A Valentine to Florence Kelley – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

Friday’s Washington Post featured a story about the recession sending more women into the workplace, many returning to work after spending years at home with their kids. In 2008, the first year of the recession, employed wives contributed 45 percent of the household income, a high for the decade.

Experts think that the unemployment rate for men is higher at 10 percent because industries that are male-dominated, like construction and manufacturing, have been hit hardest in the economic downturn. Health care and education industries tend to be women-dominated, and in many cases they have actually added jobs, opening doors to women’s return to work. The women quoted in this article talk about how “hectic” life becomes once they go back to work, how getting home in the evening means daycare pickup, homework, dinner, and bedtime.

I find all of this really interesting when viewed through the lens of history. I’m currently reading the fascinating new publication, “The Selected Letters of Florence Kelley, 1869-19311” the National Consumers League’s first General Secretary. Kelley – who, from the very first day of NCL’s founding in 1899, fought valiantly for basic rights and protections of women that many of us take for granted today. Kelley worked for the right of women to earn minimum wage and not be forced to work more than 10 hours per day, six days a week (a protection upheld in the 1908 Supreme Court case of Muller v. Oregon).

When NCL was founded, millions of women in the United States went to work each day in factories, bakeries, mills, hospitals, or laundries in the near-dawn hours – or started work at night – and never knew when they would return home. Their employers controlled how long they worked and what they would get paid. And no one got paid overtime. To make matters worse, women often worked for pauper’s wages, while being exposed to dangerous working conditions, including exposure to chemicals, repetitive movements, poor ventilation, or dangerous machinery.

The worst thing the women quoted in Friday’s Washington Post article complain of are hectic nights now that they aren’t at home during the day with their children. Of course, many less fortunate women in this country still face sweatshop working conditions, low wages, and even “wage-theft” where they put in hours that their employers don’t pay them for. And NCL continues to support efforts to improve their lot.

But for millions of working women, conditions have improved enormously. On this Valentine’s Day, we owe a debt of thanks to Florence Kelley and the many women and men of the National Consumers League who fought in the courts, in the state legislatures, and in Congress to provide millions of women far better working conditions today

The working poor lose a great friend and advocate – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

On Tuesday I attended the funeral of Beth Shulman, a Washington, DC-based labor leader and a champion of the working poor. I didn’t know her well; I had met her a few times at various events, most recently at the Retirement USA conference in October. Shortly after the conference, she was diagnosed with brain cancer. As I listened to the eulogies at the funeral this week, I had a feeling of deep regret that I hadn’t taken the time to get to know Shulman better, for her life’s work — advocating for low-wage workers, including working for minimum wages, paid sick days, and paid family leave — closely tracks the work of NCL.

Shulman was a vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and in 2003 wrote the book, “The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans,” arguing that society pays scant attention to the people upon whom it depends every day.

She was a sought-after guest on news and talk shows, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, PBS NewsHour, CNN, ABC’s World News Tonight, and National Public Radio. Like Florence Kelley, NCL’s first inspirational leader, she kept the drumbeat going on behalf of the working poor.

In a Washington Post op-ed in 2004, she wrote:

If work does not work for millions of Americans, it undermines our most fundamental ideal: that if you work hard, you can support yourself and your family. …Consigning millions of Americans to dead-end, low-wage jobs endangers the notion of equal opportunity. A key to turning this around is understanding what made ‘good jobs’ good. There is nothing inherent in welding bumpers onto cars or manufacturing steel girders that makes those better jobs than caring for children or guarding office buildings. Workers organizing through unions, and the passage of social legislation, raised wages and created paid leave and retirement benefits in these initially ‘bad’ manufacturing jobs, changing them into good middle-class positions.

Shulman became assistant general counsel at the UFCW, which has a seat on the NCL Board of Directors, in 1976 and worked for the union until 2000, with her last 13 years there as international vice president and executive board member for the 1.4 million-member organization.

