4 ms·

As I was reading TFA, I tried not to let my cynicism dictate my theory on why these looser child labor restrictions are being pushed so hard lately. But then we

As I was reading TFA, I tried not to let my cynicism dictate my theory on why these looser child labor restrictions are being pushed so hard lately. But then we get this gem: Supporters, meanwhile, have cheered the legislation as a potential solution to workforce shortages and rising labor costs. Yup, all that talk about "work ethic" is just bullshit. Plus their little hands make it easier to get the coal out.

DubiousPusher 4y ago
Yeah. I was maintaining a similar level of neutrality until I hit this line. > The measure — championed by conservative lobbying groups, the state restaurant association and the state industry group for home builders, among others
jabroni_salad 4y ago
Iowan here, this is actually a long-running talking point. Prior to the pandemic, Iowa was experiencing "full employment" with a 2.5% unemployment rate, which was among the lowest in the country prior to the pandemic spike. Some amount of churn is actually desirable as it means that employers can grow their operations and employees are finding opportunities. However, businesses in the manufacturing, agricultural, and service sectors were getting throttled by headcount. There was a lot of discussion about getting SAHMs to re-enter, and how to get incentivize hiring disabled people, and stuff like that. In the post-pandemic era our news cycle got captured by pandemic entitlement discussion, but ultimately this and measures like it was always going to be what Iowa's "return to normal" would end up looking like. Notably off the table is how to get kids to go to school here and stay here. Currently they are going to school out of state and leaving the state. It seems like we will do anything except make the state more desirable to live in. & quite frankly the politics here were only tolerable because the state used to be reliably purple, and we are swinging in a direction I do not really care for. My employer has offices in minnesota and I have been thinking of trying to transfer northwards for awhile now.
- pjc50 4y ago
  > Notably off the table is how to get kids to go to school here and stay here. Ah, so the plan is to put the 16/17 year olds in the workplace because they're too young to live independently and leave the state.
- onetimeusename 4y ago
  so is this an issue Iowans are concerned about or is this a synthetic issue that corporations are astroturfing? I can't see it being a very high priority imo even though I am sympathetic to 14 yr olds who want money.
  - jabroni_salad 4y ago
    It is a real issue and not just repealing labor laws for funsies. There are too many predators and not enough prey in the ecosystem. Either we need to accept that some of the businesses will starve or find a way to increase the labor force.
    - locopati 4y ago
      Maybe they should pay more. That's usually the way to attract workers.
    - analognoise 4y ago
      If a business is so terrible that it needs to hire children "to survive" it seems obvious to me it should be destroyed.
  - DubiousPusher 4y ago
    I can't speak for Iowans but it looks very close to what has happened in my home state of Montana. That is, the Republican party has very successfully bonded a functional plurality to itself mostly via the culture war. In Montana this isn't just about your wedge issues like abortion. Particularly there's a long standing animice towards people who move there from California. This goes back to the 90s, long before it became an internet meme. Californians serve as an abstract outgroup that a pundits can pin any absurd or unpopular cultural issue on whilst creating a contrast to "real Montanans" whose character and interests conveniently align with all the pundit's favorite policies. For many of the voters in this plurality, what goes on on the business side is secondary to these culture war and identitarian issues. This is compounded over time because as the empowered business interest of the party break down the social programs which were the product of a historic culture of community and combination, voters endure real deprivation and feel the pressure and anxiety from that deprivation. But instead of turning against the party and the business interests, they again find their antagonist in the culture. That is, everything has become so expensive and hostile and competitive not because of the growth of financialization and creeping capital but because of a decline in character. These people are so saturated with culture issues that they cannot see how the very thing they are in bond with, business, is destroying the things they claim to care most about: families, communities and generosity. I am not being condescending when I say that they find themselves able to blaim skyrocketing medical costs on the fact that you cannot pay a doctor in eggs and butter anymore. (Something almost none of them ever did btw. Even in Montana that was a thing of the past by their time. But I have literally heard this argument and many of a similar for. on trips to my home state.)
WillPostForFood 4y ago
16- and 17-year-olds can work and allows them to serve alcohol Teens don't really have smaller hands than adults. This bill is sane. Allowing kids to work for construction is going to improve lives more than blindly pushing everyone regardless of desire or aptitude in college and graduating them with a worthless degree and a half mil in debt. Let teens work in roofing and get some skills that the world actually needs. Give me a rational argument please, not just an appeal to emotion.
- eganist 4y ago
  16 and 17 year olds have even less of a risk assessment capacity than 18 year olds (worth noting that this faculty fully matures by around 25), but jobs where bad decisions have more impact aren't the place for people new to the workforce to cut their teeth; there's too much risk not just to themselves (which we're disregarding here; people should be fine making whatever stupid decision they want) but to the people around them. Start them off doing jobs that have responsibility but less consequence. Then progressively ramp up the responsibility and accountability as they grasp it. That's your rational argument.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > which we're disregarding here; people should be fine making whatever stupid decision they want The entire reason the concept of “minors” exists is a social judgement that this rule has only limited applicability to people below a certain age.
    - pjc50 4y ago
      A country that allows kids to climb on roofs five years before they're considered mature enough to drink alcohol needs to have another look at how it does risk assessment.
      - dariusj18 4y ago
        Well they certainly shouldn't be climbing on roofs drunk.
hindsightbias 4y ago
We don't need to wait around for robots if kids can do all that.
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
I was almost 18 when Washington state passed stricter labor laws for 16-17 year olds, and I was actually really pissed for those couple of months that I had to deal with it. You know, I was almost an adult at that point, I was doing great in school, on my way to university, and…I have to cut back on work because some Karen thought they knew what was better for me?! Anyways, seeing it from the perspective of being that teenager once, I can sympathize with these roll backs. And I don’t want to become a new Karen to today’s teenagers.

