Group alleging fundamentalist minister using child "slave labor"

JOHN MAINES and JAMES RICKETTS

USA TODAY

MOBILE, Ala. - Amid allegations he is using underage labor and unsafe practices to demolish an Alabama State Docks warehouse, embattled Mississippi children's home head Herman Fountain gave his crew the day off Monday.

But Fountain denied the claim by a Wisconsin-based church-state separation group alleging the fundamentalist minister is using child "slave labor" to tear apart a building on the Mobile docks.

The Wisconsin organization, called Freedom From Religion Inc., issued a press release saying witnesses observed "teenage boys working in dangerous conditions without safety hats and appropriate equipment."

The group also sent letters to Alabama Gov. Guy Hunt and Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus and requested an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor.

"Slavery was outlawed in 1863. This smacks of the worst sort of `chain gang' slave labor," Freedom From Religion spokesman Annie Lawyer Gaylor said Monday.

Fountain denied that any of his crew is under 18, the minimum age allowed by the federal government for working on hazardous projects. Of the group of 20, he said, "four were age 18, and the rest were age 20 or over." All are staffers at Bethel Home for Children at Lucedale, Miss., or former students who reside there, he said.

"They're not being paid anything," he said. "They're volunteers."

The controversy is the latest in a series of ordeals for Fountain, who was indicted on three counts of assaulting law enforcement officers last summer when police took custody of 72 children in a court-ordered raid on Bethel.

A judge ruled in July that 17 of the children had been abused or neglected by the home, following hearings in which both workers and students testified that physical punishment was common practice for children who misbehave.