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Child Labor Is on the Rise
- fithisux 3y ago[flagged]
- vore 3y agoI don’t understand what you’re saying. People who oppose racism and inequality are responsible for child labor increasing? What?
- fithisux 3y ago[flagged]
- neuronexmachina 3y agoCould you explain the connection to the article?
- spicebox 3y agoI think generally the people who are against racism and facism aren’t the ones pushing for more child labor
- fithisux 3y ago[flagged]
- watwut 3y agoNo, it is GOP trying to remove restrictions on child labor and those are also more pro-fascists.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- version_five 3y ago[flagged]
- mindslight 3y agoThere is a massive distinction between an adolescent working along side a parent or other family, and being individually employed by an unrelated employer and directly subject to the economic/social grindstone. (why are you wasting time on fall protection? why are you asking for a mask just to drill some holes in concrete? try being a man!) The former is going to happen informally regardless of what the law says, but I agree the law should be more conductive to it. The latter is fraught with misaligned incentives, and is mainly what people are reacting to. If workers' economic power were generally rising, the whole topic would be essentially moot. But economically empowered workers are generally impossible due to that rarely questioned policy of continual monetary stimulus and other business-uber-alles regulation. Hence the specific concern about working conditions and workers' rights.
- BowBun 3y agoI think you could have made your point without resorting to baseless ad hominems > people who have never done a day's real work in their lives What a dumb statement to make. And you know it.
- nohankyou 3y agoI have never worked a real farmers day of work in my life. I sit at desks and use computers for up to 8 hours a day. I have never worked a field, built a house, or done anything significantly physical for work ever. This is not unusual.
- javajosh 3y agoLook, if 10-year-olds think it's wrong for them to be allowed to work at low-paid and dangerous jobs, then they should have voted for someone else.
- aio2 3y agoI don't know if this is sarcastic or not.
- Espressosaurus 3y agoIt's probably sarcastic. Probably.
- gloryjulio 3y agoI'm not sure either. It's really hard to tell
- ToValueFunfetti 3y agoIt's a one-sentence comment that undermines itself no fewer than four times; of course it's sarcastic. The only question is whether the two of you are being sarcastic.
- kayodelycaon 3y agoIt would be sarcastic if people didn’t believe things like that. If you’re in a bad situation, that’s your fault and not my problem. Kids with bad parents should have stood up for themselves. It leads to the implication that the kids should have picked better parents. I wish I was joking.
- maxbond 3y agoI have problems understanding online sarcasm all the time, and people do believe some ridiculous stuff, but no one is under the impression that 10 year olds have the right to vote.
- exar0815 3y agoIn Germany it's legal to start working the moment you leave the compulsory 9 years of Education, where you are 15 or 16. Granted, you are then in the apprenticeship-system where half of the time you have to visit an apprenticeship school and the other half of the time you learn a trade, but noone bats an eye.
- watwut 3y ago15-18 years old work has special regulations applied to it. There are protections and special regulations about their physical and mental health in place.
- exar0815 3y agoThis is true, but as a lot of those apprenticeships happen in small companies (most large companies don't allow any apprentices below 18 for that reason) most of those protections are... tenous at best.
- screwturner68 3y agoYou work as an apprentice and part of a union -you are actually learning a trade. These are not union jobs so the wages are very low, you have no benefits (likely no health insurance or vacation) and they are strictly labor positions where it's cheaper to use a 15 year old than it is to rent a backhoe.
- Supermancho 3y agoThis is true of lots of places in the world. US citizens have been indoctrinated to believe the opportunity to abuse is attractive enough that more complex protections, for younger adults, is a political danger zone. God forbid you change something and some abuse appears on the news. Pointing at tradition and saying "I didn't change anything, it must be another bad guy" is the go-to tool for maintaining the status quo in politics. The US position is self-sustaining and oversimplified, like many subjects across the world.
- triceratops 3y agoThey're still in education - trade education, but education nonetheless. So not really the same thing as working in a meatpacking plant.
