H. B. 2041
(By Delegate Riggs)
[Introduced February 10, 1993; referred to the
Committee on the Judiciary.]
A BILL to amend and reenact section two, article six, chapter
twenty-one of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine
hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to child labor and
allowing children sixteen years of age or older who are
graduates of a state vocational education training program
to be employed in vocations for which they have been
trained.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section two, article six, chapter twenty-one of the
code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 6. CHILD LABOR.
§21-6-2. Employment of children under eighteen in certain
occupations; determination as to other occupations; appeal
to supreme court.
No child under eighteen years of age shall be employed,
permitted or suffered to work in any mine, quarry or tunnel; orin, about, or in connection with any of the following:
(1) Stone cutting or polishing;
(2) The manufacture or transportation of explosives or
highly inflammable substances;
(3) Ore reduction works, smelters, hot rolling mills,
furnaces, foundries, forging shops, or in any other place in
which the heating, melting or heat treatment of metals is carried
on;
(4) Machinery used in the cold rolling of heavy metal stock,
metal plate bending machines, or power-driven metal planing
machines.
No child under eighteen years of age shall be employed or
permitted to work in a public poolroom or billiard room, or be
permitted, employed or suffered to sell, dispense or serve beer,
in any place or establishment where beer is served, sold or
dispensed, if dancing is permitted or allowed in the same room in
which such beer is served, sold or dispensed, or in any indecent,
obscene or immoral exhibition or practice.
The state commissioner of labor, the state director of
health, and the state superintendent of free schools may, from
time to time, after hearing duly had, determine whether or not
any particular trade, process of manufacturing, or occupation in
which the employment of children under eighteen years of age is
not already forbidden by law, or any particular method of
carrying on such trade, process of manufacture, or occupation, is
sufficiently dangerous to the lives or limbs, or injurious to thehealth or morals of children under eighteen years of age to
justify their exclusion therefrom. There shall be a right of
appeal to the supreme court of appeals from any such
determination. No child under eighteen years of age shall be
employed or permitted to work in any occupation thus determined
to be dangerous or injurious to such children: Provided, That a
child between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years who has
completed the minimum training requirements of the West Virginia
University fire service extension fire-fighter training section
one, or its equivalent, and who has the written consent of his
parents or guardian may be employed by or elected as a member of
a volunteer fire department to perform fire-fighting functions
without any such determination: Provided, however, That no such
child may be permitted to operate any fire-fighting vehicles,
enter a burning building in the course of his employment or work
or enter into any area determined by the fire chief or fireman in
charge at the scene of a fire or other emergency to be an area of
danger exposing the child to physical harm by reason of impending
collapse of a building or explosion, unless such child is under
the immediate supervision of a fire line officer.
If a child, sixteen years of age or older, has completed
vocational training and has graduated from a vocational training
program offered by the state board of education or its successor,
the child may work and be employed in the vocation for which he
or she has been trained and from which he or she has graduated.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to allow children sixteen
years of age or older who are graduates of a state vocational
training program to work in vocations for which they have
received training.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken
from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language
that would be added.