10 ms·

12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

86 points by petee 4y ago

AndyMcConachie 4y ago
18-year olds can't buy alcohol, but they can die fighting for oil companies.
- petee 4y ago
  So you're arguing 12 olds should be able to buy cigarettes? Edit: Op has no context or clear point, so its a legitimate question. Why are we comparing children and adults? Is the point that 18s should be able to buy alcohol? Or that they should be 21 to go to war?
  - jleyank 4y ago
    Err, I think they’re arguing that they shouldn’t be working in the fields picking tobacco…. Or, you forgot your “/s”.
  - n4r9 4y ago
    If there is an argument contained in that wry comment, it's probably that going to war to protect overseas economic interests is even less defensible than children working in tobacco fields.
- kleiba 4y ago
  Sure they can buy alcohol. At least where I live.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  They surely can, starting at 16-year olds in plenty of countries.
  - jwmcq 4y ago
    Not in the one being discussed in the article. I'm not an American myself, but I think the context is clear here.
- jansan 4y ago
  In most parts of the world you can buy alcohol when you are 18, in many parts you can buy soft alcohol (beer, wine) at 16, but you cannot drive a car at 16. Both are fine IMO, as long as you cannot drive a car AND buy alcohol at 16.
- booleandilemma 4y ago
  And they can work in bars.
- jollyllama 4y ago
  Nor can they buy cigarettes anymore. The age was increased from 18 to 21 with little notice. Vape cartridges are allowed though, I think.
micromacrofoot 4y ago
children under 18 can’t vote for better labor laws either, they should be able to vote
- nverno 4y ago
  Do you think they would vote against be allowed to work? I always wanted jobs as a teen so I could do stuff- I wanted to be independent as do most teens I'd imagine.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    Not sure where you studied arithmetic but in my locale 12 is not "teen".
    - nverno 4y ago
      > children under 18 Whether your 12 or 13-18, I doubt their voting preferences would be considerably different in this regard.
  - micromacrofoot 4y ago
    It's not for me to say how they'd vote, if they're working they should be able to vote for someone to represent their interests.
    - theandrewbailey 4y ago
      They should be able to vote with their feet and not work, or work somewhere else.
      - micromacrofoot 4y ago
        That's not a compelling argument to prevent them from voting. Their paychecks are taxed, let them vote.
        4y ago
jl6 4y ago
> Ten-hour days, five or six days a week, in North Carolina's summer heat. This is the problem, not the age of the child or the crop. Spending an occasional weekend working a few hours in a field sounds perfectly fine and character-building for a 12-year-old. More 12 year olds should be getting outside and tasting manual labor! The issue is when this starts being less of a learning experience and more of an actual full time job. Sending 12 year olds out to earn a living clearly isn’t right.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dbspin 4y ago
  12 year olds are generally prepubescent children. This isn't like a sixteen year old working to save for a car, or even a fourteen year old gaining a little independence and exercise working a few hours after school. This is child labour. It's indefensible.
  - werdnapk 4y ago
    I worked in strawberry fields during summer months at about 12 years old or younger. I actually enjoyed it and loved the money I made to be able to buy some Nintendo games or candies. More kids should be learning some job skills early and get out of the house.
    - sneak 4y ago
      Doing manual labor in a field isn't "learning some job skills".
      - nradov 4y ago
        Job skills include showing up on time and following directions without mouthing off. Those skills must be learned, they aren't instinctual. Middle class people take those skills for granted but some members of the persistent underclass who grew up on public assistance literally never learned those basics and are now essentially unemployable.
sclarisse 4y ago
There’s a big stupid online/news debate the past few months about teen employment, and I mean it’s long on noise and short on facts about what laws have been changing (mostly very procedural paperwork changes), what laws there are, where teens are actually working, and what the impact of jobs are on teens. And we’ve studied things like this, and it’s a travesty that the studies don’t come up more. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2936460/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2936460/
- danShumway 4y ago
