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The situation in the US now is very different from the dawn of the industrial age. You really parents are going to have to ship their kids off to coal mines and

The situation in the US now is very different from the dawn of the industrial age. You really parents are going to have to ship their kids off to coal mines and Soviet style factories? People can downvote all they want but they are not living in reality if they think that.

bobmcnamara 3y ago
I'm from the Midwest. Poor folks ship their kids off to clean the pork plants and slaughterhouses on the night shift. Cargill and JBS were some of the worst. It was easy to tell in school, they were dead tired and stunk of bleach. > The situation in the US now is very different from the dawn of the industrial age. Different for many, and different for you, but not for all.
- busterarm 3y ago
  People act like we left this all behind hundreds of years ago but child labor didn't really end as standard practice even in densely urban environments until the Great Depression...
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  I believe it. A kid died about a year ago while working in a poultry plant. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/slaughterhouse-children-documentary-rcna129405 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/slaughterhouse-children...
  - bobmcnamara 3y ago
    Every time its heartbreaking. I'm glad they're covering this in the news at least though.
nl 3y ago
> The situation in the US now is very different from the dawn of the industrial age. You really parents are going to have to ship their kids off to coal mines and Soviet style factories? Genuine question: why do you think they wouldn't? These days of course they are called Amazon warehouses or non-union car factories or industrial slaughterhouses but the point is still the same.
patcon 3y ago
Yeah, but there are modern equivalents of that period's parental negligence and collective failure. We have contemporary versions of the exploitation of mines and factories. If mines and factories were what we recognize (from today's perspective) as abuse in that industrial economy, what do you suspect are the current places that might need protection in the today's economy?
Sakos 3y ago
Necessity trumps any sort of "but parents care too much about their kids". Parents all over the globe care about their kids, but many of them put their kids to work because it's what's necessary to keep the family fed and housed. It's no different in the US, especially with how the labor market and prices look with recent inflation.
- analognoise 3y ago
  “Necessary”? It’s so weird people think that the system “must” work like this, that there are no alternatives. “All those kids had to go to work” - 5 families have more wealth than 50% of Americans combined, but somebody’s kid needs to work in a meat packing plant? The system doesn’t need to work like this.
  - Sakos 3y ago
    I absolutely don't think the system should work this way. But people will send their kids to work if the money is needed to keep the family afloat. And the families who have to do this aren't thinking about the wealthy, they're more concerned with being able to afford their home and put food on their table. They're not thinking about how the system should be, they're thinking about how it is now and how to cope with it.
defrost 3y ago
I'm afraid it's yourself who is divorced from current US reality. US Laws have explicit carve outs for agricultural work, in the fields and in the slaugtherhouses. Even so, children still work illegaly, without the appropriate permissions: In February [ 2023 ], 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. Packers, which is owned by Blackstone, the world’s largest private-equity firm, paid a civil fine of a million and a half dollars. Child Labor is on the Rise (June 2023) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/06/12/child-labor-is-on-the-rise https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/06/12/child-labor-is...
- leereeves 3y ago
  What that article doesn't tell you is that those are illegal immigrants, who would be working illegally even if they weren't children. Those companies obviously don't care about the law. https://www.npr.org/2023/05/04/1173697113/immigrant-child-labor-crisis https://www.npr.org/2023/05/04/1173697113/immigrant-child-la...
  - defrost 3y ago
    So are children working in US factories and processing plants or not? The context here is whether child labour occurs in the US.
    - leereeves 3y ago
      No, the context is whether that labor is illegal. It is, and it remains illegal even with the changes discussed in the article. And those are mostly unaccompanied minors, with no other way to support themselves, so it's not so simple as saying they shouldn't be working.

bobmcnamara 3y ago

I'm from the Midwest. Poor folks ship their kids off to clean the pork plants and slaughterhouses on the night shift. Cargill and JBS were some of the worst. It was easy to tell in school, they were dead tired and stunk of bleach. > The situation in the US now is very different from the dawn of the industrial age. Different for many, and different for you, but not for all.

busterarm 3y ago
People act like we left this all behind hundreds of years ago but child labor didn't really end as standard practice even in densely urban environments until the Great Depression...
red-iron-pine 3y ago
I believe it. A kid died about a year ago while working in a poultry plant. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/slaughterhouse-children-documentary-rcna129405 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/slaughterhouse-children...
- bobmcnamara 3y ago
  Every time its heartbreaking. I'm glad they're covering this in the news at least though.

nl 3y ago

> The situation in the US now is very different from the dawn of the industrial age. You really parents are going to have to ship their kids off to coal mines and Soviet style factories? Genuine question: why do you think they wouldn't? These days of course they are called Amazon warehouses or non-union car factories or industrial slaughterhouses but the point is still the same.

patcon 3y ago

Yeah, but there are modern equivalents of that period's parental negligence and collective failure. We have contemporary versions of the exploitation of mines and factories. If mines and factories were what we recognize (from today's perspective) as abuse in that industrial economy, what do you suspect are the current places that might need protection in the today's economy?

Sakos 3y ago

Necessity trumps any sort of "but parents care too much about their kids". Parents all over the globe care about their kids, but many of them put their kids to work because it's what's necessary to keep the family fed and housed. It's no different in the US, especially with how the labor market and prices look with recent inflation.

analognoise 3y ago
“Necessary”? It’s so weird people think that the system “must” work like this, that there are no alternatives. “All those kids had to go to work” - 5 families have more wealth than 50% of Americans combined, but somebody’s kid needs to work in a meat packing plant? The system doesn’t need to work like this.
- Sakos 3y ago
  I absolutely don't think the system should work this way. But people will send their kids to work if the money is needed to keep the family afloat. And the families who have to do this aren't thinking about the wealthy, they're more concerned with being able to afford their home and put food on their table. They're not thinking about how the system should be, they're thinking about how it is now and how to cope with it.

defrost 3y ago

I'm afraid it's yourself who is divorced from current US reality. US Laws have explicit carve outs for agricultural work, in the fields and in the slaugtherhouses. Even so, children still work illegaly, without the appropriate permissions: In February [ 2023 ], 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. Packers, which is owned by Blackstone, the world’s largest private-equity firm, paid a civil fine of a million and a half dollars. Child Labor is on the Rise (June 2023) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/06/12/child-labor-is-on-the-rise https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/06/12/child-labor-is...

leereeves 3y ago
What that article doesn't tell you is that those are illegal immigrants, who would be working illegally even if they weren't children. Those companies obviously don't care about the law. https://www.npr.org/2023/05/04/1173697113/immigrant-child-labor-crisis https://www.npr.org/2023/05/04/1173697113/immigrant-child-la...
- defrost 3y ago
  So are children working in US factories and processing plants or not? The context here is whether child labour occurs in the US.
  - leereeves 3y ago
    No, the context is whether that labor is illegal. It is, and it remains illegal even with the changes discussed in the article. And those are mostly unaccompanied minors, with no other way to support themselves, so it's not so simple as saying they shouldn't be working.