UM worker’s death prompts move to alter child labor laws

PORTLAND – An accident in July that took the life of a University of Maine employee has prompted a legislative proposal to remove the state’s exemption from child labor laws that apply to private employers.

William O’Coin, 43, died while rescuing George Schaefer, a 16-year-old summer worker at the university’s Center for Cooperative Aquaculture Research in Franklin. Schaefer had been overwhelmed by hydrogen sulfide gas while cleaning sludge from the bottom of a concrete tank.

Although the university system contends that the 16-year-old was permitted under state law to do the work, the death “made us take a look at the fact that the state, under current law, is exempt from child labor laws that apply to private industry,” said Adam Fisher, spokesman for the Maine Department of Labor.

Schaefer was not wearing breathing apparatus while working in the confined space, Fisher said, and O’Coin’s death might not have been prevented had the state been required to abide by child labor laws. Still, “it made us take a look at it,” Fisher said. “I know we began talking about it shortly after this incident came up.”

Under Maine’s child labor law, people younger than 18 may not “be employed in any capacity that the director determines to be hazardous, injurious to life or limb,” among other rules, Fisher said.

A spokesman for the university system, however, said that its policy always has been to follow state law, even though it was exempt from it.

John Diamond said that as he understands the law, people who are 16 and older may work in any farm job at any time.

He said he has not seen the bill, “but our practice is to follow the state laws, regardless of whether some feel that we are exempt. We don’t approach it as if we are.”