  I don't think that's a fair critique of this article at all. > Today, Castellano is a sophomore at Tufts University. But when he worked, he felt "this sense that working in those fields was going to be the rest of my life, that I had nothing else going for me." This article isn't really about the debate about whether it's OK for a teenager to have a part-time gig at a gas station on the odd weekend, or even whether it's OK for a teenager to work part-time after school, or even about a debate about whether it's OK for a teen to work a full-time summer job. The article is about whether it's OK for a pre-teen to have a full time job doing manual labor in a dangerous environment all day with longer hours than most adults work. I don't think there's a way to phrase that as character building or educational or instilling work ethic or granting a feeling of satisfaction. > He worked alongside other kids with one of North Carolina's most valuable crops. Some of them worked in the summer and went to school the rest of the year, like him. Some didn't go to school at all. The context here isn't about aiding child development. If you have a full-time job as a kid that means you can't go to school, something is wrong. That is not for the kid's benefit, that's not something that's aiding development or helping set you up for success in the future. It is not doing you any favors as a child. Particularly not if you're working a job that's prone to giving people nicotine poisoning.
  - sclarisse 4y ago
    If you’re presenting this big article with an attention getting headline, in the middle of this big debate that’s filled with misinformation and rhetoric reaching fantastical heights about “forced birth for cheap child labor,” it is part of that ongoing trash fire, it is very likely to feed that misinformation, and it is unlikely to become a targeted intervention that addresses the actual problems. I could say the same about some Jesse Singal articles in the Atlantic, whose text in isolation might be perfectly defensible treatments of the issues around detransitioning, but mostly serve as excuses for narrow minded people to confirm their biases and build new ones.
sub7 4y ago
imo 12 year old working a field is ok
- petee 4y ago
  Ok, what about a 9 year old? Where do you draw the line and why?
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    Depends on the job and working hours. Basically anything that can prevent reasonable development should be banned, such as too heavy labour.
  - thieving_magpie 4y ago
    There's too many factors for drawing lines. In wealthy countries laws ensuring a higher age for employment makes more sense. In really impoverished countries where there isn't enough money for a family to feed themselves I don't really think a nine year old would prefer to starve rather than work. I worked jobs around the neighborhood at 12 but that's obviously a lot easier than 10 hour shifts in a field (as the article suggests). I don't know what's right and I'm thankful I don't have to make the decisions.
    - Symbiote 4y ago
      The article is about the USA, which is a wealthy country. Unless otherwise stated, the discussion is therefore also about the USA. > I don't know what's right and I'm thankful I don't have to make the decisions. If you are in the USA, I think you ought to have an opinion on child labour. It's a basic point of labour law. My vote counts in the UK, where from age 14 children can work for up to five hours on a non-school day, with a one hour break, and only between 7am and 7pm. They cannot work on anything hazardous. We don't have any significant toxic crops, but I think tobacco would count as hazardous. These rules seem to fix all the major problems in the article, while still allowing the "character building" half the commenters seek.
jleyank 4y ago
Not a new problem. People argued in the early 70’s that you should be able to have a drink if you could vote, own the bar and have your ass shot off in the jungle. Didn’t work. You can rest assured that Jason and Jennifer won’t be dirtying their hands out there. Just those other people.
pandama 4y ago
[flagged]
- jwmcq 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - vxNsr 4y ago
    [flagged]
ikekkdcjkfke 4y ago
My grandfather had to herd sheep up in the mountains at 6 years old. Incidentally he brought with him a pipe and some vanilla flavored tobacco. Currently 90 and going strong.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  I'd kinda agree with your take is these kids are working in their own fields (or soon to be theirs, as transmitted from the current owner, who treats them like his own kids) Short of that, fuck no your granpa's story has nothing to do with this.
  - ikekkdcjkfke 4y ago
    After reading the article, I would agree
rationalfaith 4y ago
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wefarrell 4y ago
Meanwhile us white collar workers are worried that 90% of our jobs will be taken by AI. What a strange world we live in.
pubertyblox 4y ago
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Hydraulix989 4y ago
They shouldn't be allowed or compelled to do either buying cigarettes or working as child labor. Both are unacceptable.
slowhand09 4y ago
I grew up in NC. I worked in tobacco a few times for family friends. Many of my schoolmates' families raised tobacco. Or corn. Or soybeans. Many of these kids earned hundreds of dollars over the summer, while supporting the family business. 12 year olds didn't smoke. We bought candy cigarettes. Farmers and their families and their employees work hard. They work long hours. People on dairy farms work 7 days a week. Cows don't take the weekend off. Crops don't care if its 100 degrees. I mowed yards. I raked leaves. I helped harvest hay. I built fences and sheds. I helped vaccinate cattle. I helped build the new VFD building. All this as a kid. In 100 degree heat. We didn't have air conditioning. And you were excused from class on the 1st day of deer hunting season. This wasn't child abuse. This is living. Some people grew up with AC, color tv, video games, and summer camp. Some grow up and work.
