Senate committee adopts amendment to let 16- and 17-year-olds work in more manufacturing jobs
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Summary
The Committee on Government Organization adopted a strike-and-insert amendment to House Bill 4005, aligning West Virginia prohibited youth employment with U.S. Department of Labor standards and allowing 16–17-year-olds to work in occupations not otherwise prohibited, with safeguards and supervised training for hazardous tasks.
The Committee on Government Organization voted to adopt a strike-and-insert amendment to House Bill 4005 that would align state restrictions on youth employment with nonagricultural prohibitions in U.S. Department of Labor rules, and allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work in occupations not otherwise prohibited by state law.
Committee counsel summarized the measure as a clarification that “a child between 16 and 18 years old may work in any occupation not otherwise prohibited or that has been expressly determined by the commissioner ... to be dangerous or injurious,” and said the change gives the state flexibility to track federal updates without repeated code revisions.
Supporters described workforce and training benefits. Bill Bissett, president of the Westview Manufacturers Association, told the committee the proposal “came from one of our member companies in a rural part of the state” and said it could “demystify manufacturing for 16 and 17 year olds” by creating supervised opportunities.
Tim Burgess, president of ZIMS Bagging Company, said his firm runs high-school internships but must often wait until students turn 18. “With this, they could have been full time employees or employees for the full senior year,” Burgess said, describing a six-week training program that emphasizes safety, lockout-tagout, and lean manufacturing principles.
Sponsor statements stressed safety limits. The bill sponsor, identified in the hearing as Delegate Ryan Browning, said the bill explicitly bans iron-melting and similar molten-metal tasks and requires that particularly hazardous work for student learners be intermittent, brief and “under the direct and close supervision of a qualified and experienced person.”
The committee adopted the strike-and-insert amendment on a voice vote and then unanimously moved to report HB 4005 to the full Senate with a recommendation that it pass as amended. The committee did not record a roll-call tally in the transcript; the chair declared the motion adopted.
The bill will next go to the full Senate; the committee’s changes are procedural and, according to counsel, do not alter the bill’s substantive intent.