ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 3, 1995 TAG: 9512010070
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: BUSINESS EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Safety
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON
Michael and Pamela Pietrzyk worried at first when a U.S. Labor Department official called about their Roanoke-based chain of 31 Little Caesars pizza parlors.
"I thought we had had a complaint," Michael Pietrzyk said last week, recalling the incident this fall. He guessed that one of his 400 employees had accused him of violating wage-and-hour or other employment laws.
The caller had an important-sounding title and was in Washington, D.C. He was an aide to Bernard E. Anderson, assistant secretary of labor for employment standards.
Michael and Pamela Pietrzyk (pronounced pee-EH-chek) did not receive a fine, however, but a federal honor for exemplary safety practices. On Sept. 18, they received a plaque at a ceremony in Richmond.
Two programs had caught the eye of regulators. The Pietrzyks promised $100 to any employee under 18 who was told by his or her supervisor to run, clean or handle the restaurant's dough mixer and who reported the incident.
Child-protection laws say minors can't handle mixers or other pizza shop gadgets such as dough rollers and meat slicers. A conviction carries a $10,000 fine.
The second program that drew regulators' attention gave cash to employees of any restaurant that was accident-free for one year. Michael Pietrzyk said he sees fewer injuries than at other restaurants and pays 30 percent less for insurance since the reward programs began in 1991, a savings of $20,000 per year.
The award ceremony coincided with a rallying cry in Washington for better child work safety. Thousands of U.S. teen-agers do unlawful work in pizza parlors, at construction sites and in other work places, the Labor Department said.
Stripped by budget cuts of some of its staff who deal with such violations, the labor agency has focused more on teaching employers, school officials, parents and teen-agers the laws that are supposed to keep young people from doing work that will put them in danger or interfere with school
About 70 U.S. teen-agers are killed each year on the job. Nine deaths attracted the attention of regulators during the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. Seven employers were cited or fined, or both.
The number of investigations alarmed labor officials, because they investigated only one work-related death of a teen last year.
Some 200,000 American youngsters are injured each year at work, about one-third of them seriously enough to need emergency care.
Federal officials cite an increase in fines against employers - from $6.7 million during the 1994 fiscal year to more than $11.5 million during 1995 - as progress in their ongoing campaign.
But the number of "enforcement personnel" has fallen from 1,059 in 1980 to 816 in 1995. The lower staffing level contributed to a huge drop in the number of teen-agers found working in violation of the law - from 8,444 during 1994 to 5,955 in 1995, said Art Kerschner, a child labor official. Still, fines are up because labor officials stiffened the penalities in 1995.
A 1938 law determines which jobs are open to teen-agers, based on the child's age and the job's degree of danger. The federal government has no say, however, over what children do on a farm owned or operated by their parents.
Nonfarm work open to children younger than 14 is limited to delivering newspapers; performing in a theater, movie or TV or radio show; and working in a parent's business if the job isn't dangerous.
Children 14 and 15 can work as cashiers, office employees, waiters, dishwashers, cooks, salespeople, gas station attendants, janitors and delivery people, as long as they walk, ride a bike or use public transportation. For jobs considered hazardous, the minimum age is 18.
Regulators and those in industry still debate whether the protections go too far or not far enough. The grocery industry, for example, pushed for allowing teens to put cardboard in baling machines and compactors, as long as machines stop when a door is opened. A House bill to allow such work passed, but a Senate version is still being debated.
Here, from federal officials' list of 25 of the worst injuries and deaths, are cases that illustrate how violations can put teens in jeopardy:
A 17-year-old Woodlake, Va., high school senior was killed in an October 1994 traffic collision while he was delivering pizzas. Minors may not legally drive as a regular part of their job.
A 14-year-old boy suffocated in dry beans in a silo June 19 in Barney, N.D. Youths younger than 16 can't work in storage units or warehouses.
A 17-year-old boy was killed and nearly decapitated June 2 while operating an electric saw near Las Vegas, N.M. The law prohibits minors running power saws.
A 14-year-old's right arm and leg were crushed by a forklift in 1994 in Riveria Beach, Fla. The law forbids minors operating forklifts.
And a 15-year-old stepped ankle-deep into hot grease in 1990 in a restaurant in an undisclosed location. The youth had climbed above a bank of deep fryers to clean. No violation occurred, but federal authorities cited the case to show the dangers of restaurant work.
Authorities said similar incidents can be prevented. Parents must take an active role in their children's employment decisions, they said. Teachers must stress safety in school work-experience programs. Employers must train young employees to work safely and eliminate hazards. Teens must know and speak up for their rights.
As for the Pietrzyks, they said their business is safe but not perfect. They have a clean record with federal officials. A third of their stores are accident-free so far this year. But they admit rewarding four or five teen-age employees who reported being asked in the past two years to work with a dough mixer.
Said Michael Pietrzyk: "I'd rather pay $100 than $10,000."
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