DubiousPusher 4y ago

Yeah. I was maintaining a similar level of neutrality until I hit this line. > The measure — championed by conservative lobbying groups, the state restaurant association and the state industry group for home builders, among others

jabroni_salad 4y ago

Iowan here, this is actually a long-running talking point. Prior to the pandemic, Iowa was experiencing "full employment" with a 2.5% unemployment rate, which was among the lowest in the country prior to the pandemic spike. Some amount of churn is actually desirable as it means that employers can grow their operations and employees are finding opportunities. However, businesses in the manufacturing, agricultural, and service sectors were getting throttled by headcount. There was a lot of discussion about getting SAHMs to re-enter, and how to get incentivize hiring disabled people, and stuff like that. In the post-pandemic era our news cycle got captured by pandemic entitlement discussion, but ultimately this and measures like it was always going to be what Iowa's "return to normal" would end up looking like. Notably off the table is how to get kids to go to school here and stay here. Currently they are going to school out of state and leaving the state. It seems like we will do anything except make the state more desirable to live in. & quite frankly the politics here were only tolerable because the state used to be reliably purple, and we are swinging in a direction I do not really care for. My employer has offices in minnesota and I have been thinking of trying to transfer northwards for awhile now.

pjc50 4y ago
> Notably off the table is how to get kids to go to school here and stay here. Ah, so the plan is to put the 16/17 year olds in the workplace because they're too young to live independently and leave the state.
onetimeusename 4y ago
so is this an issue Iowans are concerned about or is this a synthetic issue that corporations are astroturfing? I can't see it being a very high priority imo even though I am sympathetic to 14 yr olds who want money.
- jabroni_salad 4y ago
  It is a real issue and not just repealing labor laws for funsies. There are too many predators and not enough prey in the ecosystem. Either we need to accept that some of the businesses will starve or find a way to increase the labor force.
  - locopati 4y ago
    Maybe they should pay more. That's usually the way to attract workers.
  - analognoise 4y ago
    If a business is so terrible that it needs to hire children "to survive" it seems obvious to me it should be destroyed.
- DubiousPusher 4y ago
  I can't speak for Iowans but it looks very close to what has happened in my home state of Montana. That is, the Republican party has very successfully bonded a functional plurality to itself mostly via the culture war. In Montana this isn't just about your wedge issues like abortion. Particularly there's a long standing animice towards people who move there from California. This goes back to the 90s, long before it became an internet meme. Californians serve as an abstract outgroup that a pundits can pin any absurd or unpopular cultural issue on whilst creating a contrast to "real Montanans" whose character and interests conveniently align with all the pundit's favorite policies. For many of the voters in this plurality, what goes on on the business side is secondary to these culture war and identitarian issues. This is compounded over time because as the empowered business interest of the party break down the social programs which were the product of a historic culture of community and combination, voters endure real deprivation and feel the pressure and anxiety from that deprivation. But instead of turning against the party and the business interests, they again find their antagonist in the culture. That is, everything has become so expensive and hostile and competitive not because of the growth of financialization and creeping capital but because of a decline in character. These people are so saturated with culture issues that they cannot see how the very thing they are in bond with, business, is destroying the things they claim to care most about: families, communities and generosity. I am not being condescending when I say that they find themselves able to blaim skyrocketing medical costs on the fact that you cannot pay a doctor in eggs and butter anymore. (Something almost none of them ever did btw. Even in Montana that was a thing of the past by their time. But I have literally heard this argument and many of a similar for. on trips to my home state.)

WillPostForFood 4y ago

16- and 17-year-olds can work and allows them to serve alcohol Teens don't really have smaller hands than adults. This bill is sane. Allowing kids to work for construction is going to improve lives more than blindly pushing everyone regardless of desire or aptitude in college and graduating them with a worthless degree and a half mil in debt. Let teens work in roofing and get some skills that the world actually needs. Give me a rational argument please, not just an appeal to emotion.

eganist 4y ago
16 and 17 year olds have even less of a risk assessment capacity than 18 year olds (worth noting that this faculty fully matures by around 25), but jobs where bad decisions have more impact aren't the place for people new to the workforce to cut their teeth; there's too much risk not just to themselves (which we're disregarding here; people should be fine making whatever stupid decision they want) but to the people around them. Start them off doing jobs that have responsibility but less consequence. Then progressively ramp up the responsibility and accountability as they grasp it. That's your rational argument.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > which we're disregarding here; people should be fine making whatever stupid decision they want The entire reason the concept of “minors” exists is a social judgement that this rule has only limited applicability to people below a certain age.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    A country that allows kids to climb on roofs five years before they're considered mature enough to drink alcohol needs to have another look at how it does risk assessment.
    - dariusj18 4y ago
      Well they certainly shouldn't be climbing on roofs drunk.

hindsightbias 4y ago

We don't need to wait around for robots if kids can do all that.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

I was almost 18 when Washington state passed stricter labor laws for 16-17 year olds, and I was actually really pissed for those couple of months that I had to deal with it. You know, I was almost an adult at that point, I was doing great in school, on my way to university, and…I have to cut back on work because some Karen thought they knew what was better for me?! Anyways, seeing it from the perspective of being that teenager once, I can sympathize with these roll backs. And I don’t want to become a new Karen to today’s teenagers.