|
"Those who say it cannot be done should not interfere with those of us who are doing it"© - S. Hickman
| Home Against the Grain Livid Leigh Boilin' Ed D. Tom The Informer Knowledge is Freedom Privacy Links Court Case Contact Us |
© 1994 - 2007
|
Livid Leigh
|
Father Loses Home and Business for Teaching His Children to Work
Are they my children or my employees? With nearly 20 years of marriage and 7 children, our home is the center where faith, birth, education, hospitality, business, work and worship all happen. Since 1992, I had been moving houses as a general contractor, and as common for self-employed fathers, I found the opportunity to take my boys, and thought nothing strange of it. I was involved in teaching and mentoring our children, and they would accompany me occasionally, from the time they were weaned. We believe children are a gift from the Lord to the parents, and we, not the state, have the responsibility to train them. Yet L&I has an agenda to usurp these rights as parents. In this essay I will show how the Department of Labor and Industry’s agenda disregards (1) the law, (2) the traditional family, (3) the safety of youth, (4) due process, and (5) the economy as they deny youth the opportunity to work with their fathers, the rich heritage which was our nation’s strength only one generation ago. Without a constructive outlet for youthful energies, families are strained, and youth resort to less-than-constructive outlets that are much more dangerous. Historically, our State Law has never considered a child working for their parent as “employment,” but defended the parents’ right and duty to control their child’s industry. Thousands of children have worked in family businesses and parents have even sued L&I, claiming their children were their employees and demanding coverage for them. Yet L&I has successfully argued before the State Supreme Court three times, that an employer/employee relationship between a parent and child cannot exist unless all four of these conditions exist: 1. emancipation, 2. a written contract, 3. fixed compensation, and 4. freedom to spend the money without parental control. The last time it was argued, the court affirmed, saying,
L&I new agenda! Though neither the case law nor the statutory laws in this case have been reversed, L&I now claims that the four conditions, for which they repeatedly and successfully argued in the Courts, are of “no significance” and “not a determining factor” for identifying employment between a parent and child. For 11 years I had been contracting as a house mover, and throughout January 2003, I was watched almost full-time by L&I inspectors. In February, I received fines of $34,000. for “employing” two of my boys (then 11 and almost 14) and subjecting them to an “unreasonable risk,” primarily working on my own property. They claimed that if I did “engage, suffer, or permit” my children to do “appreciable work” for myself, except for agricultural or domestic labor in and around my private home, I had “employed” them, even if while training the child. Their penalties are:
CPS agents, working with L&I, then tried to abduct my son, Zach, while he was with me in the L&I building. Next, L&I got a Court Order to keep my children off all work sites, off all equipment, and less than ten feet off the ground, and it “directed …all persons in active concert…to remove” my boys from any work site or equipment! Remember, I owned the work site! Can you imagine that a neighbor or police can now forcibly remove your child from your family business and private property because they worked with their dad? They found that I had exercised “direction and control” over my boys, claiming, “You were the individual directing him to do the activities,” which they say further determined an employment relationship. Now, my boys wanted to work with me, which is quite normal; boys without constructive work opportunities frequently end up in trouble. In fact, every L&I worker we questioned said they had a job before age 12. The Courts can give youth “direction and control” on “community service” at age 10. They will operate lawn mowers, hedge trimmers and razor-sharp sickles, but that’s not considered employment nor an unreasonable risk. Farm children have many early opportunities to work, including no minimum age to get a driver’s license in Washington for farm-related driving. They operate all sorts of heavy equipment with their father’s “direction and control,” yet the state doesn’t consider it employment nor an unreasonable risk. The public schools offer scores of different work opportunities with “direction and control,” including building houses and putting 9-year-olds to work flagging traffic at school crossings, trying to protect children in the road without adult supervision, yet its not considered employment nor an unreasonable risk by L&I. Our state law requires homeschoolers to teach occupational education, but if I have my son help as a “spotter” while moving a house down the road at 5-mph, with police, overhead linemen, flaggers and pilot cars diverting the traffic, and not in the presence of other children, but with his father supervising, they call that employment and an unreasonable risk; claiming homeschool vocational training is not “bona fide.” Christine Gregoire’s Attorney General Office acknowledges that a parent can train a child in “work-place skills and experience” like the schools, but unlike the schools and other nonprofit agencies (such as Habitat for Humanities,) they claim the parents cannot receive “an appreciable benefit from the student’s work,” without it being “employment.” The AG’s office will prosecute the parents if “the activities are more than just a learning experience or a parent teaching skills to a child, but a situation where the minor is contributing to the profit of the particular enterprise.” Their most quoted study titled “Protecting Youth at Work,” in 1989 by the US Dept of Labor, NIOSH, CDCP, EPA and DHHS stated that “youth face unique problems related to work,” and then it names the one problem: “Children and adolescents who are poor, minority, or disabled are far less likely than whites to be employed and, therefore, to reap the potential benefits of the work experience.” Not only does it recognize the “benefits” of work, but the study affirms the parent/child exemption from present U.S. child labor laws, stating that “Children of any age may work in family-owned businesses and on the family farms.”