mprovost 4y ago
I spent my summers from ages 14-18 picking shade tobacco (for cigar wrappers) in Connecticut's Tobacco Valley. I'm not sure if it was state law but you couldn't start until you were 14. This was during summer vacation when school was out - but it used to be such an important local industry that if the crop was late they would delay the start of the school year so kids could keep picking. Boys and girls could both work but it was completely segregated - boys worked in the field, and girls worked in the sheds sewing the leaves onto lathes to hang to dry. They used to rent the old big yellow school buses from the local school district to pick us up in the morning, and there were even separate bus routes for boys and girls. I remember coming home with my fingers totally covered in black sap from the leaves but don't think I ever felt the effects of nicotine. They were long hot days and it was even hotter under the tents - they grow shade tobacco under cover. If it rained they sent us all home! But it was a fun time hanging out with other kids and even competing to see who could pick the fastest. Still, when I went to college I remember telling myself that my objective was to get a degree so I wouldn't ever have to work outside again.
- arcticbull 4y ago
  Were you paid a full adult salary? With benefits? If not, this is a harmful labor practice because you were undercutting the wages of full adult workers. In the same way that prison labor and undocumented workers undercut pay of adult workers, so too do child laborers. Neither are really able to report labor and safety violations, neither are able to decide not to work, and neither are paid a proper living wage. Neither are in a position to unionize. This is not a free market, and it hurts everyone in the economy. It feels more like a regression to feudalism. I’d say if we mandated a living wage this problem would likely sort itself out. [edit] It's a question of balance of power between employer and employee. Hiring the powerless hurts everyone, even if you personally had a good experience in retrospect. If you want to teach kids, you can do so at a non-profit instead of Philip Morris.
  - logicchains 4y ago
    >I’d say if we mandated a living wage this problem would likely sort itself out. The minimum wage is already a "living wage"; people's expectations just keep getting higher and higher. Someone on the minimum wage is eating much better than somebody in Africa, and can afford much better accommodation (clean water, a roof over their head, albeit maybe a shared room). So if a person on Africa can live on much less, why does an American deserve more? If anything, if the world was fair then the American minimum wage would be lower, with that money diverted to people in underdeveloped places like Africa instead.
GeoAtreides 4y ago
In comparison, the EU legislation on teenage working (it's a quick and easy reading): https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/human-resources/employment-contracts/teenage-workers/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/human-resources/employ... First sentence: "You cannot employ young people under the age of 15"
- redeeman 4y ago
  and to put context into EU, lets also remember that this is the same legislative body that until a few years ago would have farmers scrap perfectly good cucumbers if their bend is too big. the EU is utterly out of control, and legislates EVERYTHING, most often poorly. They would also tell you how fast you're allowed to vacuum your livingroom.
  - edent 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromyth#Straight_bananas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromyth#Straight_bananas and https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_09_1059 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_09_...
    - redeeman 4y ago
      so... it was a myth, but at the same time, the EU press release says "its ceasing to be in effect now!!" ? and I did say "until some years ago". in what way is what I said wrong? downvoters are just unhappy that their beloved big daddy government did a baddie
      - Symbiote 4y ago
        The older regulations included shape in the specifications for Class I cucumbers, Class II cucumbers, etc, as well as other measures of quality. Nothing prevented the supermarket or restaurant from buying unclassed cucumbers, though that category would include cucumbers not reaching Class I/II for other reasons (size, taste, colour/ripeness etc). The change to the regulation removed shape from Class I and Class II, so they're more likely to be sold for the higher price, and the supermarkets can't reject vegetables for being the wrong shape. So there was never a ban on selling vegetables of the "wrong" shape, but there were rules to categorize vegetables by shape as part of their overall quality. The EU harmonized these rules across the whole EU (that's the whole point of the Common Market), then later scrapped them and told the supermarkets they'd have to deal with the occasional knobbly carrot. (This is my approximate understanding, I may have the numbers backwards or whatever.)
Gustomaximus 4y ago
