Summary of Child Labor Requirements for
Agricultural and Ag-related Employers in California
| SUBJECT | MINORS AGED 16 AND 17 |
MINORS AGED 14 AND 15 |
MINORS AGED 12 AND 13 |
| Exemption for One's Own Children | A minor of any age (even under age 12) may be employed
without either a permit or any limitation in agricultural, horticultural (including fruit
curing and drying but not canning), viticultural and domestic labor for or under the
control of his or her parent or guardian upon or in connec tion with premises owned or
operated by the parent or guardian. This exemption applies only during nonschool hours and
even if the minor is under school age. In a nonagricultural workplace operated by a grower (e.g., a packinghouse where the commodities being handled were produced by that grower and other growers) a minor is exempt from federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) coverage only if the minor's parent or guardian is the exclusive employer; where such an operation is a partnership or corporation, a minor is exempt from FLSA coverage only if the minor's parents or guardians are the sole partners or shareholders. (A minor employed in such a workplace is exempt under California law as long as the conditions stated in the above paragraph exist.) |
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| Minimum Age Standards Generally | May work in any job except those listed for their respective age bracket under Restricted and Hazardous Occupations, below. | May not work in FLSA-covered nonagricultural jobs (e.g., commercial processing operations). May work, with either written parental consent or on a farm where the minor's parent or person standing in the parent's place is also employed, in any agricultural job except those listed for their age bracket under Restricted and Hazardous Occupations, below. | |
| Permits to Work and to Employ | Required unless minor is a high-school graduate or has a certificate of proficiency. Minor obtains permits from school district where minor resides or attends school. Permits must be available for inspection by state labor-law and local and state school authorities. | ||
| Recordkeeping | In addition to regular requirements for maintaining employment records, an employer must keep for 3 years a record of the birthdate of one who was a minor when hired; copy of work permit is acceptable. | ||
| Hours of Work | When school is in session, may work 4 hours on school days and 8 hours on non-school days; with special permission may work 8 hours on school days before non-school days. When school is not in session, may work 8 hours per day and 48 hours per week. Exception: May work 10 hours per day on nonschool days during peak harvest season in an agricultural packing plant to which the Labor Commissioner has issued an exemption. | When school is in session, may work 3 hours per day and 18 hours per
week. When school is not in session, may work 8 hours per day and 40 hours per week. |
May work only in agriculture for 8 hours per day and 40 hours per week on nonschool days only. |
| Exception: High-school graduates and those with a certificate of proficiency may work same hours as adults. | |||
| Spread of Hours | May work between 5 a.m. and either 10 p.m. on school days or 12:30 a.m. on nonschool days. | May work between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., but from June 1 to Labor Day may work until 9 p.m. | In agriculture, may work between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. |
| Restricted and Hazardous Occupations | No minor may be employed in: explosives manufacturing and storing; motor-vehicle driving and outside helping on public roads; mining; logging and sawmilling; power-driven woodworking, metal forming, punching, shearing, hoisting-apparatus, bakery, paper-products, and sawing machine operations; jobs involving exposure to radioactive substances; slaughtering; meat packing, processing and rendering; brick and tile (etc.) manufacturing; wrecking, demolition and ship-breaking; roofing; excavating; certain jobs in gasoline service stations selling or serving alcoholic beverages; or handling pesticides. | No minor under age 16 may be employed in: manufacturing or processing
(e.g., cracking nuts, dressing poultry) occuations or workplaces 1; public messenger
services; transporting persons; warehousing; communications; construction; certain work in
retail or food-service businesses; automobile or truck driving; operating a tractor of
over 20 PTO, or connecting or disconnecting implements to or from such a tractor;
operating or otherwise physically contacting these machines-corn or cotton picker, grain
or potato combine, hay mower, forage harvester, hay baler, potato digger, mobile pea
viner, power post-hole digger, power post driver, nonwalking-type rotary tiller, trencher,
earthmoving equipment, forklift, or power-driven saw; near a bull, boar or stud horse, or
a sow with suckling pigs or cow with newborn calf (with umbilical cord); working on a
ladder at a height of over 20 feet, or on any scaffolding; felling, bucking, skidding,
loading or unloading timber over 6 inches thick; riding on a tractor; oxygen-deficient or
toxic-atmosphere fruit, forage or grain storage facility; certain silos; manure pits;
handling explosives or anhydrous ammonia; adjusting, sewing or lacing machinery belts;
oiling, wiping or cleaning machinery; near moving machinery 2; and certain other hazardous
jobs. 1 Exception: May work subject to the restrictions listed above in noncommercial agricultural processing/packing of only the grower's own commodities (i.e., where the commodities being handled were produced by only the grower/processer/packer employing the minor). 2 The restriction on working near moving machinery means that minors may not work "in harm's way" of any moving machinery; the restricted activities involving moving machinery listed in this section (which are specified in various laws and regulations) should thus be regarded as examples and not as an exhaustive listing of such activities or machinery that minors under age 16 must avoid. |
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| Posting of Notice | Farms employing any parent or guardian with minor children in immediate custody must post a notice, in English and Spanish, stating that minors are not allowed to work on the premises unless legally permitted to do so by duly-constituted authorities. | ||
| Wages | Generally, minors must be paid wages on same basis as adults. | ||
Note: Minors under age 12 may not work. Also, they may not accompany an employed parent or guardian in an agricultural zone of danger, meaning on or about moving equipment or in or about unprotected chemicals or water hazards.Prepared by Farm Employers Labor Service Sept. 1995