Advent Talk
SDA Media & News => SDA News Clips => Topic started by: bonnie on May 29, 2008, 05:58:28 PM
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LaurelBrook vs Us Labor Dept
Latest Document Relating to the Labor Case -
Academy is being sued by parents of a student for unsafe working conditions and violating labor laws
Laurelbrook School
Labor case update
May 7, 2008
This letter is to update you on the current status of our relationship with the U.S. Department of Labor. I know that many of you have been wondering if everything has been settled or what the status is. I hope the following will answer any questions that you might have. If not, please feel free to contact me via my e-mail address at cccdhess@gmail.com.
For those of you who are not up to date, let me give a short history:
Laurelbrook has a dual education program in that we combine Scholastic education with Vocational Education (see our website at www.laurelbrook.org or look through other sections of this web site) Our students spend part of the day in the classroom and part of the day outside the classroom in various forms of Vocational education. Herein lies our problem:
Labor case Update
http://laurelbrook22.adventistschoolconnect.org./article.php?id=6
Scroll to bottom of page and click on link to the lawsuit inofrmation
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Should have taken the Religious Organization Exemption as their defense. This clearly crosses the line, you know, that imaginary wall, between Church and State?
Gailon Arthur Joy
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I do not comment on the specifics of this case as I am not informed enought of the facts to be able to do so.
However, there is a history going back for more than 40 years of SDA schools being required to adhere to certain provisions of the regulations of the Department of Labor in the State where the school was located. I strongly suspect that a so-called "religious-exemption" defense would not prevail in such a case as the court have very narrowly defined the boundaries of that defense.
Am I saying that I believe that the school will lose the case? No, I am not. I see in what I have read the poetential for the school and the DOL to reach an agreement in regard to what regulations might apply and what might not apply.
But, it must be realized that the day when a church organization could put a teen in the drivers seat of a piece of major construction equipment and escape liabiality when the teen died in the operation of that piece of equipment and escape financial liability for doing so is long gone.
NOTE: I have seen the above. I do not claim that such is the case with this school.