Increased farm safety is a good thing, but I'm sure many family farms already do their best to keep the kids safe. This bill seems to open up a lot of questions, with seemingly very little consultation with the actual farm community.
Do the work day/week hours now apply to the family? Are children now considered employees? If multiple families use the same equipment/help on different farms, are they all considered employees of the farm they are on and now need separate WCB insurance? If they already have liability and accident insurance, why do they need to get WCB as well? Does it stop the teaching of children how to do things on the farm until a certain age?
There is a lot of the "we'll figure it out as we go" type language in the official FAQs for this stuff, but there isn't a lot of consultation time set aside for it before the initial rules hit. Seems to me they are ramming this through just because they can.
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