The traditional family is under attack. I recently learned of another local family whose story parallels ours. Also developers, they were audited and threatened by L&I not to allow their boys to “carry in a UPS parcel” or “run an errand.” Without the previous work opportunities with his parents, one of the boys started “running with the wrong crowd” and lost his life playing Russian roulette. How tragic! In the U.S. we lose a youth in non-work activities hourly, though this terrible loss is seldom reported and never put into its true context. They have blatantly lied to the public and our legislators about the risk to youth at work, like claiming agricultural work “poses great hazards to youth,” while it accounts for only one-sixth of 1% of youth fatalities. Yet the development of skills and character in youth on the family farm is seldom surpassed! No, it is not the farmer that is posing hazards to youth; the real hazard is in driving a wedge between father and child by regulating their activities and restricting them from each other for the bulk of the day, thereby making peer activities predominant by default. This assault on fathers is greatly responsible for the fact that there are more of our nation’s 13 to 17-year-olds killed every 3 weeks than lives lost in one year of the Iraq war. That’s 15 times the casualties of the Gulf war annually, with virtually no one reporting or even recognizing the true enemy. The ramifications from redefining “to employ,” to include an “appreciable benefit” between a parent and their minor child will be staggering on the family. L&I claims that if you “allow” your child to carry in the mail, for a family “enterprise” then you have “employed” them, requiring minimum wages. They will “determine employers [parents] who are eligible to employ [to receive an appreciable benefit from] young people.” Labor contracts and wage disputes, standardized drug testing, privacy rights and myriads of employment laws and rights will all supercede parental rights. They’ve entered a report into evidence with “recommendations” stating that “the current distinctions … in whether the minor is employed by a stranger or by a parent … should be eliminated,” and advocating certain minimum employment standards “to ensure the equal protection of children” including insurance and “the same level of OSHA enforcement,” on family enterprises “including subjecting small farms.” They acknowledge in this “landmark case,” as they call it, that “family member employment relationships … hasn’t been challenged to this degree.” If they are successful, it will give them a precedent to look for “appreciable benefits” between the owners of the 700,000 Washington businesses and their children. Presently, 540,000 of the registered businesses are basically “ma and pa businesses” without employees, in which L&I has no jurisdiction, that is, unless they can redefine one’s children as employees. It would also open the door for virtually every youth to file a claim with L&I for unpaid wages against their parents, completely redefining the traditional family.
Concerning Safety, the US DOL conclusively shows pre 17 as the safest age in your life to work! The DOL records work fatalities but not the hours worked under age 15. Their 2000 report claims 15, 16 and 17-year-olds have only “80% of the corresponding risk of the older workers,” yet their data shows that working youth are much safer than that. They show age 15 at 39.2 million hrs. of work exposure per death, and 16 at 58.8 m.hrs. per death, which includes homicide on the job, as compared to 40 m.hrs for adult fatality. Excluding homicide on the job, its 74 m.hrs at age 16. This is even more amazing when you realize that most 15-year-olds work on farms which have a 4.6 times higher factor of 8.4 m.hrs per adult farm-worker fatality. Plus their own studies claim that the hours worked by teens are usually reported by their parents and are grossly underreported. The actual hours are more likely twice those reported; putting 15-year-olds at 9 times safer than adult farmers per hour, and 16-year-olds at 17 times safer or one fatality per 148 m.hrs. But let’s compare, using one fatality per 74 m.hrs of work, which they acknowledge is over-kill. Do these officials transport their children in cars and if so, is that an unreasonable risk? That risk is 34 times greater, or one death for every 2.1 m.hrs of exposure and 200 times greater if their 16 year-old is driving. The chance of a fatality per hour of exposure to motorcycling is 651 times more, swimming, 79 times, snowmobiling, 65 times and bicycling, 19 times greater than that of a 16-year-old working. Obviously, safety is not the issue when L&I will not even identify at what level risk becomes unreasonable. The US DOL shows an average of 35 accidental work-place fatalities per year for 15, 16, and 17-year-olds combined, as compared to 3500 non-work related accidental deaths, plus nearly 2000 deaths from suicide and homicide for that same age group, per year. The US DOL claims that work takes youth away from high risk activities such as sports, recreation, transportation, crime, etc, yet state regulations are keeping youth from work. If the various state bureaucrats would step out of the way, the hours worked by youth nationwide would increase threefold, and if the removal of the regulations caused a 50% rate increase in fatalities, that would still be only 170 accidental work-place deaths per year for that age group. The extra 135 fatalities represent an additional 5.2 billion hours of work, or “safe hours” each year. That same time spent at the average risk of biking and swimming would result in 3432 fatalities. Driving