Ages 16 and 17
The only occupational restrictions for 16- and 17-year-olds are the 17 Hazardous Occupations. They apply either on an industry-wide basis, with exceptions for specific occupations, or on an occupational basis, regardless of the industry in which the occupations are found. There are no exceptions to ten of the H.O.s, while seven of them, which will be noted, do permit 16- and 17-year-olds to engage in the activity if they are bona fide student learners or apprentices. Only those H.O.s which are most frequently violated or pose special interpretation problems will be discussed in detail here, although all will be listed.
There are no exceptions to the following ten H.O.s, which means that they are prohibited for all 16- and 17-year-olds.
1. Manufacturing and storing explosives.
2. Motor vehicle driver and outside helper. However, this restriction does not bar 16- and 17-year-olds from car and small (under 6,000 pounds) truck driving, when it is "occasional and incidental" to the youth's employment, and then only during daylight hours, and not including any towing of vehicles. This eliminates all jobs that require either driving for deliveries, errands, and pick-ups, and all jobs as the assistant for such activities, even if the young worker never takes the wheel. The law (and the documented experience of a very high rate of adolescent injuries) considers a job consisting of pulling over on public roads, clogged urban streets, or at transportation bays to load and unload from delivery trucks or driving for perhaps a ten-hour day, to be an extremely hazardous activity, quite different in kind and in result from young people's recreational use of their own cars.
3. Coal mining.
4. Mining other than coal mining.
5. Logging and sawmilling, although 16- and 17-year-olds may work in the offices or in repair or maintenance shops or logging camps of such operations.
6. Jobs involving exposure to radioactive substances and ionizing radiations.
7. Operating, riding or assisting on power-driven hoisting apparatus, including elevators and work that involves riding on a manlift or on an unattended freight elevator, except that operating an unattended automatic passenger elevator is permitted.
8. Operating, assisting, setting up, adjusting, repairing or cleaning power-driven bakery machines, including dough mixers, most commonly used in commercial pizza restaurants, as was previously discussed.
9. Manufacturing brick, tile or like product, except for work in the offices of such an establishment.
10. Wrecking, demolition, and shipbreaking, including cleanup and salvage work (and also including all such activities at the site of a total or partial razing), demolishing or dismantling of a building, structure, ship, or any other vessel. This bars 16- and 17-year-olds from working on the site of construction activities that involve wrecking or demolition, but not from otherwise permitted jobs at construction sites in general.
The next group of H.O.s permit 16- and 17-year-old certified student learners and enrolled apprentices to perform the activity, but all other 16- and 17-year-olds are restricted.
11. Operating, setting up, adjusting, repairing or cleaning power-driven woodworking machines, including bearing or removing any material or refuse directly from a saw table or the point of operation.
12. Operating, assisting, setting up, adjusting, repairing or cleaning power-driven metal forming, punching or shearing machines, which does not however, include machine tools, whose use is permitted to this age group.
13. Most jobs involved in slaughtering and meat packing, processing or rendering, or in such plants or such wholesale, retail, or service establishments, and all jobs involved with operating, feeding, setting up, adjusting, preparing or cleaning power-driven meat processing machines. These meat processing and preparation activities are also prohibited at supermarkets, delis, restaurants or at any other location.
14. Operating, assisting, setting up, adjusting, repairing or cleaning power-driven paper product machines, including paper balers. Also barred by this H.O. is all work that involves starting or stopping such machines or placing materials into or removing them from such machines. Paper balers are usually found at supermarkets and other large retail operations, where they are used to break down paper boxes. This activity leads to frequent serious injuries.
15. Operating, assisting, setting up, adjusting, repairing or cleaning power-driven circular or band saws and guillotine shears, unless they are equipped with fully automatic feed and ejection. This prohibition includes starting or stopping the machine or placing materials into or removing them from the machine.
16. All jobs in roofing operations, except for such related activities as gutter and downspout work, installing air conditioners, exhaust, ventilating and similar appliances attached
Answered By: J. P. - 9/26/2008 |