"efforts to tighten agricultural child labor laws have repeatedly failed because of opposition from Republicans in Congress and farm lobbying groups. They argue that such changes would hurt family farms and make it harder to teach kids about farming." This is the bollocks. I have a farm. Kids have been out helping me since they were about 5 or 6, and around I've never herd of some formal wage system in a family farm for kids. They do it because you're contributing. Having farm labor laws for 'family farms' that go beyond family is utter lies and incredibly repugnant as they are essentially twisting things to allow people to use child labor. As an Australian I dont understand what has happened to the moral compass in USA. Its like while the rural parts say they are a Christian nation, the reality to an outsider like me seems they follow money as their deity more than anything.
- pixl97 4y ago
  > what has happened to the moral compass in USA. We never had a great moral compass here, we have sold the idea that we do to everyone else though. This said, we seem to have another big push to drag us back to pre-1850s with child labor and company scrip. But this is something that the capital class has always tried. There was never a point in history where they didn't want to effectively attempt to enslave people here, only times in history that they are more or less effective in achieving it.
- bigbillheck 4y ago
  > I dont understand what has happened to the moral compass in USA. We've never really had one.
- notduncansmith 4y ago
  (USAn here) As others have mentioned, it’s not really that something “has happened” — the country isn’t a monolith and there have always been folks that kick and scream as they are dragged into the future. The European immigrants that settled those areas (often after violently displacing whoever was already living there) have relied on cheap labor since they arrived. Their influence on the USA’s moral compass is almost as old as the country itself, and includes literally going to war with the rest of the country to preserve slavery. They lost the war but that faction of USA politics never really died out, just shifted bit by bit into its current form.
greedo 4y ago
In corn country, it's common to have young kids do "detassling" at a young age. While machines can assist, there's no way to avoid having to do some of the process manually, and detassling is essential for high yields.
miki123211 4y ago
This argument makes no sense. If you follow this thought process, you could also complain that Americans can't buy nuclear weapons, but they can work in nuclear labs.
Slava_Propanei 4y ago
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lizknope 4y ago
I grew up in North Carolina in the late 1980's. There was tobacco all around and I knew many classmates that picked tobacco from at least age 14. Some people in the thread are remembering their own experiences fondly. I can't remember any of my friends saying anything positive about picking tobacco. I don't think they made much money either. As for not being able to buy cigarettes, everyone I knew that wanted to smoke could get cigarettes. We had a lot of hotels in town and they all had cigarette vending machines where you just insert your money and get a pack. No cashier and no age verification of any kind. https://poserworld.com/70s-era-vintage-cigarette-vending-machine https://poserworld.com/70s-era-vintage-cigarette-vending-mac...
- lennymorris7750 4y ago
  I started cutting bacca when I was about 6or7 in southern Maryland my pops and I would do it,my last day cutting was 1994 Waldorf md last field was in right behind the ol John deer shop. Miss those days I'm 45 now if I could go back I would just to have time with my father... taught me a lot in my young age.
csdreamer7 4y ago
There are several things in the article I feel people should be discussing. > He sometimes had trouble getting the money he was owed for his labor. At the start of his days, he says, he'd write his name and the hours he'd worked in a notebook and "hope that notebook wouldn't get lost" — which would mean he wouldn't get paid. Unpaid labor. Wage theft is common between adults, how is a child suppose to defend their hours? > All the while, nicotine — a substance he's barely old enough to legally purchase now — seeped into his skin. For all tobacco workers, but especially kids, that can cause nicotine poisoning, or green tobacco sickness, whose symptoms include nausea, vomiting, headaches and dizziness. If adults struggle to avoid this, how is a child suppose to? > Seventh-graders can't buy cigarettes, and they can't work at grocery stores or fast-food chains. But they can work in tobacco. The heart of the argument to raise the minimum age laws. > Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, kids 12 and up can work unlimited hours outside school hours in agriculture, and the rules are even more lenient for kids who work on their families' farms. Outside that industry, workers have to be 16 to work unlimited hours. Sixteen-year-olds and 17-year-olds working in agriculture can do tasks listed by the Labor Department as hazardous, versus 18 in other industries. Agriculture's hazardous occupation orders haven't been updated in 50 years, and they don't include tobacco, despite the known risks for workers of all ages. Under the current law, completely legal.
- shadowfox 4y ago
  Yes indeed! There are so many disturbing bits in that article, but somehow in these comments it is getting conflated with a sort of character-building-by-hard-work and pulling-oneself-up-by-the-bootstrap narrative, which is mostly orthogonal to much of the stuff in the article.

