Amish Fight Child Labor Ban

One of the more important advances in labor legislation in America was the banning of child labor - no more, it was decided, would children be expected to work in dangerous factories for little pay and with little protection. But should certain religious groups be exempt from these laws?

That's what the Amish want, as Scotland on Sunday reports:

[T]he Amish, a conservative protestant sect dating from the 1600s, believe the ban threatens their culture, which has always stressed a sturdy self-sufficiency, and depended on teenage boys learning a trade in their formative years. "These are occupations that reinforce self-reliance within our group or community, as well as the work ethic," said William Burkholder, who owns an Amish lumber company in Centerville, Pennsylvania, testifying at a congressional hearing.

Burkholder said: "If we couldn’t put our boys to work and they didn’t do nothing until they were 18, they’d be absolutely worthless. We want them to be able to be obedient and learn a trade. If they don’t, they’ll be out getting into mischief. Next thing you know you’ll have a bunch of them getting into dope and drinking and partying. Our kids don’t do that." ... The issue is increasingly pressing as ever greater numbers of Amish are moving from the land to machine shops because of the difficulty in making a living from agriculture.

A couple of important points need to be made here. First, the Amish aren't asking so much for a religious exemption as a cultural exemption. Yes, religion and culture are deeply intertwined, but I don't see here an argument that working in mills is necessary for Amish children to practice their religion; rather, I see the argument that children working in mills is necessary to maintain an Amish culture which is distinct from the rest of American culture.

Now, maintaining a distinct culture isn't a bad thing - but I don't think that the desire to do so merits as much deference as the desire that a person has to follow the dictates of their conscience, for example through religious practices. Not all cultural practices are equal; some are, in fact, very much worth dispensing with. Children laboring in mills may be one of them. It is curious that one of the supporters of the Amish, Senator Rick Santorum, isn't someone I would usually associate with the efforts to defend multiculturalism.

Second, it's a fact that any number of Amish children are already into drinking, partying, and drugs. These problems have not bypassed the Amish community. It's not at all clear that children working in mills would either change things or that it would have prevented them entirely. Adults who work in mills aren't immune from drinking and drugs, are they? It's also worth keeping in mind that working in a mill is not the only means for learning a trade and becoming self-reliant. All of that can be achieved on the farms - but that doesn't earn as much money. So, what it really seems to come down to is not so much religion or even culture, but rather cold, hard cash.

Children working in mills will bring in money. Children working on farms won't, or at least won't bring in as much. That, of course, was one of the original reasons for putting children to work in factories to begin with - they could earn money while the mill owners could get away with paying less. Those aren't good reasons for doing it again.

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