Like Florence Kelley, Shulman was a prolific writer and advocate. She traveled the country speaking, serving on boards and committees dedicated to improving the lives of the lowest paid workers in America and calling upon Americans to recognize the dignity of their work and how dependent we all are on workers who earn low wages and receive few, if any, benefits. Tragically, Shulman leaves an 11-year-old-son and grieving husband. They should both know that her contributions will not be forgotten and that she inspired many young people to work in the labor movement. I feel sure Shulman would have felt right at home with Florence Kelley and her progeny at the NCL. If America had more Beth Shulmans, we might finally provide decent wages and benefits to our working poor and treat them with far more dignity and respect. Now that’s a goal to work toward.

CBS investigates antibiotic use in livestock – National Consumers League

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by Courtney Brein, Linda Golodner Food Safety and Nutrition Fellow

For the last two evenings, Katie Couric has presented a special *CBS news investigation into the use of antibiotics in factory farms. For decades, farms around the country have routinely added antibiotics to animal feed, in order to cause animals to grow more quickly and to keep disease from rapidly spreading in the confinement pens that characterize factory farming.

The CBS investigation segment began with a focus on a group of farm workers who have experienced repeated cases of methicillin-resistant staph (MRSA), due to their jobs handling poultry. Unfortunately, these workers are not the exception – and poultry not the only problematic farmed animal. CBS referenced a University of Iowa study conducted last year, which found a new strain of MRSA in 70 percent of hogs and 64 percent of farm workers on antibiotic-using farms in Iowa and Western Illinois. These numbers present a stark contrast to antibiotic-free farms, where researchers did not find MRSA in any hogs or workers.

These findings present a problem, not only for farm workers, but for the broader population. Health officials at the FDA and elsewhere have started to express concern that overuse of antibiotics in factory farming will contribute to antibiotic-resistant infections, a rapidly increasing problem in the United States.

While watchdog groups have long called for an end to the use of antibiotics in factory farming, no government action has been taken on the issue, as of yet. The FDA, however, intends to change that, according to Joshua Sharfstein, FDA deputy director.

“We want to put in place measures to reduce inappropriate use and we want to see that those are working – in order to do that we have to have a good surveillance system,” Sharfstein told CBS’ Couric. “There’s no question that needs to be improved.”

Not everyone agrees that American factory farms overuse antibiotics. Liz Wagstrom, a veterinarian with the National Pork Board, told Couric that she believes that the majority of pork producers use antibiotics appropriately. Other beef and pork industry groups, such as the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, have also made statements about the need for the current antibiotic use in factory farming.

One thing seems certain: this issue will not be resolved anytime soon. Interested consumers should stay tuned as the battle over antibiotics in American meat heats up, and those who are concerned about consuming antibiotic-tainted meat should look for the statements “no antibiotics administered” or “raised without antibiotics” on packaging at the grocery store.

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings.

Snowmageddon: Day Six observations – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

Today is Wednesday, February 10 in Washington DC: Day Six of a week of unrelenting cold weather and powerful snow storms that rival anything we’ve seen in the last few decades – or century, even. The federal government and local school systems have shut down all week. That’s unthinkable for a power center like Washington, and it means no Congressional hearings, no Supreme Court arguments, no lobbyist meetings with Senators, no presidential press conferences. The only stories on television are about the weather: the white-out conditions, heavy snowfall and 40+ mile per hour winds. Kids and their parents are stir crazy, cooped up at home without access to the usual entertainments – Starbucks coffee, movies, museums, and in some cases cable television and heat!

Because of the hazards to workers trying to slog their way into the office, including our hardworking NCL staff, we told everyone to stay indoors, work from home where possible, and be safe. In fact, local municipalities have asked that people stay off the streets to allow their dedicated staff to do their jobs of clearing the roadways. Their safety too is important; they don’t want cars running into their trucks on the slippery streets or vice versa. The safety and well-being of workers everywhere should be the priority during this most unusual weather crisis.