- slily 3y agoI first looked for work when I was 14-15 and got my first job at 16. No one forced me to do it. It was liberating to have some money and I liked taking some responsibility. But I had trouble finding an employer that hired minors. As far as I'm concerned making it easier for minors to find work is great. And when I see "child labor" I think of 8-year-olds forced to work, not 16-year-olds doing so of their own volition. Sounds like lowering the barriers will benefit poor families the most, despite the clear bias against it in the article.
- codegeek 3y agoI am thinking the same. I would rather have my 15-16 year old working on 6 hour hard labor job learning real life skills than playing video games or their IPad. So this is not a simple thing and we need to look at the nuances and details. This article is very low quality without any specifics. I personally think that we have gone in the other direction too much where our kids are overprotected from real life skills and are shielded too much until they are in early 20s and then they struggle big time. I know at least 2 20+ year olds who are very lost and have never worked a real job in their life. Personally as a parent, I have no issues getting my kids getting a tough shit job in a McDonalds for a 5-6 hour shift. Does that count as Child Labor ?
- triceratops 3y ago> I would rather have my 15-16 year old working on 6 hour hard labor job learning real life skills than playing video games or their IPad. If only we lived in a world with more than 2 choices for everything... > McDonalds for a 5-6 hour shift. Does that count as Child Labor ? No, if there are health and safety protections in place and enforced. And it's not interfering with schoolwork or rest.
- Unearned5161 3y agoperhaps the friction for minors looking for a job exists for good reason. the focus at that age should be school, not work, i recognize that there are those less fortunate that can't afford to do school sans work, but the solution to that should be financial aid, not making them work. society's goal should be to get a more educated populace, by lowering the friction to enter the workforce at such a young age you're endangering that group of kids on the edge who, given more friction, would have stayed in school and gone to do greater things, but since it was so easy to get into work so early they lowered the overall potential of their lives. so regarding the poor families this would supposedly help, I'd argue it's more complicated than that, and what this may be doing is providing short term help while sacrificing long term social mobility. keep the poor working and not learning and they'll mostly stay poor. there's nothing wrong of course with a part time gig to get accustomed to different responsibilities, but it should remain restricted to that. you've got your entire life to work full-time, there's no need to rush things.
- giantg2 3y agoSo what are they proposing? They claim that the existing regulations don't work. That the unaccompanied minors are the ones filling the vast majority of these roles, but that the border crossing isn't the issue. It sounds like they don't have a solution?
- systemtest 3y agoThere is a local theme park nearby where they have 13 and 14-year olds working. To guide people, help them out, check for belts, opening gates and such. Minimum wage starts at 15 years old so the owner doesn't need to pay them much. At 13 years old you can't work at a factory but you can stock shelfs or pick fruit. No more than 7 hours a day and no more than 35 hours a week. No Sundays. The Netherlands, not the US. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhAgO8M4mZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhAgO8M4mZA
- gimmeThaBeet 3y agoNow I don't speak dutch, but in a context like that that seems fairly reasonable I guess as long as everyone's cool with it? With a caveat of 'if they don't hire anyone in those roles over 15, to me, that would kind of in bad faith.' They mention it in the article, the case that sticks in my mind is the one with Packer Sanitation, where they had at least 100+ teenagers working overnight shifts cleaning equipment and floors in abattoirs/meatpacking plants. They interviewed one of these kids, and he was working like 10pm-6am, then going to high school afterward. They obscured the kid's identity because he didn't want to get fired, as he was supporting his family in Guatemala. It's one of those things where it just strikes me like, how do you even fix that? Like even with the best intentions, are you going to inadvertently derail someone's life, or their family?
- tremon 3y agoNo more than 7 hours a day and no more than 35 hours a week ...and only outside school hours. If a child is absent from school, the parents will be fined more than the child will earn.
- wnevets 3y agoWhat's the alterative, pay adults a competitive wage? Value for shareholders must be created and we've already sacrificed our children's future environment and economy. Getting upset about sacrificing the actual children to make a buck is a moot point. /sarcasm.
- polygamous_bat 3y agoWhy sacrifice our children's future only when you can sacrifice their presents too? /s
- ArekDymalski 3y agoWhy stop here? The next logical step will be optimizing the process by removing this inefficient phase where animals are involved and going full Soylent mode.
