Federal legislation targets teen tobacco workers

Nick Uchneat has spent the summers farming tobacco since he was 9 years old. He initially started by tagging along with his close friend, whose father Paul Jekanowski owns Jekanowski Farm, but soon the process of transferring the tobacco from the greenhouse to the fields to the drying barns took on a fascination of its own.

“I’ve taken a lot of lessons from it [tobacco farming],” said Uchneat, a 2025 Hopkins Academy graduate. “It sets up a great foundation of what hard work means. I learned a lot of valuable lessons from Paul and Kevin [Jekanowski], skills you need to develop way beyond the tobacco field.”

Uchneat switched from toiling in Jekanowski Farm’s fields to hauling tobacco at Plainville Farm in 2021, where for the past few summers a handful of teens have harvested the fine leaf tobacco used for premium cigar wrappers.

For many area teens, the summer job is a rite of passage in bucolic Hampshire County. Teddy Smiarowski III of Smiarowski III Farm remembers when his classmates searched for tobacco jobs to make enough cash for college.

“All the older generations say, ‘I remember growing tobacco. I remember working tobacco fields back in the day,'” Smiarowski said. “It’s funny to hear that those are the good stories.”

But this once popular job may soon disappear for the demographic all together if proposed federal legislation comes to fruition. The Children Don’t Belong on Tobacco Farms Act would ban anyone under the age of 18 from working in tobacco fields. Reintroduced this session by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Connecticut, the bill amends the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to specify that tobacco harvesting is “oppressive child labor.”

Co-sponsoring the bill are Massachusetts congressmen Sen. Ed Markey and Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal. U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern has co-sponsored a similar bill in the House of Representatives.

“Kids as young as 12 can be recruited to work on tobacco farms where they are exposed to toxic tobacco plants containing nicotine and may experience common symptoms of nicotine poisoning like nausea, vomiting, headaches, and dizziness,” Durbin said in a statement.

However, local farmers throughout the region, most of whom oppose the proposed law, say teen workers are a small portion of their workforce each summer, and none are as young as 12. Additionally, farmers in this area oversee far different operations than those in the South which tend to be run by corporations and grow tobacco with higher concentrations of nicotine.

“The takeaway message here is government overreach,” Jekanowski said.

Behind the bill

Durbin’s statement cites a decades-old study from Human Rights Watch that found teenagers on North Carolina tobacco farms were routinely exposed to pesticides, worked over 50 hours a week and experienced symptoms of green tobacco sickness. The temporary illness caused by absorption of nicotine through contact with dried or fresh tobacco leaves can cause nausea, headaches and vomiting.

While Markey and McGovern have not commented on why they support the measure, Blumenthal said in a statement that exposure to nicotine and pesticides at a young age can hinder cognitive development.

“Child labor laws in the agricultural industry fail to properly protect children from this hazardous, low-paying work, leaving them subject to illness and potentially detrimental impacts on brain development,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “We must update regulations to improve workplace safety on farms, bolstering the dignity, health, and safety of these children.”

Smaller farms, lower risk

Plainville Farm owner Wally Czajkowski said his tobacco crops are no more dangerous than vegetable crops. Of the thousands of teenagers who used to work in his family’s tobacco fields, he only remembers one or two having health issues.

“I haven’t ever felt sick mostly because we wear gloves when we do it,” said Corey Stanley, a 17-year-old who worked at Plainville Farm this summer.

Hatfield farmer Mark Wendolowski adds that tobacco grown in the area has low nicotine concentration, and cigar companies will refuse to buy leaves with nicotine concentrations that are too high.

He said the number of teens under 18 working in area tobacco fields is small. “It’s not a big priority here,” Wendolowski said.

Smiarowski said youth demand for tobacco jobs dwindled once more teenagers began enrolling in summer camps, sports and other activities. Most tobacco laborers in New England today travel across boarders to work the eight-month season. Smiarowski only hires workers on a visa for temporary work.

“They’re [teens] introduced to people they wouldn’t normally meet,” Czajkowski said. “I think that’s good. Then they realize they should learn Spanish.”

Historically, teenagers worked tobacco harvests because hauling the crop from the fields and hanging tobacco in the barn requires the most hands. Stanley explains that while vegetable crops make the trip to the barn every hour, tobacco is hauled every five minutes.

“It’s nice being on the tractor on a hot day rather than weeding or something like that,” Stanley said.

Czajkowski and Jekanowski have been growing tobacco for over 50 years. They remember their parents sending them to work out in the family farm year-round, but their friends would join them in the tobacco fields.

While many teenagers opt for other summer jobs, Stanley said at least half of his friends work on farms during summer. Kevin Matuszko, the youngest worker on Plainville Farm at 15, said he had fun working alongside his friends. The pay was a huge plus.

“Everybody wants to work in tobacco,” Czajkowski said. “If they’re given a choice between tobacco and vegetables, it’s a no-brainer. Tobacco is more fun. It’s more social and you’re doing different stuff all day.”

Both versions of the bill were referred to committee in May, where they remain.