year-old girl, Jennifer Hammond, in October 2009, served as a painful reminder that traveling door-to-door sales jobs are very dangerous. A Littleton, Colorado native, Hammond, had last been seen six years earlier in a mobile home park in Milton, New York. She failed to show up at a designated pickup spot two hours later. Six years later, a hunter found her remains in a forest in Saratoga County, New York.

Parents should not allow their children to take a traveling sales job. The dangers are too great. Without parental supervision, teens are at too great a risk of being victimized. Traveling sales crew workers are typically asked to go to the doors of strangers and sometimes enter their homes—a very dangerous thing for a young person to do.

Frequent crime reports involving traveling sales crews suggests that the environment they present is not a safe one for teen workers. And with 44 percent of young worker fatalities coming from vehicle accidents, NCL urges teens not to accept any job that involves driving long distances or for long periods of time.

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) warned consumers in May 2009 that deceptive sales practices are common in door-to-door sales—the group had received 1,100 complaints in the prior year. “Experience tells us that customers aren’t the only victims of [these scams],” said Michael Coil, President of the Better Business bureau of Northern Indiana, “the young salespeople are also potentially being taken advantage of by their employers and forced to work long hours, endure substandard living conditions and have their wages withheld from them.”

Unfortunately, young sales people are also vulnerable to violence acts by crew leaders. The New York Times reported in October 2009, that “two young people working as itinerant magazine salesmen” in Lakewood, Washington were beaten with baseball bats and golf clubs after they told their bosses they wanted to quit. The victims, whose names and ages were not identified in the article, were hospitalized and their six assailants arrested.

“The industry’s out of control as far as violence,” Earline Williams, the founder of Parent Watch, one of the groups that follows the industry told the Orlando Sentinel in a December 2009 article that reported the beating of Brian Emery, a sales crew member called “The Kid” by his colleagues [Emery’s age was not reported]. New to traveling sales, Emery, told deputies that his team members gave him $12 to buy beer but became enraged when he bought the wrong brand. Two men were charged with beating Emery, one of whom broke a beer bottle across his face in the incident which took place in Osceola County, Florida.

In May 2008, police in Spokane, Washington investigated a 16-year-old’s claim that she was held as a captive worker by a door-to-door sales company. She escaped after the sales crew leaders beat up her boyfriend because he wasn’t selling enough magazines.

Many youth desperate for work are lured in with promises that they will earn good money, travel the country, and meet fun people selling door-to-door. One young man was told that the experience would be like MTV’s Road Rules.

The reality is often far different. Many salesmen work six days a week and 10 to 14 hours a day. Unscrupulous traveling sales companies charge young workers for expenses like rent and food that requires them to turn over all the money they ostensibly make from selling magazines or goods. When they try to quit or leave the crew, they are told they can’t. Disreputable companies have been known to seize young workers’ money, phone cards, and IDs and restrict their ability to call their parents. Drug use and underage drinking are not uncommon. A New York Times report in 2007 found that crew members often make little money after expenses are deducted. On some crews, lowest sellers are forced to fight each other or punished by being made to sleep on the floor.

Few of the magazine sales teams do background checks on their workers, Phil Ellenbecker, told the Orlando Sentinel. Ellenbecker runs an industry watchdog group based in Wisconsin that has tracked about 300 felony crimes and 86 deaths attributed to door-to-door vendors. “It’s not uncommon to get recently released felons knocking on your door trying to sell you magazines,” said Ellenbecker.

One salesman who spent 10 years on crews and eventually became a crew manager told the Indiana Student Daily newspaper, “I regret a lot of stuff I did….I’d become this monster. Lying to kids, telling them how good the job was, and it wasn’t a good job at all.”

A tough economy has made it tougher to sell magazines and according to Earline Williams of Parent Watch, that has meant more violence on crews and more sales employees abandoned. “It’s gotten meaner,” she told NCL. 

Among the possible dangers of working on traveling sales crews:

Murder: In addition to the suspected murder of Jennifer Hammond in 2003, other relatively recent murders:

  • In November 2007, Tracie Anaya Jones, 19, who was a member of a traveling sales crew, was found dead of stab wounds. Originally from Oregon, Jones was last seen working in Little Rock Arkansas before her body was found 150 miles away in Memphis, Tennessee. Her killing remains unsolved and was featured on America’s Most Wanted Web site.
  • In Rapid City, South Dakota in April 2004, a 41-year-old man wa

What would Kagan mean for consumers and workers? – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

So Elena Kagan is the President’s pick for Supreme Court Justice? Kagan is the current Solicitor General of the United States, and she brings a wealth of credentials to the Court – but what does her nomination mean for NCL’s constituency, consumers and workers?

That’s hard to know because Kagan has never served as a judge and therefore has no “paper trail” of decisions revealing her judicial philosophy. Nan Aron, head of the Alliance for Justice, on whose board NCL sits, is backing the nomination. The Alliance statement says that Kagan “will bring to the Court a respect for core constitutional values and a willingness to stand up for the rights of ordinary Americans. Her appointment also represents an historic step forward as women continue to take their rightful place on the highest court in the land.” The AFJ statement goes on to say “…we urge the Senate Judiciary Committee to use the confirmation process to directly address the bread-and-butter issues that come before the Court and which affect the lives and livelihoods of the American people.”

NCL agrees with that sentiment, but we still don’t know much about Kagan’s thinking on forced mandatory arbitration in consumer contracts, or consumer access to the courts that has been severely eroded in states across the country by so-called tort reform measures capping damages or statutes of limitations on faulty products. Or on worker health and safety, their pensions or their right to organize.