- ChuckNorris89 3y agoThe children yearn for the coal mines.
- trumpeta 3y agoalso much less likely to get shot there than at school!
- xracy 3y agoThe market is a magical system that both creates value for necessary jobs, and also can't pay people wages for those same valuable jobs, so we need to put children to work.
- JakeAl 3y agoChildren not working is a modern phenomenon in privileged nations. When times get tough and people need to pay bills just to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads, see how fast that changes. And they are about to get tough.
- Spivak 3y agoMy state is trying to pull this shit too and it's maddening. A bunch of businesses owners got together and whined about an "worker shortage" (ie nobody wants to work a dead end job for shit pay, shit hours, and shit managers) and so our brilliant legislature said, "I know just the kind of people who will work those jobs -- teenagers that are desperate enough for cash that they'll work into the night on school nights." They can already work weekends, summers, and holidays by the way, the only time they can't is mon-thurs because of that compulsory education thing. The sad part is that it's not even about there being a void to fill, their competitors who are offering $17.50/hr are rolling in applicants, it's pure greed using the legislature and teenage labor to drive down wages for everyone under the guise of "well it's fine because it's just spending money" (and labor exploitation).
- gen220 3y agoI remember a year ago (peak “labor shortage” in the food industry), visiting a middle sized, remote New England town. We went to a Chili’s where there were 2 wait staff to service ~100 seats, maybe 40 of which were full, and it was as chaotic and depressing as you could imagine. Sentiment among customers was “it’s a shame nobody wants to work anymore.” “Help wanted” in the window. The next day we went to a locally-owned and operated brewery + pub in the same town. It was overflowing with about 120 eager patrons and buzzing with 20+ smiling and joking wait staff of all generations. We don’t have a labor shortage, we have a quality employer shortage.
- onetimeusename 3y agoThis surge is being propelled by an unhappy confluence of employers desperate to fill jobs, including dangerous jobs, at the lowest possible cost; a vast wave of “unaccompanied minors” entering the country; more than a little human trafficking; This is such a strange thing for legislatures to prioritize weakening child labor laws and not generally care about how these minors got here. It just shows that special interests drive the legislative process.
- kayodelycaon 3y agoEdit: Please read my comment in context. I’m explaining a mindset. :( I have no issues with existing federal labor laws. It’s not strange to me. A lot of conservative people I knew growing up would think this is great. Having a job is a moral obligation and making kids work is good for them. It’s what the Bible says: spare the rod, spoil the child. Same goes with minimum wages laws. They are oppressive to businesses and make them pay people more than they are worth. Anything that gets in the way of people’s freedom to do as they please (including exploiting others) is bad. They think that the market will prevent abuses because people can just walk away and find a less exploitive job. It’s your responsibility to not be exploited.
- codegeek 3y ago"Having a job is a moral obligation and making kids work is good for them" I wouldn't call myself hardcore conservative but what's wrong with this ? Would you rather have your 15 year old sit home all day playing video games or get a real life job where they could learn a few valuable skills ? Honest question and not trying to troll. As an American, I am seeing our kids being over protected and the result is a bunch of 20 year olds who have no direction and have never faced hardship to prepare for the real world.
- kayodelycaon 3y agoI don’t see anything wrong with teenagers working. The issue is them working in jobs with high risk of injury. (Like industrial labor.)
- Animats 3y agoI'm expecting a conservative call for the re-institution of slavery soon. It will be called something else, of course, such as "privatized incarceration". A few years back, I was at the Design2Part show, which is for manufacturing, and the California Department of Corrections had a booth, offering slave labor.
- Ekaros 3y agoThe slavery is already enshrined in constitution. Just need to build those work camps and get people imprisoned there.
- l3mure 3y agoI wouldn't be surprised if certain states start forcibly relocating homeless people any day now.
- green_man_lives 3y agoThat already exists in the form you describe.
