LAKE COUNTY — Legislation is moving forward at the state level that will allow teens to help with Lake County”s pear harvest, as it has for the past 12 years, according to local pear shed owner Toni Scully.
“It”s a very unique program that”s been a labor of love for many people in this community,” said Scully, owner of Scully Packing Company, one of two major pear houses in the county.
She and several community leaders and a few past participants were in Sacramento March 28 testifying before the committee to advocate for its fifth renewal. The law sunsets every three years, and January of 2008 is the next time it will sunset.
That means that the county has seen its last pear harvest under the current law, said Scully.
Labeled Senate Bill 319 this time around, the law would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work 10 hours a day up to 60 hours per week during the county”s pear harvest season, which usually begins in July and runs through Labor Day.
SB 319 was passed unanimously by the state Senate Labor Committee, which Scully called “a happy accomplishment.” It still needs the Assembly Labor Committee to pass it, as well as a stamp of approval from the appropriations committee that Scully called procedural. She said she doesn”t anticipate opposition there, as the legislation doesn”t require the state to invest any revenue.
Last summer 64 students countywide worked in Lake County”s pear sheds, said Scully, and earned a collective amount of over $72,000. “That is money that stays in our community that enriches the lives of these students and their families. And on the flip side of the coin, those were 64 workers that were desperately needed in the packing houses,” said Scully.
She wasn”t alone in her support of the bill. Among those who testified in its favor last week in Sacramento were Lakeport Police Chief Kevin Burke, Superintendent of Schools David Geck and Sausha Racine, a former student worker.
Geck said he had worked in a pear shed as a young man himself. He praised the work ethic the program builds in its participants, as well as the opportunities it affords them.
“I think it”s an excellent opportunity for students to be able to work in the summer and earn significant money, on average over $1,300 for three and a half weeks” work. In Lake County there aren”t a lot of summer jobs or opportunities for part time employment,” said Geck.
“This is a good way to find money for clothes, school supplies, car insurance and all of the normal costs teenagers require,” he added.
Geck further noted that the Lake County Office of Education inspects all the youth work sites for safety and issues work permits to the student workers. He said the program has “an exemplary history of keeping kids safe.”
Originally authored by Wes Chesbro in 1996, the bill has been renewed twice since then. Scully said Dist. 2 Senator Pat Wiggins (D Santa Rosa) came to the Scully Packing Company facility last summer to check out the program.
In a brief synopsis Scully gave of the history of the teen labor program, she said the county is seeing its fourth and fifth generation of teens working in the pear harvest. Lake County has operated for years under a bill passed in the 1950s allowing teens to work in pear sheds. When it was essentially thrown out when the child labor code was rewritten in 1995, Scully said she and other community members called Congressman Mike Thompson to see what could be done..
Scully noted that when the law was originally passed, it there were seven packing houses in Lake County. Now, there are three: two belonging to Scully Packing Company, one belonging to Adobe Creek Packing. Even so, Lake County produces approximately 30 percent of all of the pears grown in California, she said.
“It”s nothing new, but we”ve had to conform with legislative requirements to keep it going. The legal aspect of it had to be brought up to date,” said Scully.
She added that while not easy to renew, the biggest issue the legislation faces when it gets renewed is complaints from other counties that they would like to have similar programs.
“We are the envy of many other counties because we are the only county in the state of California that is privileged to have legislation like this,” said Scully.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.