I was out early shoveling but like Sisyphus (who was compelled to roll a huge rock up a steep hill, but before he could reach the top of the hill, the rock would always roll back down again, forcing him to begin again). To no avail, the wind blew the snow right back onto icy steps. I then slogged through the snow with my dog to deliver a promised homemade loaf of bread to friends who were hosting a gaggle of boys (my son included) who had camped out at their house for the night. My Welsh Terrier eventually refused to walk any further, stopping dead in his tracks in blowing winds. He was fed up with the mounds of snow he had to climb through. I carried him the rest of the way.

It’s interesting to see the most powerful city in the world brought to a standstill by weather that none of the three branches of government can control. Bipartisan bickering has halted, if only for a day or two, and the extremes of this city – the powerful and wealthy and poor and disenfranchised – all contend with inconveniences and danger ranging from digging out their cars to power outages. The only substantive debate seems to be whether the federal government should kick in to support local snow removal budgets in Maryland, Virginia, and the District. We have yet to see how that turns out.

No doubt all will be back to normal in a few days. The weatherman is predicting dry, 36-degree days ahead, but none of us will forget the week in February 2010 when snow storms closed the schools, closed the museums, and closed every branch of government in Washington DC.

‘Let’s Move’ to eliminate childhood obesity in a generation – National Consumers League

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By Mimi Johnson, NCL Health Policy Associate

While the thought of ‘moving’ in the knee-deep snow outside here in the nation’s capitol might be a bit daunting at the moment, the First Lady just announced an initiative to get American youth active and to make childhood obesity a thing of the past in a generation.

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Let’s Move seeks the support and resources of a community to reach and teach children about making healthier choices.  The initiative brings together families, schools, private industry, and government, in an effort to make an easier transition to healthier living.  NCL commends the First Lady and the many different sectors for reminding us to take responsibility for the health, well-being and future of a generation.

According to Michelle Obama, “it’s not about being 100 percent perfect, 100 percent of the time.”   Herself a fan of french fries and a good burger, the First Lady said, “there’s a place for cookies and ice cream, burgers and fries – that’s part of the fun of childhood.”  With one out of every three children overweight or obese, this has become a $150 billion a year issue that transcends politics.  As Obama reminded us all, we need to take the necessary steps today to ensure a generation of kids won’t be lost to this epidemic.

In conjunction with the launch of Let’s Move, the President issued a memorandum establishing the first-ever national task force on childhood obesity.  Through cross-department collaborations with the Departments of the Interior, Health and Human Services, Agriculture and Education, this bi-partisan effort is anchored by four pillars – nutrition information, increased physical education, easier access to healthy foods, and personal responsibility.

More specifically, some of the initiative’s elements include:

  • Empowering Consumers: By the end of this year, the Food and Drug Administration will have collected research, conducted dialogue with the industry, consumers and experts, and completed guidance for retailers and manufacturers to adopt new nutritionally sound and consumer friendly front-of-package labeling. This will put us on a path towards 65 million parents in America having easy access to the information needed to make healthy choices for their children. Many are already answering FDA’s call – including the nation’s beverage industry who are taking steps to provide clearly visible information about calories on the front of their products, as well as on vending machines and soda fountains.
  • A prescription for healthier living: The American Academy of Pediatrics, in collaboration with a broader medical community, will educate doctors and nurses across the country about obesity, ensure they regularly monitor your child’s Body Mass Index, provide counseling for healthy eating early on, and even write a prescription for parents laying out the simple things they can do to increase healthy eating and active play.
  • Next Generation Food Pyramid: To better help the public make healthier food and physical activity choices, the US Department of Agriculture plans to revamp the famous food pyramid  symbol and online interactive tools.  MyPyramid.gov is one of the most popular websites in the federal government and  a 2.0 version of the Web site will offer consumers a host of tools to  put the Dietary Guidelines into practice.
  • Empowering Change: The USDA has created the first-ever Food Atlas, an interactive database that maps components of healthy food environments down to the local level across the country.   This information can be used by all sectors – including parents, educators, government and businesses – to empower and create change across the country. It will include tools to identify the existence of food deserts, high incidences of diabetes, and other conditions in their communities.
  • Let’s Move start-up tools: This spring, Let’s Move will provide parents with simple and easy to use tips and toolkits to help get them moving. Check back for Let’s Move toolkits, including your interactive family contract to set your goals, pick your activities, and track your success.

