Family Business Is State Business
Kids working at their family's pizzeria get stopped by the state. Stan Fisher writes for the New Haven Register:
Michael Nuzzo says he and his siblings learned how to make pizza in their parents' famed New Haven pizzeria, and his children should have the same opportunity in his restaurant.That's not the view of the state Department of Labor, whose special investigator visited Nuzzo's Grand Apizza Shoreline at 9 E. Main St. earlier this month to tell him that his children could not be seen assisting their parents in the restaurant, under state statutes that prohibit the employment of minors in certain occupations.
Nuzzo and his wife, Magdalia, are challenging the state prohibition in federal court, arguing that the statute violates their constitutional rights, and the generations of restaurant history that are part of their Italian heritage.
"It's our culture; it's our tradition; it's our civil right," Nuzzo says of their parental right to have their children learn the pizza business as his father taught his children.
Michael Nuzzo's parents, Fred and Rosemarie, opened the original Grand Apizza in New Haven in 1955, where it joined Sally's, Pepe's and Modern pizzerias as the four original New Haven pizza restaurants, Nuzzo says.
Nuzzo and his brothers and sister all worked in their parents' restaurant as they grew up, and "now all of us have our own (pizza) businesses because of what our father taught us," he explains. It was commonplace in New Haven pizzerias for the kids to work on weekends with their parents, Nuzzo says.
Moreover, Nuzzo says it's a matter of not wanting to leave their children -- ages 13, 11, and 8 -- at home while he and his wife work during the weekend. "It's to have our children with us," he said.
Clinton attorney Raymond Rigat, who is representing the Nuzzos, said the couple's children are with them after school Fridays and on Saturdays, and do not operate dangerous equipment, are not paid wages and are under the direct supervision of their parents and occasionally their grandparents.
My dad always said "work builds character!"...typically as I was complaining about being made to mow the lawn. But, I see it with my neighbors' kids, and with Sergeant Heather's. Helping -- around the house, and in Sergeant Heather's case, with her 5-year-old son with autism -- is just part of being a member of their family. I see all their kids rising to the responsibility -- and, in turn, being brought up to be the antithesis of L.A. spoiled brats.
Me? From the time I was about 12 to about 14, before I was old enough to get my jobs at a bagel place and assisting a P.R. lady, I typed addresses and names on letters and addressed envelopes for 10 cents each for my dad. It made me a blazing fast typist and taught me a good work ethic that I maintain today.
But hey, lemme tell you, it was a real sweatshop, sitting there at the kitchen table, in my parents' air-conditioned suburban house, clacking away on my dad's electric typewriter. Lucky for my dad, I'm guessing any statute of limitations on such terrible abuse to your child has long-since run out.
I onder how long until a local DA has parents hauled off in hand cuffs for instisting children clean their own rooms
lujlp at May 29, 2010 1:42 AM
My first job at 13 was picking potatoes at $0.32 a bushel. The more I picked the more I made. I had to ride my bike, five miles each way, to and from the job.
At 14 I was stacking hay and straw on a dairy farm and eventually milking cows.
At 16-18 I was a dishwasher (and did some prep cooking) in a family restaurant. The owners, at the time had no kids, but we all worked together as if we were a family.
I see nothing wrong with this. I also see nothing wrong with having a family owned pizzeria with the kids working there. It is a family business just prepping the next generation. We, as a country, lose a lot if these businesses go under. The local community suffers as they don't have have a local butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker. The kids suffer that they no longer have a place to learn responsibility.
Personally, the franchises suck at food. Where I grew up we had several local pizza restaurants. You could order a plain cheese pizza -- no toppings -- and totally enjoy the taste. I haven't found a franchise pizza that comes close.
Jim P. at May 29, 2010 4:17 AM
Oh, when a young kid, I used to often talk to dad about child labor laws! Learned about them in school one year I recall. Never made any headway with that argument in my family. I didn't care for all the work I did as a child. Dad began his own company when I was young, and work for me never seemed to end. But I can look back at it now and think well of it.
JT at May 29, 2010 5:41 AM
and how is this going to fly for farmers? I learnde how to drive a hay truck when I was 8 because I couldn't lift the bales. tractors too. big dangerous eqpt. on a friends farm. Then I started working my mom's store at 13... Too bad she sold it before I could take over.
We should be hesitant to apply child labor laws so directly to family businesses...
SwissArmyD at May 29, 2010 12:28 PM
I blame the Dept. of Children and Families. They've been given too much power, for the wrong reasons, and make it their business to get into everybody else's business, under the guise of "protecting" the children! Yes, there are some heinous abuse cases, but this for SURE is not one of them. What the state needs to do is investigate those parents who abuse their kids, not the ones who are trying to instill some sense of a work ethic! Idiots!
Grand, Sally's, Pepe's and Modern are some of the best pizza places in the business, and I was pretty upset when I learned that Pepe's is now franchising - they've got one in Fairfield on the Post Road, and one at the casino at Mohegan Sun. Those two are not as good as the original, mostly because the ovens are too new to have that authentic pizzeria taste. They'll get there, in another 50 years maybe.
I can remember walking down to Wooster Square from the New Haven Coliseum after a concert, to get Pepe's. The line was out the door, down the street and around the corner! They have the best clams casino pie in the business!
Flynne at May 29, 2010 2:21 PM
Umm, guys?
This isn't about child labor. It's about power, again: the power to enforce minimum-wage laws. You can't work for the family because The Man can't tell when you're on or off the clock.
You can't learn anything from the family because The Man must pay teachers to teach you. If only that pesky home-schooling didn't exist...
And you'll see that home-schooling is most vocally opposed by people who want bigger government.
Power struggle. That's why you must be an idiot unless government tells you what to do, when.
Radwaste at May 29, 2010 7:52 PM
Pizza restaurants - kitchens in fact - are dangerous workplaces. That is among the reasons that the state does not allow children to work in such environments. (Farms have always had a lot of exceptions to work rules).
Ovens (especially very hot ovens such as for pizza), open burners and cook tops are indeed dangerous to work around. There is no such animal as a pizza maker who has not been burned. Sharp instruments such as knives are inherently dangerous. Fire and flames are inherently dangerous.
Sure, let the kids work there. The State has no business trying to protect children from preventable accidental injury.
Besides, don't the parents have a right to monetary profit from the labor of their children? They are not employees since they "are not paid wages". Since when is it wrong for a man to get a day's free labor at the shop from an 8 or 11 year old?
Not to mention that Mom and Pop will save all that college tuition by training their children to an occupation (of the parent's choosing) from a young age. You have to admire that.
Frank at June 3, 2010 8:00 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/05/29/family_business.html#comment-1720561">comment from FrankFrank, why do you assume the parents are letting their children crawl into the oven? The parents who run this restaurant worked in their parents' restaurant. Kids are taught not to put their hands on the stove at home. Don't you think the parents give these kids some boundaries at the restaurant? This is none of the state's business.
Amy Alkon at June 3, 2010 8:35 AM
What do children get from the horrid abuse of child labor?
A work ethic.
Skills.
Experience.
Savings.
Character.
Fortitude.
Exercise.
Such children grow up to be strong healthy free adults who threaten the security of the state. Just think of the bureaucrats whose pension depends on these kids being incompetents!
Patriot Henry at June 3, 2010 4:34 PM
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