86 points by petee 4y ago

AndyMcConachie 4y ago

18-year olds can't buy alcohol, but they can die fighting for oil companies.

petee 4y ago
So you're arguing 12 olds should be able to buy cigarettes? Edit: Op has no context or clear point, so its a legitimate question. Why are we comparing children and adults? Is the point that 18s should be able to buy alcohol? Or that they should be 21 to go to war?
- jleyank 4y ago
  Err, I think they’re arguing that they shouldn’t be working in the fields picking tobacco…. Or, you forgot your “/s”.
- n4r9 4y ago
  If there is an argument contained in that wry comment, it's probably that going to war to protect overseas economic interests is even less defensible than children working in tobacco fields.
kleiba 4y ago
Sure they can buy alcohol. At least where I live.
pjmlp 4y ago
They surely can, starting at 16-year olds in plenty of countries.
- jwmcq 4y ago
  Not in the one being discussed in the article. I'm not an American myself, but I think the context is clear here.
jansan 4y ago
In most parts of the world you can buy alcohol when you are 18, in many parts you can buy soft alcohol (beer, wine) at 16, but you cannot drive a car at 16. Both are fine IMO, as long as you cannot drive a car AND buy alcohol at 16.
booleandilemma 4y ago
And they can work in bars.
jollyllama 4y ago
Nor can they buy cigarettes anymore. The age was increased from 18 to 21 with little notice. Vape cartridges are allowed though, I think.

micromacrofoot 4y ago

children under 18 can’t vote for better labor laws either, they should be able to vote

nverno 4y ago
Do you think they would vote against be allowed to work? I always wanted jobs as a teen so I could do stuff- I wanted to be independent as do most teens I'd imagine.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Not sure where you studied arithmetic but in my locale 12 is not "teen".
  - nverno 4y ago
    > children under 18 Whether your 12 or 13-18, I doubt their voting preferences would be considerably different in this regard.
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  It's not for me to say how they'd vote, if they're working they should be able to vote for someone to represent their interests.
  - theandrewbailey 4y ago
    They should be able to vote with their feet and not work, or work somewhere else.
    - micromacrofoot 4y ago
      That's not a compelling argument to prevent them from voting. Their paychecks are taxed, let them vote.
      - 4y ago

jl6 4y ago

> Ten-hour days, five or six days a week, in North Carolina's summer heat. This is the problem, not the age of the child or the crop. Spending an occasional weekend working a few hours in a field sounds perfectly fine and character-building for a 12-year-old. More 12 year olds should be getting outside and tasting manual labor! The issue is when this starts being less of a learning experience and more of an actual full time job. Sending 12 year olds out to earn a living clearly isn’t right.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dbspin 4y ago
12 year olds are generally prepubescent children. This isn't like a sixteen year old working to save for a car, or even a fourteen year old gaining a little independence and exercise working a few hours after school. This is child labour. It's indefensible.
- werdnapk 4y ago
  I worked in strawberry fields during summer months at about 12 years old or younger. I actually enjoyed it and loved the money I made to be able to buy some Nintendo games or candies. More kids should be learning some job skills early and get out of the house.
  - sneak 4y ago
    Doing manual labor in a field isn't "learning some job skills".
    - nradov 4y ago
      Job skills include showing up on time and following directions without mouthing off. Those skills must be learned, they aren't instinctual. Middle class people take those skills for granted but some members of the persistent underclass who grew up on public assistance literally never learned those basics and are now essentially unemployable.

sclarisse 4y ago

There’s a big stupid online/news debate the past few months about teen employment, and I mean it’s long on noise and short on facts about what laws have been changing (mostly very procedural paperwork changes), what laws there are, where teens are actually working, and what the impact of jobs are on teens. And we’ve studied things like this, and it’s a travesty that the studies don’t come up more. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2936460/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2936460/

