Teen injuries prompt review of job safety. (On First Reading).

A 15-year-old grocery store employee severely injures his arm in a meat grinding machine; a 17-year-old has both legs amputated after falling into a horizontal hydraulic baler at a recycling center.

Injuries of this magnitude to teenage employees have prompted the Department of Labor to consider new requirements for young workers.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recently issued a report that showed that an average of 67 workers under the age of 18 die each year from occupational injuries, and another 77,000 are treated for injuries.

The institute recommends that the labor department issue new "hazardous orders" and revise current ones, which prohibit employment in jobs deemed too hazardous or detrimental to children's health and well being. New hazardous orders barring teen employment are recommended if fatalities for a particular occupation exceed 10 incidents per 100,000 of all U.S. workers.

The report argues that extra protection for child workers is necessary because a teen is at higher risk of injury due to unfamiliarity with work, is less likely to be trained to recognize hazards and is unaware of legal rights on the job.

Teen workers also vary greatly in physical development. A machine engineered for an adult can be dangerous to a teenager who is not yet fully developed.

The new and revised hazardous orders also are designed to protect a teen's developing musculo-skeletal, reproductive and endocrine systems from exposure to carcinogens that may disrupt proper development.

Teens are most commonly employed in restaurants, grocery and department stores, as well as agriculture, manufacturing and construction. These occupations often involve working with equipment such as meat slicers, motor vehicles, power saws or other machines used on farms or in factories. Not coincidentally, many of the NIOSH recommendations advocate restrictions on those machines.

Copies of the report, "National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Recommendations to the U.S. Department of Labor for Changes to Hazardous Orders" can be obtained from the Employment Standards Administration of the Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor, [phone].