youth from “safe hours” into high risk hours is wrong and deadly! Their policies may cost society a 20-time increase in fatalities by driving the youth into loitering, depression, obesity, poverty, gangs and other high-risk exposures when they would often prefer to work, save, and learn responsibility. Studies have recognized the rise in crime resulting from the combination of youth being restricted from the labor market, while at the same time the media has increased their perceived needs, and resulting in 500 to 10,000 times greater risk factors. Consider the thousands of parents each year who lose a son or daughter in a senseless accident or crime, and realize the terrible shame, remorse, and sense of failure that’s added to their loss, as contrasted with the relatively few parents that lose their children in an honorable work setting. Parents are completely ignorant of the increased risk to their children when they are kept from work, but these labor officials aren’t. But worse yet, these labor officials apparently like it, because it makes them look like they’re saving lives at the work place. There’s not one study showing a negative effect upon youth from working part time or from working with their fathers; father involvement and work both, have an undisputable positive effect on youth concerning grades, self-esteem, employability, responsibility, punctuality, money management, crime reduction and safety.
As for due process, those who see the benefits to youth avoid hiring them for fear of fines that can destroy them; taking 2 to 5 years in the administrative appeal process and $100,000. to get through the maze and into the County Superior Court. In the past, I spent 4½ years and made it only half-way through the administrative process, when I missed a deadline, which cost me the appeal. In that case, L&I had cited me for not paying insurance premiums on three contractors, who, as sole proprietors were exempt from mandatory coverage. The only question was as to whether they were contractors. The AG objected to me entering into evidence the Dept’s own printouts proving the contractors’ status, claiming “lack of authenticity” and the hearing judge denied it into evidence on that basis; while they both knew my boy had just ran over during the hearing and got the printouts from L&I. What about the right to a speedy trial before a jury of your peers? In this “child labor” case, the dispute is simply over them redefining the term “to employ,” yet L&I has successfully kept me out of Court for two years, arguing that I must first exhaust all “administrative remedy.” Their attempt is to out-spend, out-last, and financially destroy me in the meantime, claiming that they have no mandated time-frame to respond. While battling this “child labor” issue and numerous other charges, L&I assessed me $107,000. on an audit, though I had accurately reported and paid the premiums. They had earlier calculated it at over 300K but after 4 months of wavering and fearing reprisal in the press, they reduced it to 107K. A Dept report read, “Why is the department pushing this audit issue? By using his children instead of hiring more workers and by not paying workers’ comp on his kids or on his other workers, [note, I had paid $7,000. in premiums for that audit period, but had not paid on my boys, since they were not employees.] by cutting these and other corners, Mr. Doty has been able to bid so low on jobs that other businesses couldn’t compete. It’s part of L&I’s effort to “level the playing field,” which helps keeps rates down.” I’ve made many requests for public disclosure, but 16 months later, they still deny me the requested files, though law requires the disclosure. We had just moved and set-up13 homes on our 19-lot development and had sales pending on 12, but when I filed the “Request for Reconsideration,” they placed the case in “Abeyance” and liened my properties. With no hearings, they seized $130,000. in cash bonds, my bank account, the properties, a contract, and equipment. My six-plex and two houses (our home and a “spec-house”) had been mortgaged to finance the development. So when L&I refused to release a single property for me to sale, the project was financially shipwrecked, and within a year I have lost not only the development, but the 2 homes and six-plex as well. My losses due to the liens exceed a million dollars, not to mention lost employment for the two years I’ve been “to battle.” We lost our track-hoe, back-hoe, service truck and dump trucks. L&I even took title to our family van. With the liens, I’m not bondable, which completely put me out of business! Documents show that they have referred to me as a “Satanist,” “the antichrist,” guilty of “felony fraud,” and for 16 months they have identified me as a “repeat offender” on their website. With no hearing, they upheld the 107K audit in the “reconsideration”, claiming a formal hearing was not required. With the daily pressure of 8 active court cases, losing equipment and properties, utility shut-offs, and especially with the fact that they would not release the audit information on which I was to base an appeal, I filed the appeal late. Yet 9 months after filing the appeal, they’ve not even decided whether or not they will consider the appeal! I did get my hands on a few Dept. e-mails like “we will not release anything… Pls destroy this E-mail after reading” or “Apparently Mr. Doty wanted to obtain records…I really do not want any staff releasing documents,” or “I did not comply with the request,” etc. With these mafia-type tactics, only 17 out of 10,000 cases will ever make it through that web to the Court, the other 99.83% will cave-in and pay.