danShumway 4y ago
I don't think that's a fair critique of this article at all. > Today, Castellano is a sophomore at Tufts University. But when he worked, he felt "this sense that working in those fields was going to be the rest of my life, that I had nothing else going for me." This article isn't really about the debate about whether it's OK for a teenager to have a part-time gig at a gas station on the odd weekend, or even whether it's OK for a teenager to work part-time after school, or even about a debate about whether it's OK for a teen to work a full-time summer job. The article is about whether it's OK for a pre-teen to have a full time job doing manual labor in a dangerous environment all day with longer hours than most adults work. I don't think there's a way to phrase that as character building or educational or instilling work ethic or granting a feeling of satisfaction. > He worked alongside other kids with one of North Carolina's most valuable crops. Some of them worked in the summer and went to school the rest of the year, like him. Some didn't go to school at all. The context here isn't about aiding child development. If you have a full-time job as a kid that means you can't go to school, something is wrong. That is not for the kid's benefit, that's not something that's aiding development or helping set you up for success in the future. It is not doing you any favors as a child. Particularly not if you're working a job that's prone to giving people nicotine poisoning.
- sclarisse 4y ago
  If you’re presenting this big article with an attention getting headline, in the middle of this big debate that’s filled with misinformation and rhetoric reaching fantastical heights about “forced birth for cheap child labor,” it is part of that ongoing trash fire, it is very likely to feed that misinformation, and it is unlikely to become a targeted intervention that addresses the actual problems. I could say the same about some Jesse Singal articles in the Atlantic, whose text in isolation might be perfectly defensible treatments of the issues around detransitioning, but mostly serve as excuses for narrow minded people to confirm their biases and build new ones.

sub7 4y ago

imo 12 year old working a field is ok

petee 4y ago
Ok, what about a 9 year old? Where do you draw the line and why?
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Depends on the job and working hours. Basically anything that can prevent reasonable development should be banned, such as too heavy labour.
- thieving_magpie 4y ago
  There's too many factors for drawing lines. In wealthy countries laws ensuring a higher age for employment makes more sense. In really impoverished countries where there isn't enough money for a family to feed themselves I don't really think a nine year old would prefer to starve rather than work. I worked jobs around the neighborhood at 12 but that's obviously a lot easier than 10 hour shifts in a field (as the article suggests). I don't know what's right and I'm thankful I don't have to make the decisions.
  - Symbiote 4y ago
    The article is about the USA, which is a wealthy country. Unless otherwise stated, the discussion is therefore also about the USA. > I don't know what's right and I'm thankful I don't have to make the decisions. If you are in the USA, I think you ought to have an opinion on child labour. It's a basic point of labour law. My vote counts in the UK, where from age 14 children can work for up to five hours on a non-school day, with a one hour break, and only between 7am and 7pm. They cannot work on anything hazardous. We don't have any significant toxic crops, but I think tobacco would count as hazardous. These rules seem to fix all the major problems in the article, while still allowing the "character building" half the commenters seek.

jleyank 4y ago

Not a new problem. People argued in the early 70’s that you should be able to have a drink if you could vote, own the bar and have your ass shot off in the jungle. Didn’t work. You can rest assured that Jason and Jennifer won’t be dirtying their hands out there. Just those other people.

pandama 4y ago

[flagged]

jwmcq 4y ago
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- vxNsr 4y ago
  [flagged]

ikekkdcjkfke 4y ago

My grandfather had to herd sheep up in the mountains at 6 years old. Incidentally he brought with him a pipe and some vanilla flavored tobacco. Currently 90 and going strong.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
makeitdouble 4y ago
I'd kinda agree with your take is these kids are working in their own fields (or soon to be theirs, as transmitted from the current owner, who treats them like his own kids) Short of that, fuck no your granpa's story has nothing to do with this.
- ikekkdcjkfke 4y ago
  After reading the article, I would agree

rationalfaith 4y ago

[dead]

wefarrell 4y ago

Meanwhile us white collar workers are worried that 90% of our jobs will be taken by AI. What a strange world we live in.

pubertyblox 4y ago

[dead]

Hydraulix989 4y ago

They shouldn't be allowed or compelled to do either buying cigarettes or working as child labor. Both are unacceptable.

slowhand09 4y ago

I grew up in NC. I worked in tobacco a few times for family friends. Many of my schoolmates' families raised tobacco. Or corn. Or soybeans. Many of these kids earned hundreds of dollars over the summer, while supporting the family business. 12 year olds didn't smoke. We bought candy cigarettes. Farmers and their families and their employees work hard. They work long hours. People on dairy farms work 7 days a week. Cows don't take the weekend off. Crops don't care if its 100 degrees. I mowed yards. I raked leaves. I helped harvest hay. I built fences and sheds. I helped vaccinate cattle. I helped build the new VFD building. All this as a kid. In 100 degree heat. We didn't have air conditioning. And you were excused from class on the 1st day of deer hunting season. This wasn't child abuse. This is living. Some people grew up with AC, color tv, video games, and summer camp. Some grow up and work.