The Service Employees Union International, SEIU, which has a seat on the NCL Board of Directions, said about Kagan: “As the daughter of a public school teacher and a lawyer who defended the rights of tenants, Elena Kagan understands first-hand the direct impact courts have on people’s lives. Her commitment to fairness and to justice for everyday people has earned her respect across the ideological spectrum.

The SEIU statement goes on to say:

“The people deserve justices like Kagan – justices whose allegiance to equal justice and the rule of law trumps politics and corporate influence. And, nothing could be more important than restoring the Court’s commitment to these principles.”

This morning’s New York Times also noted that Kagan’s brother was a union organizer and both her brothers are schoolteachers in New York City today, and presumably union members.

We agree with both the Alliance for Justice and SEIU that Kagan has promise as someone who will support the rights of consumers and workers, but as the Times editorial, headlined “Searching for Elena Kagan”  asks, “where precisely, has Ms. Kagan been during the legal whirlwinds of the last few years, as issues like executive power, same sex marriage, the rights of the accused and the proper application of the death penalty have raged through the courts?. .. Her positions are unclear- or possibly to the right of Justice Stevens.”

This president is putting his faith in Kagan to be a Supreme Court justice who embodies his ideals. During the campaign, he described how we would choose nominees to the high Court: 

And we need somebody who’s got the heart — the empathy — to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old — and that’s the criteria by which I’ll be selecting my judges. 

We will see in the days to come – and if she is confirmed, from her service on the court, whether Elena Kagan meets the President’s test. NCL hopes she does – the rights and protections of workers and consumers depend on it.

Fields of peril: NCL applauds Human Rights Watch report on the dangers of child farm work – National Consumers League

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May 6, 2010

Contact: (202) 835-3323, media@nclnet.org

Washington, DC–The National Consumers League, the nation’s oldest consumer group and a co-chair of the Child Labor Coalition, applauds the release yesterday of “Fields of Peril—Child Labor in U.S. Agriculture,” a new investigative report by Human Rights Watch. The report finds that the U.S. is failing to protect hundreds of thousands of children engaged in often grueling and dangerous work in agriculture because of loopholes in federal laws that allow them to work at younger ages, for far longer hours, and in far more hazardous conditions than in any other industry.

Children often work for hire at ages as young as 12—sometimes even younger—for 10 to 12 hours a day for five to seven days a week. Temperatures in the 90s and over 100 are not uncommon. The children risk pesticide poisoning, injury from tools and machinery, and heat illness. They suffer fatalities at four times the rate of other working children.

Educationally, the impact of child labor on these children is huge. Long hours in the fields exhaust them. Many farmworker children leave school before the school year is over, work all summer, and return long after the school year. More than half of these kids do not graduate high school, creating a cycle of generational poverty in the farmworker community.

“The time has come to fix this glaring loophole in U.S. child labor law.” said Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director, “Farmworker children deserve the same labor protections that other children enjoy.”

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About the National Consumers League

Founded in 1899, the National Consumers League is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Its mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. NCL is a private, nonprofit membership organization. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

DC schools nutrition bill aims high – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

This week, the District of Columbia will likely enact the toughest, most directive legislation among the 50 states  regulating school nutrition and physical education standards. The bill will restrict calories on breakfast and lunch, limit the fat and sodium in the foods served to kids, and only non-fat or low-fat low sugar milks will be served. Lunches and breakfasts will be available for free to kids in need across the city, and a different fruit or vegetable – to give kids variety – will be served each day. Buying local produce will be emphasized.

This bill is exciting and even (dare I say it) radical, but how will DC pay for this sea change in school lunch and breakfast menus and greater access to free meals? Councilmember Mary Cheh – the bill’s sponsor – is proposing a penny-per-ounce tax on soda, which the spokeswoman for the DC Beverage Association is calling “nothing short of a money grab from working families and citizens of the District of Columbia.” But the beverage association better brace itself, because the bill appears to have the support of the majority of DC’s City Council and is likely to pass in some form. This bill also requires double the recess time built into the curriculum day for DC school students.

Councilmember Cheh’s bill is no doubt inspired by First Lady Michelle Obama’s campaign to get kids eating healthier and getting out from behind their Game Boy’s and Nintendos and out on the playground kicking a ball or playing hopscotch. I also credit my friend Ed Bruske, whose column in the Washington Post a few months ago describing the DC School lunch program, the contents of the food, and how kids respond to it provided a look into the DC school lunch program — and it wasn’t pretty.

Pediatric over-the-counter medication recall – National Consumers League

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One of Johnson and Johnson’s divisions – McNeil Consumer Healthcare – has issued a large voluntary recall of several different over-the-counter medications for infants and children.  Federal regulators determined there were manufacturing deficiencies at the company’s facility, resulting in the recall of 43 different products including Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec, and Benadryl.

The Food and Drug Administration is recommending parents and caregivers stop using the affected products, but it is important to note that they have said they don’t believe there will be any serious health problems linked to the recall.

McNeil and the FDA are currently working to figure out when the problem first arose; at this point, they can only say that the problem probably began a while ago.  McNeil issued a statement, which indicated that some of the products in the recall ‘may have higher concentrations of active ingredients than specified, while others may contain inactive ingredients that do not meet internal testing requirements, and others may contain tiny particles’.

Visit McNeil’s Web site for a complete list of the products being recalled.  Contact the FDA if a child who has taken any of the recalled medications any unexpected symptoms.

For alternative solutions, talk to your doctor or pharmacist.  While generic versions of the affected medicines can be used, it is important to remember that adult versions of medications should not be given to infants and children.