4 ms·

I work on ESG consulting and part of the speech we give is "... ESG is not only environmental, there's other important areas to improve like making sure there's

I work on ESG consulting and part of the speech we give is "... ESG is not only environmental, there's other important areas to improve like making sure there's no kids working on your company, blah blah" kind of like a joke and it then triggers more jokes from the other side like "Oh you got us, time to change our plans" etc ... and then we never talk about the subject again because who is going to actually do that, right? Right?! Well, color me amazed, TIL there's child labor happening in the US.

vasco 4y ago
ESG is a complete farce in implementation, or at least that's what I gathered once I learned that a tobacco company like Altria can have a 79/100 ESG score. If there's enough "other stuff" that can bring a company who's existence causes death and disease as its main impact on society to 79/100, I don't really care about the scoring system.
- lupire 4y ago
  Altria's main problem is S, not E or G.
  - vasco 4y ago
    Altria's problem is that it exists.
reaperducer 4y ago
TIL there's child labor happening in the US. It is extremely unusual for this kind of labor abuse to be carried out by American companies. As the articles note, these are Korean-owned and Korean-operated companies. FTA: "Korean-operated SL Alabama, finding children as young as age 13." There are hundreds of foreign owned and operated factories in America that are run like independent kingdoms, staffed with people from other countries with their own restaurants and dorms so the workers are never exposed to the outside world, so that the company can put the all important "Made in USA" label on the product. There's at least one all-Chinese factory outside of Las Vegas. There was a Chinese-run industrial marijuana farming operation shut down in Arizona last year. And this is not unique to the United States. There are similar operations in Italy, Germany, and elsewhere. There are multiple Chinese factories in Italy churning out "Made in Italy" leather good for the luxury market. Lots of newspaper articles about it over the last ten years or so.
- outside1234 4y ago
  How do they get visas for the workers for this?
  - galangalalgol 4y ago
    And how haven't we jailed the people who got paid off to not notice this?
    - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
      This is the saddest part... from bribes to lobbying (legal bribes, a true WTF in it's own sense)... Criminals are going to bribe, sure, undestandable.. but people, government employees, who should be working for 'us', the taxpayers, are taking bribes... the punishment for them should be a vastly higher than for someone just offering a bribe... and somehow, (usually) nothing ever happens to them... maybe someone loses their job, but that's it.
    - moralestapia 4y ago
      Absolutely, it is impossible for no one to notice this. That factory should have a managers at least. They should be in jail.
  - reaperducer 4y ago
    These aren't H1B people. Labor and agriculture visas are a lot easier to come by. Or, in some cases, they use illegal labor. I doubt that the federal government gave a work visa to the 13-year-old in the article.
  - ralph84 4y ago
    For the ones doing it legally, L visas. For the ones doing it illegally, B or F visas.
- Jolter 4y ago
  In this case the child seems to have been from Guatemala so I’m not sure this is exactly the situation you’re describing.
faeriechangling 4y ago
I worked from 12 in a fairly industrial business and mostly appreciated the experience because I was in poverty. Meanwhile the school I was actually forced to go to was abusive. Of course businesses do this. If nothing else the kids in poverty are literally going to ask for a part time job and a few people will say yes because they won’t see the harm because there actually isn’t any. The only abusive sounding part of this story to me is the kids were pulled out of school and seemingly working at the factory all the time. What is surprising here is that it went beyond “child helps contractor/small business on the weekend and gets money under the table” and instead “large corporation had full time child labourer at factory” which is rather extreme by American standards. But child labour is plenty common, if you’ve eaten chocolate recently there’s a good chance it was made with tiny child hands, rich people literally just can’t comprehend such things.
- perlgeek 4y ago
  Forbidding child labor isn't enough on its own, it should come with enough social support for families that they don't need to send their kids working. A non-coercive education system would also be fantastic :-)
  - creata 4y ago
    Is that kind of support really possible? Isn't our society literally built on coercing people to work under threat of starvation?
    - lupire 4y ago
      The entire civilized world provides that support.
      - creata 4y ago
        Sincerely: how do you know that? Child labor is illegal, so I don't know how many families would feel a need for their children to work if it were legal.
gumby 4y ago
> Well, color me amazed, TIL there's child labor happening in the US. Not all of it is illegal. There is an exception for tobacco farming, which employs children as young as 10. https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/child-labor-tobacco/562964/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/child-lab... https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/12/09/teens-tobacco-fields/child-labor-united-states-tobacco-farming https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/12/09/teens-tobacco-fields/c...
- bombcar 4y ago
  There are tons of exceptions to child labor laws - or child actors couldn’t exist. It varies from state to state and industry to industry. And if they’re unpaid then you have much more leeway!
phpisthebest 4y ago
I am amazed. Having worked in and around US Manufacturing plants my entire adult life, I have never once even see anyone that could be considered a child working in any plant I have ever been in, and I have been in alot of manufacturers. All of owned by American entities and people. ESG is not needed to not have child labor.
permo-w 4y ago
and huge surprise, there are also millions of privately-owned slaves in prisons across the sad excuse for a modern nation
mlindner 4y ago
There's no child labor happening in the US...