mprovost 4y ago

I spent my summers from ages 14-18 picking shade tobacco (for cigar wrappers) in Connecticut's Tobacco Valley. I'm not sure if it was state law but you couldn't start until you were 14. This was during summer vacation when school was out - but it used to be such an important local industry that if the crop was late they would delay the start of the school year so kids could keep picking. Boys and girls could both work but it was completely segregated - boys worked in the field, and girls worked in the sheds sewing the leaves onto lathes to hang to dry. They used to rent the old big yellow school buses from the local school district to pick us up in the morning, and there were even separate bus routes for boys and girls. I remember coming home with my fingers totally covered in black sap from the leaves but don't think I ever felt the effects of nicotine. They were long hot days and it was even hotter under the tents - they grow shade tobacco under cover. If it rained they sent us all home! But it was a fun time hanging out with other kids and even competing to see who could pick the fastest. Still, when I went to college I remember telling myself that my objective was to get a degree so I wouldn't ever have to work outside again.

arcticbull 4y ago
Were you paid a full adult salary? With benefits? If not, this is a harmful labor practice because you were undercutting the wages of full adult workers. In the same way that prison labor and undocumented workers undercut pay of adult workers, so too do child laborers. Neither are really able to report labor and safety violations, neither are able to decide not to work, and neither are paid a proper living wage. Neither are in a position to unionize. This is not a free market, and it hurts everyone in the economy. It feels more like a regression to feudalism. I’d say if we mandated a living wage this problem would likely sort itself out. [edit] It's a question of balance of power between employer and employee. Hiring the powerless hurts everyone, even if you personally had a good experience in retrospect. If you want to teach kids, you can do so at a non-profit instead of Philip Morris.
- logicchains 4y ago
  >I’d say if we mandated a living wage this problem would likely sort itself out. The minimum wage is already a "living wage"; people's expectations just keep getting higher and higher. Someone on the minimum wage is eating much better than somebody in Africa, and can afford much better accommodation (clean water, a roof over their head, albeit maybe a shared room). So if a person on Africa can live on much less, why does an American deserve more? If anything, if the world was fair then the American minimum wage would be lower, with that money diverted to people in underdeveloped places like Africa instead.

GeoAtreides 4y ago

In comparison, the EU legislation on teenage working (it's a quick and easy reading): https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/human-resources/employment-contracts/teenage-workers/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/human-resources/employ... First sentence: "You cannot employ young people under the age of 15"

redeeman 4y ago
and to put context into EU, lets also remember that this is the same legislative body that until a few years ago would have farmers scrap perfectly good cucumbers if their bend is too big. the EU is utterly out of control, and legislates EVERYTHING, most often poorly. They would also tell you how fast you're allowed to vacuum your livingroom.
- edent 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromyth#Straight_bananas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromyth#Straight_bananas and https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_09_1059 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_09_...
  - redeeman 4y ago
    so... it was a myth, but at the same time, the EU press release says "its ceasing to be in effect now!!" ? and I did say "until some years ago". in what way is what I said wrong? downvoters are just unhappy that their beloved big daddy government did a baddie
    - Symbiote 4y ago
      The older regulations included shape in the specifications for Class I cucumbers, Class II cucumbers, etc, as well as other measures of quality. Nothing prevented the supermarket or restaurant from buying unclassed cucumbers, though that category would include cucumbers not reaching Class I/II for other reasons (size, taste, colour/ripeness etc). The change to the regulation removed shape from Class I and Class II, so they're more likely to be sold for the higher price, and the supermarkets can't reject vegetables for being the wrong shape. So there was never a ban on selling vegetables of the "wrong" shape, but there were rules to categorize vegetables by shape as part of their overall quality. The EU harmonized these rules across the whole EU (that's the whole point of the Common Market), then later scrapped them and told the supermarkets they'd have to deal with the occasional knobbly carrot. (This is my approximate understanding, I may have the numbers backwards or whatever.)