Toyota recall saga reminiscent of ‘Groundhog Day’ – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

Toyota’s current recall saga reminds me of the movie Groundhog Day – every day it’s the same thing, or a variation. First it was Toyota cars experiencing unintended acceleration caused by improper floor mats and sticky gas pedals, causing the Japanese automaker to issue a massive recall of millions of vehicles, stopping production, and bringing sales to a halt. Then, very quickly, the company announced it had a fix. So soon? (By the way, “product recall” is a misnomer that I find misleading because it suggests the product, in this case a Toyota car, will be retired or taken out of service permanently. That’s not what “recall” means. In this case, a consumer brings in his or her recalled car to a dealer, who fixes the problem at no charge. Recalls are mostly launched because of an inquiry and agreement with the company that it will fix the problem, prompted by consumer complaints about safety.)

I spent 10 years working on auto safety matters at Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, and I’ve had a hard time sorting out what exactly is going on with Toyota, so I can only imagine how confusing the series of events, reactions, and news coverage must be for consumers who own Toyotas. Members of Congress have scheduled a hearing next week, and two members on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are asking Toyota officials to clarify what exactly happened leading up to this recall. U.S. Toyota President James Lentz apparently told committee staff last year that the company first learned of the sticky pedals in vehicles driven in Ireland and England in April and May of 2009. But Lentz *went on the Today Show this week and claimed that Toyota first became aware of the sticking accelerator pedals in late October of 2009. House members – and consumers – want this inconsistency explained.

Sean Kane, who runs a group called Safety Research and Strategies, documented more than 2,000 instances of unintended acceleration involving Toyotas, resulting in more than 800 crashes and 19 deaths since 1999. Carol Mathews of Rockville complained in 2003 to NHTSA about her Lexus’ sudden acceleration into a tree. Apparently Mathew’s complaint launched an NHTSA investigation.

Meanwhile, to avoid problems with electronic throttles and sudden acceleration, some automakers have introduced brake override systems, which is an electronic adjustment that allows drivers to stop the car even if the throttle is stuck open. But Joan Claybrook, longtime President of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen and a former NHTSA Administrator, asked a good question: “If it was just a floor mat problem, taking the floor mat out would correct the problem – so why are they putting the brake override in?” Toyota told the Washington Post that this was “an extra measure of confidence like other passive safety features on our vehicles.”  Confidence is likely the last thing many consumers are feeling right now about their Toyotas.

Toyota could have avoided the negative publicity by more being upfront and open about safety problems, letting consumers know it was the company’s intent to fix safety problems. Instead we got inconsistent statements, confusing information, and a rushed fix, which – for better or worse – has been met with skepticism about its effectiveness. There’s a lesson here for all companies: consumers will respect your quick attention to address any safety concerns you uncover and will work with you to get the problem fixed. Don’t bury your head in the sand or blame the consumer for safety problems, as some dealers did.

Toyota — which should agree to be organized by the United Auto Makers union — makes a solid and popular line of vehicles; however, its handling of this recall has been plagued by confusing information and new safety concerns daily. Consumers deserve better. We hope Toyota can deliver on its promises to fix the flaws in the newer models and slow down its production line — if even a little — so that it can return to being the automaker many Americans trust to turn out a great product.

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings.

