Entries by Reid Maki

NCL Report: The Dangers of Traveling Sales Crews

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Traveling Youth Crews Performing Door-to-Door Sales [from NCL’s 2010 Five Worst Jobs for Teens] The startling discovery of the remains of a long-missing 18-year-old girl, Jennifer Hammond, in October 2009, served as a painful reminder that traveling door-to-door sales jobs are very dangerous. A Littleton, Colorado native, Hammond, had last been seen six years earlier in a mobile home park in Milton, New York. She failed to show up at a designated pickup spot two hours later. Six years later, a hunter found her remains in a forest in Saratoga County, New York. Parents should not allow their children to take a traveling sales job. The dangers are too great. Without parental supervision, teens are at too great a risk of being victimized. Traveling sales crew workers are typically asked to go to the doors of strangers and sometimes enter their homes—a very dangerous thing for a young person to do. Frequent crime reports involving traveling sales crews suggests that the environment they present is not a safe one for teen workers. And with 44 percent of young worker fatalities coming from vehicle accidents, NCL urges teens not to accept any job that involves driving long distances or for long periods of time.

Safety Tips for Working Teens and Parents of Working Teens

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The National Consumers League issues the 2010 Five Worst Teen jobs to remind teens and their parents to help youth workers to choose their summer jobs wisely. Summer jobs can contribute a lot to a child’s development and maturity and teach new skills and responsibilities but the safety of each job must be a consideration. Many teens lack the experience and sense of caution needed to protect themselves from workplace jobs. In government speak, “young workers have unique and substantial risks for work-related injuries…because of their biologic, social, and economic characteristics.” They are reluctant to refuse to do tasks because they are dangerous or to ask for safety information. We ask parents to be involved in their teen’s job hunting and decision making, helping them to select safe employment. An important first step in the process is for parents and teens to acquaint themselves with the laws that protect working teens. Read what a teen worker can and cannot do at www.youthrules.dol.gov. The site provides information for young workers in each of the fifty states.

10 questions for parents to ask their child or their child’s new employer

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A parent concerned about their teen’s safety at work should ask these questions: 1)      Will my son or daughter be asked to drive a vehicle? 2)      Will the job involve their being driven by others? 3)      Is the commute lengthy? 4)      Is there any machinery or tools that my child might be asked to use that may be dangerous?

NCL Report: The Dangers of Youth Work in Agriculture

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[from NCL’s 2010 Five Worst Jobs for Teens] Farms look safe but they are actually very dangerous workplaces. Agriculture is consistently ranked as one of the most dangerous industries in America. In its 2008 edition of Injury Facts, The National Safety Council ranked it as the most dangerous industry with 28.7 deaths per 100,000 adult workers. According to Kansas State University (KSU) in 2007, there were 715 deaths on farms involving workers of all ages. More than 80,000 workers suffered disabling injuries. Working with livestock and farm machinery caused most of the injuries and tractors caused most of the deaths, according to John Slocombe, an extension farm safety specialist at KSU. Agriculture poses dangers for teens as well. According NIOSH, between 1995 and 2002, an estimated 907 youth died on American farms. Between 1992 and 2000, more than four in 10 work-related fatalities of young workers occurred on farms. Half of the fatalities in agriculture involved youth under age 15. For workers 15 to 17, the risk of fatal injury is four times the risk for young workers in other workplaces, according to U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

NCL Report on Dangerous Jobs for Teens: Driver/Operator, Forklifts, Tractors, and All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs)

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[from NCL’s 2010 Five Worst Jobs for Teens] Forklifts, tractors, and all-terrain vehicles pose dangers for many young workers. Several youth tractor accidents have been detailed in our section on agricultural fatalities and injuries. Some recent forklift and vehicle accidents involving youth: On May 11, 2009, Miguel Herrera-Soltera drove a forklift up a ramp when it tipped over. The boy fell out of the forklift which landed on top of him. Fellow workers used another forklift to extricate the boy but he died at the hospital. Nathan Lundin, 12, died in Gifford, Indiana in March 2009, when he was struck by an object falling off a moving forklift at his family’s business, Upright Iron Works, Inc. In March 2008, a 15-year-old boy suffered a serious leg injury in a Portland, Oregon wrecking lot when a 17-year-old co-worker operating a front loader knocked over a stack of cars and part of a concrete wall collapsed onto the younger boy. No one under 18 is allowed to work in an auto wrecking area, or operate a front loader, according to The Oregonian newspaper.