vasco 4y ago

ESG is a complete farce in implementation, or at least that's what I gathered once I learned that a tobacco company like Altria can have a 79/100 ESG score. If there's enough "other stuff" that can bring a company who's existence causes death and disease as its main impact on society to 79/100, I don't really care about the scoring system.

lupire 4y ago
Altria's main problem is S, not E or G.
- vasco 4y ago
  Altria's problem is that it exists.

reaperducer 4y ago

TIL there's child labor happening in the US. It is extremely unusual for this kind of labor abuse to be carried out by American companies. As the articles note, these are Korean-owned and Korean-operated companies. FTA: "Korean-operated SL Alabama, finding children as young as age 13." There are hundreds of foreign owned and operated factories in America that are run like independent kingdoms, staffed with people from other countries with their own restaurants and dorms so the workers are never exposed to the outside world, so that the company can put the all important "Made in USA" label on the product. There's at least one all-Chinese factory outside of Las Vegas. There was a Chinese-run industrial marijuana farming operation shut down in Arizona last year. And this is not unique to the United States. There are similar operations in Italy, Germany, and elsewhere. There are multiple Chinese factories in Italy churning out "Made in Italy" leather good for the luxury market. Lots of newspaper articles about it over the last ten years or so.

outside1234 4y ago
How do they get visas for the workers for this?
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  And how haven't we jailed the people who got paid off to not notice this?
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    This is the saddest part... from bribes to lobbying (legal bribes, a true WTF in it's own sense)... Criminals are going to bribe, sure, undestandable.. but people, government employees, who should be working for 'us', the taxpayers, are taking bribes... the punishment for them should be a vastly higher than for someone just offering a bribe... and somehow, (usually) nothing ever happens to them... maybe someone loses their job, but that's it.
  - moralestapia 4y ago
    Absolutely, it is impossible for no one to notice this. That factory should have a managers at least. They should be in jail.
- reaperducer 4y ago
  These aren't H1B people. Labor and agriculture visas are a lot easier to come by. Or, in some cases, they use illegal labor. I doubt that the federal government gave a work visa to the 13-year-old in the article.
- ralph84 4y ago
  For the ones doing it legally, L visas. For the ones doing it illegally, B or F visas.
Jolter 4y ago
In this case the child seems to have been from Guatemala so I’m not sure this is exactly the situation you’re describing.

faeriechangling 4y ago

I worked from 12 in a fairly industrial business and mostly appreciated the experience because I was in poverty. Meanwhile the school I was actually forced to go to was abusive. Of course businesses do this. If nothing else the kids in poverty are literally going to ask for a part time job and a few people will say yes because they won’t see the harm because there actually isn’t any. The only abusive sounding part of this story to me is the kids were pulled out of school and seemingly working at the factory all the time. What is surprising here is that it went beyond “child helps contractor/small business on the weekend and gets money under the table” and instead “large corporation had full time child labourer at factory” which is rather extreme by American standards. But child labour is plenty common, if you’ve eaten chocolate recently there’s a good chance it was made with tiny child hands, rich people literally just can’t comprehend such things.

perlgeek 4y ago
Forbidding child labor isn't enough on its own, it should come with enough social support for families that they don't need to send their kids working. A non-coercive education system would also be fantastic :-)
- creata 4y ago
  Is that kind of support really possible? Isn't our society literally built on coercing people to work under threat of starvation?
  - lupire 4y ago
    The entire civilized world provides that support.
    - creata 4y ago
      Sincerely: how do you know that? Child labor is illegal, so I don't know how many families would feel a need for their children to work if it were legal.

gumby 4y ago

> Well, color me amazed, TIL there's child labor happening in the US. Not all of it is illegal. There is an exception for tobacco farming, which employs children as young as 10. https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/child-labor-tobacco/562964/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/child-lab... https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/12/09/teens-tobacco-fields/child-labor-united-states-tobacco-farming https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/12/09/teens-tobacco-fields/c...

bombcar 4y ago
There are tons of exceptions to child labor laws - or child actors couldn’t exist. It varies from state to state and industry to industry. And if they’re unpaid then you have much more leeway!

phpisthebest 4y ago

I am amazed. Having worked in and around US Manufacturing plants my entire adult life, I have never once even see anyone that could be considered a child working in any plant I have ever been in, and I have been in alot of manufacturers. All of owned by American entities and people. ESG is not needed to not have child labor.

permo-w 4y ago

and huge surprise, there are also millions of privately-owned slaves in prisons across the sad excuse for a modern nation

mlindner 4y ago

There's no child labor happening in the US...