Concerning the economy, my last year of business I paid out 150K developing infrastructure on property I freely deeded to the city, to subdivide my property. I redeemed two million dollars worth of homes that were destined for the landfill to make room for new development; keeping them on the tax roles and helping many low income families obtain inexpensive housing. I generated a million dollars of revenue into this economy and I can’t even get these public servants to return an e-mail concerning this report, nor identify an unreasonable risk. I was told by an L&I employee that they would review the statistics in this report for errors and respond to my claims, but after three months and several requests, they are still avoiding me. They apparently feel little accountability to the public, forgetting that its private industry that builds the economy, and ultimately funds their salaries. We’ve lost our home and business. But when it comes down to losing the opportunity to work with our youth, we must stand. If we do nothing, we will surrender our Constitutional God-given right to apprentice our youth, and our children’s rightful inheritance of being with their fathers. There is an agenda to rob children of their fathers’ influence, but scripture encourages: “he shall turn the heart of the fathers to their children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.” (Malachi 4:6) They’re not my employees, they are my children. This article is the personal experience and inquiry of Jude Doty, who may be reached at judedoty@yahoo.com or 509-972-8777. http://www.familiesthatwork.org/our_story.html
We are thankful for each of you who would join our ranks in defending parents’ rights to work with their own children. You have asked for addresses and for a way to contribute the much needed finances to continue this battle, so here’s your chance to be a part!
Write letters and emails! Make phone calls! Dept. of L&I, Attn: Director Paul Trause
Senator Alex Deccio, Republican
Representative Mary Skinner, Position 1, Republican
Representative Jim Clements, Position 2, Republican
If you live in the Washington state, you may send a brief message to your district legislators through the in-state toll-free Hotline number: 800.562.6000.
Washington 4th District Congressman Doc Hastings:
United States Senator Maria Cantwell: United States Senator Patty Murray:
We greatly appreciate your continued prayer support!
- - Thank you & God bless you! - - We appreciate each and every letter of encouragement and support. Thank you for your comments! You may contact us via email at judedoty@yahoo.com or by mail at:
February 16th Update: Please note that tonight at 9:pm Pacific Time Jude will
be on a talk show with Michael Shaw of Freedom 21 Santa Cruz. This shall be
archived for those of you who miss the show. On Thursday, Feb. 3rd, WorldNet Daily published a story about our situation,
which was picked up by several internet and radio talk shows. On Friday, Feb. 4th, our home went up for foreclosure sale, and KAPP tv channel
35 carried the story. Jude spoke live on the Brian Sussman radio talk show on
560 am out of San Francisco. The positive response to our website has been encouraging. Many have requested
that we publish addresses of legislators and L&I officials for protest letters,
that we establish a donation fund, and that we offer an online petition. We
are presently looking into these options. We are also looking into opening a
trust account. At the forclosure sale on Friday, an unusual thing happened. The sale was scheduled
for 10:00 am, and there were around ten “buyers” present. For some
reason, they said there was a computer problem, and they were trying to fix
it. By 11:00 am they were ready to begin the sale, but at the last minute, the
minimum bid was lowered from $260,000. to $177,000. By this time, however, there
were no bidders present, and so the mortgage company purchased it back. This
cleared the title of all L&I liens; now the mortgage company owns it free
and clear. They may ask us to move upon a 30 day notice. We were told that usually
the mortgage company will lower the price to approximately 80% of the minimum
bid when homes do not sell. Someone suggested it may be purchased back in a
trust for us, and held for us until this case is over, so that L&I could
not seize it again. Jude spoke to the mortgage company and they will be getting
back with us with more information.
|
\