For clients and friends of Jackson Kelly PLLC
Volume 12, Number 7
©2016 Jackson Kelly PLLC
As summer approaches, many high school and college students begin looking for summer jobs. Often, teenage job seekers will look to their parents to see if there might be a position for them working temporarily with their parent's employer. What about the employment opportunities in the mining industry? Are there restrictions on what jobs a summer student can perform? Are there restrictions on mine operators in who they might hire for these temporary positions? The answer: it depends.
Generally, the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA") prohibits minors under the age of 18 from performing most occupations in a mine. The Department of Labor designates mining as “particularly hazardous or detrimental to the health or well-being for minors[,]” prohibiting anyone under the age of 18 from working in a mine. Regulations do not exempt family businesses from these prohibitions, and minors employed by parents or guardians cannot override the prohibition on working in mines. 29 C.F.R. § 570.2(a)(2).
Limited exceptions exist, however, that allow minors to perform specific occupations in mines. In coal mines, minors can perform the occupations of “slate or other refuse picking at a picking table or picking chute in a tipple or breaker and occupations requiring the performance of duties solely in offices or in repair or maintenance shops located in the surface part of any coal-mining plant[.]” 29 C.F.R. § 570.53.
Minors at any mine that is not a coal mine must meet one of the following exceptions to work:
- Work in offices, in the warehouse or supply house, in the change house, in the laboratory, and in repair or maintenance shops not located underground.
- Work in the operation and maintenance of living quarters.
- Work outside the mine in surveying, in the repair and maintenance of roads, and in general clean-up about the mine property such as clearing brush and digging drainage ditches.
- Work of track crews in the building and maintaining of sections of railroad track located in those areas of open-cut metal mines where mining and haulage activities are not being conducted at the time and place that such building and maintenance work is being done.
- Work in or about surface placer mining operations other than placer dredging operations and hydraulic placer mining operations.
- The following work in metal mills other than in mercury-recovery mills or mills using the cyanide process:
- Work involving the operation of jigs, sludge tables, flotation cells, or drier-filters;
- Work of hand-sorting at picking table or picking belt;
- General clean-up work[.]
29 C.F.R. § 570.60(a). Any work at a mine that falls within one of the above exceptions is suitable for minors between the ages of 16 and 18 years. 29 C.F.R. § 570.2(a).
In addition to the FLSA and federal regulations, every state regulates child labor. If state and federal laws conflict, employers must follow the stricter of the two; federal law sets minimum restrictions that states may expand upon. State law, therefore, can restrict employment of minors to a greater extent than federal law. If you are thinking about hiring temporary summer students to work at your mine site, confirm what the restrictions are under your applicable state law.
When one of the above exceptions allows a minor to work at a mine, the mine must also comply with other regulations. For example, the Mine Act would require training before a minor could perform certain work duties. State laws may also impose other requirements, and mine operators should consider requiring applicants to obtain a Certificate of Age from the Department of Labor. 29 C.F.R. § 570.5. Federal and state laws restrict the occupation of minors in various ways, especially in the mining industry. Even when hiring a close relative, mine operators must be aware of and comply with complex regulations.
This article was authored by Benjamin J. Ross, Jackson Kelly PLLC. For more information on the author, click here.
OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH PRACTICE GROUP
Denver, Colorado
Responsible Attorney
Kristin R.B. White
(303) 390-0006
The Jackson Kelly PLLC Occupational Safety & Health News-Alert is for informational purposes only and not for the purposes of offering legal advice or a legal opinion on any matter. No reader should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any statement in the Jackson Kelly PLLC Occupational Safety & Health News-Alert without seeking advice from qualified legal counsel on the particular facts and circumstances involved.
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