Tylenol products being recalled for non-serious problems – National Consumers League

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by Rebecca Burkholder, NCL Vice President for Health Policy

Consumers should be aware of a recent recall by McNeil Consumer Healthcare for several widely used over-the-counter drugs, including Tylenol, Motrin, and Benadryl products. The recall, done in consultation with the Food and Drug Administration, was issued after McNeil received complaints of an “unusual moldy, musty, or mildew-like” odor that, according to the company, was linked to a small number of “non-serious” stomach problems, including nausea, stomach pain, vomiting, and diarrhea.

If you have purchased these products (which include junior-strength Motrin, children’s Tylenol grape meltaway tablets, extra-strength Tylenol rapid release gelcaps, Motrin caplets, extra-strength Rolaids, St. Joseph Aspirin chewable orange tablets, and Benadryl allergy tablets) you should stop using the product and contact McNeil to find out how to get a refund or replacement. For more information and a full list of the recalled products, including lot number and UPC code (both found on the side of the bottle) click here. Any adverse reactions should be reported to the FDA Medwatch program. If you have medical questions, you should talk to your health care provider as soon as possible.

According to McNeil, the musty small was caused by small amounts of the chemical “2,4,6-tribromoanisole (TBA).”  The chemical is applied to wood pallets used to transport and store packaging materials for the recalled products. The company reported that “the health effects of this chemical have not been well studied, but no serious events have been documented in the medical literature.”

Remember that any time you suspect something is wrong with a medication you are taking (smell, look, or taste) you should contact the FDA, and, if it’s a prescription medication, the pharmacist who sold it to you. You should also contact your health care provider if you have any questions.

Love your heart during American Heart Month – National Consumers League

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February is *American Heart Month and this Friday, February 5, we remind everyone to wear red to support women’s heart disease awareness. Heart disease is the number one killer of women each year, and one American dies every minute from a heart attack. By taking a few simple steps, you can reduce your risk of developing heart disease.

The President, in a *proclamation issued earlier this week, reminds us that while costly and devastating, heart disease can largely be prevented. He suggests we protect our families from the disease by taking ‘responsibility for our health and that of our children – including *exercising regularly, maintaining a healthy diet, *avoiding tobacco, and raising our children to spend more time playing outside.’

*Remind your friends and family to love their heart.

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings

Americans going hungry a top priority for 2010 – National Consumers League

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Part two of a four-part series, in which we present the food issues we anticipate will affect American consumers the most in 2010.

By Courtney Brein, Linda Golodner Food Safety and Nutrition Fellow

Even in the best of times in modern-day America, amid a near-constant stream of news about the obesity rate and the overabundance of calorie-dense foods, hunger has remained a problem in American society. The current economic downturn has caused a dramatic increase in the number of Americans going hungry.

According to a USDA report on household food security in 2008, 14.6 percent of households – comprising 49 million individuals – were “food insecure” at some point during the year.  These figures reflected a sharp rise from 2007, when food insecurity affected 11.1 percent of households, or 36 million people.  And, while the statistics on household food security for 2009 are not yet available, USDA SNAP monthly data shows that the number of Americans receiving aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as “food stamps,” rose dramatically throughout the year.  In December of 2008, nearly 32 million individuals were enrolled in SNAP – up from almost 28 million in the first month of the year.  By September of 2009 – the last month for which data is currently available – that number had risen to over 37 million.  As the New York Times reported at the end of November, one in eight Americans and, alarmingly, one in four children now rely on food stamps.  Approximately 20,000 new individuals enroll each day.  And as the discrepancy between food insecure individuals and SNAP enrollment reveals, a large portion of the population still experiences hunger, whether steadily or intermittently, without the benefit of the supplemental nutrition safety net.  Of those who do receive SNAP, approximately six million individuals rely on it as their sole source of income, according to a December New York Times article.