Gustomaximus 4y ago

"efforts to tighten agricultural child labor laws have repeatedly failed because of opposition from Republicans in Congress and farm lobbying groups. They argue that such changes would hurt family farms and make it harder to teach kids about farming." This is the bollocks. I have a farm. Kids have been out helping me since they were about 5 or 6, and around I've never herd of some formal wage system in a family farm for kids. They do it because you're contributing. Having farm labor laws for 'family farms' that go beyond family is utter lies and incredibly repugnant as they are essentially twisting things to allow people to use child labor. As an Australian I dont understand what has happened to the moral compass in USA. Its like while the rural parts say they are a Christian nation, the reality to an outsider like me seems they follow money as their deity more than anything.

pixl97 4y ago
> what has happened to the moral compass in USA. We never had a great moral compass here, we have sold the idea that we do to everyone else though. This said, we seem to have another big push to drag us back to pre-1850s with child labor and company scrip. But this is something that the capital class has always tried. There was never a point in history where they didn't want to effectively attempt to enslave people here, only times in history that they are more or less effective in achieving it.
bigbillheck 4y ago
> I dont understand what has happened to the moral compass in USA. We've never really had one.
notduncansmith 4y ago
(USAn here) As others have mentioned, it’s not really that something “has happened” — the country isn’t a monolith and there have always been folks that kick and scream as they are dragged into the future. The European immigrants that settled those areas (often after violently displacing whoever was already living there) have relied on cheap labor since they arrived. Their influence on the USA’s moral compass is almost as old as the country itself, and includes literally going to war with the rest of the country to preserve slavery. They lost the war but that faction of USA politics never really died out, just shifted bit by bit into its current form.

greedo 4y ago

In corn country, it's common to have young kids do "detassling" at a young age. While machines can assist, there's no way to avoid having to do some of the process manually, and detassling is essential for high yields.

miki123211 4y ago

This argument makes no sense. If you follow this thought process, you could also complain that Americans can't buy nuclear weapons, but they can work in nuclear labs.

Slava_Propanei 4y ago

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lizknope 4y ago

I grew up in North Carolina in the late 1980's. There was tobacco all around and I knew many classmates that picked tobacco from at least age 14. Some people in the thread are remembering their own experiences fondly. I can't remember any of my friends saying anything positive about picking tobacco. I don't think they made much money either. As for not being able to buy cigarettes, everyone I knew that wanted to smoke could get cigarettes. We had a lot of hotels in town and they all had cigarette vending machines where you just insert your money and get a pack. No cashier and no age verification of any kind. https://poserworld.com/70s-era-vintage-cigarette-vending-machine https://poserworld.com/70s-era-vintage-cigarette-vending-mac...

lennymorris7750 4y ago
I started cutting bacca when I was about 6or7 in southern Maryland my pops and I would do it,my last day cutting was 1994 Waldorf md last field was in right behind the ol John deer shop. Miss those days I'm 45 now if I could go back I would just to have time with my father... taught me a lot in my young age.

csdreamer7 4y ago

There are several things in the article I feel people should be discussing. > He sometimes had trouble getting the money he was owed for his labor. At the start of his days, he says, he'd write his name and the hours he'd worked in a notebook and "hope that notebook wouldn't get lost" — which would mean he wouldn't get paid. Unpaid labor. Wage theft is common between adults, how is a child suppose to defend their hours? > All the while, nicotine — a substance he's barely old enough to legally purchase now — seeped into his skin. For all tobacco workers, but especially kids, that can cause nicotine poisoning, or green tobacco sickness, whose symptoms include nausea, vomiting, headaches and dizziness. If adults struggle to avoid this, how is a child suppose to? > Seventh-graders can't buy cigarettes, and they can't work at grocery stores or fast-food chains. But they can work in tobacco. The heart of the argument to raise the minimum age laws. > Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, kids 12 and up can work unlimited hours outside school hours in agriculture, and the rules are even more lenient for kids who work on their families' farms. Outside that industry, workers have to be 16 to work unlimited hours. Sixteen-year-olds and 17-year-olds working in agriculture can do tasks listed by the Labor Department as hazardous, versus 18 in other industries. Agriculture's hazardous occupation orders haven't been updated in 50 years, and they don't include tobacco, despite the known risks for workers of all ages. Under the current law, completely legal.

shadowfox 4y ago
Yes indeed! There are so many disturbing bits in that article, but somehow in these comments it is getting conflated with a sort of character-building-by-hard-work and pulling-oneself-up-by-the-bootstrap narrative, which is mostly orthogonal to much of the stuff in the article.