- green_man_lives 3y agoIt is clear that many aren't reading the article. This is not about kids working at McDonald's for a summer job: "In February, the Labor Department announced that it had found more than a hundred children between the ages of thirteen and seventeen working in meatpacking plants and slaughterhouses, in eight states, for Packers Sanitation Services, one of the nation’s largest food-sanitation companies. The facilities themselves are owned by major corporations, including Tyson Foods and JBS. (All three companies denied that they had engaged in any wrongdoing.) The children worked overnight shifts at such jobs as cleaning bone saws and head splitters with hazardous chemicals. At least three were injured."
- koboll 3y agoA little misleading, perhaps, that at the top of the article is an illustration of a kid working at McDonald's.
- chasd00 3y ago> with hazardous chemicals. At least three were injured. Windex is a hazardous chemical and scratching yourself on a bandsaw is an injury. Needs more details.
- grumple 3y agoYou say that like you can't cut off a limb with a bandsaw! [0] > The accident summaries from 2021 to 2023 show that most injuries involve hands and fingers. While some are only cuts and lacerations, most incidents proceed to partial and full finger amputations. My guess is that minor injuries usually go unreported. 0. https://www.sawinery.net/bandsaw-accidents/#:~:text=Even%20today%2C%20some%20bandsaw%20injuries,partial%20and%20full%20finger%20amputations https://www.sawinery.net/bandsaw-accidents/#:~:text=Even%20t....
- jstanley 3y agoYou can cut off a limb with a bandsaw, but scratching yourself and cutting off a limb are different injuries.
- steve76 3y ago[dead]
- HyperSane 3y agoHistory has shown that in capitalism the absolute floor for wages and rights for employees is chattel slavery. The slave states were willing to build an entire culture around exploiting cheap labor.
- mgkimsal 3y ago"Arkansas’s Republican governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, recently signed a law ending a requirement that fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds obtain a parent’s consent and a state permit before starting work. Linking the bill, strangely, to parental rights, the governor’s office called the permit “an arbitrary burden on parents.”" Yet... teens shouldn't have access to abortion or other sexual health services without parental consent because... they're children(?). My initial thought reading this was the word 'astonishing' but... on reflection, it's not that astonishing. It's just depressing. Also, more than mildly infuriating.
- agumonkey 3y agoIt's morbidly fascinating to see so many "normals" of the last 50 years evaporate bit by bit.
- otagekki 3y agoIt must be because it's been almost been 60 years since Europeans and Americans last fought for better working conditions, and a little less than 100 years since child labor has been banned. People fighting for these rights have long died, and so will be their legacy.
- agumonkey 3y agoprobably. I often want to search about the memory capacity of society
- anlaw 3y agoYou know the dumbest part about this ageist attack on youth (in context of climate and social life) is the gerontocrats dictating such are frail, old, and have no ability to feed themselves. It’s all designed to isolate grandpa and grandma from work; prop up their ephemeral investments and keep producing their potatoes, kids! They earned it! Sorry but I don’t think your grandma and parents are owed Porsches and mansions at the cost to my kids.
- mgkimsal 3y agoIf people come from Mexico and "take your jobs", that's worth shutting down the government. If your neighbors' 14 year old kids "take your jobs"... that's just good old capitalism?
- angarg12 3y agoMany of these are children of immigrants, so picture the cognitive dissonance.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Lapsa 3y agoreminds me of Frostpunk. "get to work, amputee kid!"
- neap24 3y agoI'm 100% in favor of children working starting with chores at home and continuing through the rest of childhood, to some degree. But I'd rather see it be things like lawn mowing, babysitting, and what I would call "ordinary" childhood expectations and responsibilities. Keeping kids focused on these domains mostly removes the problem of defining what counts as child labor and what counts as excessive. One problem I have with allowing kids to work in typically adult workplaces, is that I hate working in those places myself and have worked hard my whole life to avoid them, as much as possible.
- otagekki 3y agoIt's been almost 60 years since Europeans and Americans last fought for better working conditions, and a little less than 100 years since child labor has been banned. Is it because the people fighting for what we have today in terms of working conditions have long died? Is it because rogue capitalism and globalized economy is putting such a toll on industrialized countries that workers in those countries aren't be able to compete with the countries where the cost of living is cheaper? Anyway, it's sad to see that the U.S. are slowly getting back to the 1900s in terms of work conditions.
- throw9away6 3y agoHyundai too. Pretty egregious