While the federal government continues to fund the ever-growing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and food pantries find creative ways to serve a growing number of clients despite declines in donations, it will require more than patches to the nutritional safety net to reign in hunger in the United States.  The Healthy People 2010 objectives set the goal of decreasing U.S. household food insecurity by 50 percent from the 1995 baseline of 12 percent to 6 percent in 2010.  Clearly, this was an overly ambitious goal.  In October 2008, during the presidential campaign, President Obama pledged to end childhood hunger by 2015.  As the official campaign statement noted, “The most effective way to eliminate childhood hunger and reduce hunger among adults is through a broad expansion of economic opportunity…Barack Obama understands that poverty is the primary cause of hunger and has a comprehensive plan to reduce and alleviate poverty.”  Coalitions such as the National Anti-Hunger Organizations (NAHO) and the Campaign to End Childhood Hunger continue to provide policy recommendations and ground-level support for meeting food security objectives, but it will require that the government make a lasting, financial commitment to providing the economic opportunities and income supports necessary to permanently reduce hunger.

In a country as wealthy as ours, access to an adequate supply of nutritious food should be a basic human right.  And for those not swayed by the moral argument, there is also a strong economic argument to be made for reducing hunger, particularly among children.  As NAHO explains:

Over the past ten years, researchers have confirmed what educators, child caregivers and healthcare professionals know through observation: When children don’t get enough nutritious food, they fall behind physically, cognitively, academically, emotionally and socially.  They, their families, communities and country suffer the life-long consequences of these reduced outcomes.  Adults who experienced hunger as children have lower levels of educational and technical skills.  Ill-prepared to perform effectively in today’s jobs, they create a workforce that is less competitive…Ending childhood hunger in America will improve the health of its people while reducing short- and long-term healthcare costs, elevate the educational status of its people, and help the nation regain its workforce competitiveness and economic strength.

The ultimate goal of hunger-relief programs should not be merely to provide the necessities of life to those who need them, but to enable all consumers to be just that – individuals able to work and earn enough money to purchase food with which to feed themselves and their families.  And, while the Healthy People 2010 objective to decrease U.S. household food insecurity to 6 percent clearly will not be met, the year 2010 is nevertheless a fitting time to commit to the reduction of hunger in America.

Effort to pass legislation to protect farmworker children gathers steam – National Consumers League

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by Reid Maki, Child Labor Coalition

This post originally ran in Media Voices for Children, an Internet news agency for children’s rights.

In November, I reminded folks that young children—children who are 12- and 13-years-old and even younger in some cases—harvest fruits and vegetables on many U.S. farms and that many of them are allowed to do so because of loopholes in U.S. child labor law that go back to the 1930s. Child advocates have been trying to close those loopholes for years, and today, I’m happy to report that the campaign is progressing well.

Last week, Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO) became the 68th member of Congress to cosponsor the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment (CARE), HR 3564, which would close the legal loopholes and apply the same child labor laws to all working children. The bill, introduced by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) in September, would preserve an exemption for family farmers so their children could help on the farm, but the children of migrant and seasonal farmworkers who work for wages would have to wait till they are at least 14 to work. The U.S. Department of Labor would evaluate the safety of agricultural jobs to determine if some can be performed by 14- and 15-year-olds. The CARE Act would also prohibit teens in agriculture from doing jobs recognized as very dangerous until they were 18—the age limit in all other industries.

Campaign organizers, including the 24 members of the Child Labor Coalition, the American Federation of Teachers, the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, Human Rights Watch, and First Focus Campaign for Children, are pleased that members of Congress from states with large farmworker communities have embraced the bill. Twenty members of the California delegation have cosponsored CARE. Texas, another state that is home to many migrant farmworkers, boasts seven members who have co-sponsored the bill. The Progressive Caucus has been incredibly supportive with 43 members co-sponsoring the legislation.

Efforts to gain support among advocacy groups are also gaining strength. To date, more than 50 groups have endorsed the CARE legislation, including all the national farmworker groups—Farmworker Justice, the United Farm Workers of America, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, the National Farmworker Ministry, Student Action with Farmworkers, the Migrant Clinician’s Network, Migrant Legal Action Program, the Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Association and the National Association of State Directors of Migrant Education have all endorsed the bill. It’s great to have such unanimity within the community.

In addition to the farmworker unions, several of America’s largest national unions have also endorsed CARE: the AFL-CIO, Change to Win, the Communications Workers of America, the Teamsters, the National Education Association, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, and the Laborer’s International Union of North America have said that CARE is needed to protect child farmworkers and help farmworker families escape the generational poverty that traps them.

Hispanic advocacy groups have also spoken as one. The National Council of La Raza, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Hispanic Federation, the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute, and MANA, a National Latina Organization have all given CARE an emphatic thumbs up.

Other advocacy groups that have endorsed the legislation include the American Association of University Women, Interfaith Worker Justice, the International Labor Rights Forum, the NAACP, the National Collaboration for Youth, the United States Student Association, and the National Organization for Women. We are so pleased that these groups have come together to support farmworker children. In the past, the plight of these kids has not gotten much national attention, but we were really pleased with the ABC News coverage

of these working children in November. The report, which appeared on Nightline, Good Morning America and the ABC World News, found several children under 12 in Michigan picking blueberries, including a 5-year-old. The children sometimes work till 9:00 p.m. One 11-year-old told reporters he was in his third year in the fields. Another small child talked about the danger when pesticides are sprayed nearby.

Josie Ellis, a nurse with Migrant Health, told Nightline that the fields in North Carolina, where she is based, are full of working children.

She noted that the kids acquire severe rashes, respiratory illnesses, and neurological impairments from their contact with pesticides. They also miss out on their childhoods because they are working long hours. “Play is something that migrant children know very little about. Work they know,” said Ellis. “We see frustration. We see really tired kids. We see depression in children….despair…the inability to dream…the inability to see past high school…the inability to see past junior high school….I think it’s shameful that our nation tolerates child labor,” added Ellis. We are told that NBC News is working on a piece that should appear sometime this spring.

The Children in the Fields Campaign organizers were also pleased that La Opinión, the nation’s largest circulation Spanish-language newspaper endorsed the CARE Act on September 26th: “The Children’s Act for Responsible Employment (CARE) begins to correct legislation that harms primarily poor, Latino, and immigrant children and young people. There is no justification for permitting minors to work in the fields when it is unlawful for them to work in other types of employment under better conditions. Children of agricultural workers deserve the protection granted to all youth.”

One of the great things about being involved in a campaign like this is the amazing people you meet. In a prior blog, I spoke about Norma Flores, a young woman who spoke eloquently about her experiences in the fields and the many friends she worked with who became exhausted and overwhelmed by their work and dropped out of school. Now in her twenties and working on the Children in the Fields Campaign, Norma recalled her years as a child farmworker. “I hated it,” said Norma. “I hated to work in the fields. I hated getting sweaty and dirty. I hated getting blisters and cuts and sunburns. I hated finishing my row of work only to see there was no water to drink at the end. I hated to have to walk half a mile to go to a dirty portable toilet. I hated how the work affected me outside of the fields. I hated having to enroll in school late every year, to have to make up months of assignments and have to fight to get my school credits.”

Recently, I received moving testimony about working in the fields as a child from Julia Perez, who lives in Arizona and has also become a part of our movement to end this injustice:

My earliest memories start at the age of 5, when I was pulled out of school to start working in the strawberries in Oregon. We then headed to another labor camp in Idaho where I was handed a knife to start topping onions. I cut myself a lot, once really bad on my knee because as it turned out I needed glasses. My days consisted of early, wet, mornings starting at 4am and long 10-12 hrs days of work. This went on for 6 months a year in 10 different states. This was the end of my childhood. I was five, but my back and knees ached like an old person, I had scars from all the cuts, I hated the camps with bathrooms outside. We were so tired at the end of the day, we only showered once a week and mostly I didn’t want to miss school.

Julia noted that only one of her 20 nieces and nephews have gone to college. Child labor robs children of their futures. Can we continue to ask these children to make such huge sacrifices? Please call your Congress member and urge the passage of the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment—the CARE Act—today.