The Party of 'Family Values' Sees No Irony in Axing Child Labor Protections - Roll Back A Century
Last edited Fri Apr 7, 2023, 01:32 PM - Edit history (2)
- The Party of “Family Values” Sees No Irony in Axing Child Labor Protections. Truthout, April 4, 2023. Ed.
The Republican Party is embracing policies that roll back a century of child labor protections.
The New York Times’s recent exposé on child labor in the United States wasn’t about what might be called “child labor lite”: examples, say, of kids working in candy stores, logging long hours as babysitters, or getting up early to do paper-delivery rounds. Instead, it was about truly Dickensian conditions: children, many of whom were unaccompanied migrants, getting mangled while working overnight shifts in meat-packing plants; children working long hours on construction sites; children working into the wee hours in food-processing facilities; children getting chemically burned after working overnight shifts as janitors. These kids were, plain and simple, being labor-trafficked.
It was one of those pieces of investigative writing so painful in what it said about our society, so gripping in its narrative of exploitation, that after I finished reading, I thought, surely politicians will be forced to action — much as they were after Upton Sinclair’s detailing of labor conditions in Chicago meat-packing factories more than a century ago. I was right that politicians would indeed be goaded into action; I was wrong, however, as to what action they would take. Far from shoring up protections against the exploitation of children by multinational corporations, by temporary employment agencies and by the “guardians” who, like Dickensian villains of yesteryear, send their wards out to work, GOP politicians took it as an opportunity to weaken child labor laws.
Arkansas, under Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, led the stampede. A week after the Times article was published, the governor signed legislation eliminating the requirement for age-verification for under-16s before they can take a job. The bill, HB1410, was marketed by Sanders and her supporters as the “Youth Hiring Act of 2023.” It would, the bill’s language says, “Restore decision-making to parents concerning their children.” Translation: If Mom and Pop demand a kid goes to work an 8-hour shift after school each day, who are we as the general public to say that’s not a good thing? And if that kid never graduates high school, or is condemned to chronic illness or ends up acutely injured because of the job, who is the state to say that that was probably a poor family decision?
Meanwhile, legislators in Iowa are pushing legislation allowing kids as young as 14 to work in the frequently dangerous environment of meat-packing plants.
They are also preparing to shield businesses from civil liability if youngsters then end up sick, injured or killed on the job. In Minnesota, a GOP legislator has proposed a bill that, if it passes, would allow 16-year-olds to work grueling construction site jobs. The GOP is embracing policies that would take U.S. labor protections back to the early 20th century. In other states, including Ohio & Wisconsin, GOP legislators are floating bills that would lengthen the number of hours teens can work each week while school is in session.. How entirely depressing, and yet how entirely predictable, that the GOP, the self-styled party of family values, is throwing in its lot with child labor exploiters...https://truthout.org/articles/the-party-of-family-values-sees-no-irony-in-axing-child-labor-protections/
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- 'Child Labor Is on the Rise as Republicans See an Answer to Labor Shortages.' Truthout, March 23, 2023. Anti-immigrant policies and spiraling rates of poverty are driving thousands of children into the U.S. labor market.
https://truthout.org/articles/child-labor-is-on-the-rise-as-republicans-see-an-answer-to-labor-shortages/
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- 'American children are working hazardous jobs – and it’s about to get worse.' Robt. Reich, The Guardian, March 31, 2023. - In just the last year, the number of children employed in violation of child labor laws increased 37%. In the past 2 years, 10 states have introduced or passed legislation expanding work hours for children, lifting restrictions on hazardous occupations for children, allowing children to work in locations that serve alcohol, & lowering the state minimum wage for minors..some of these children (or their parents) are undocumented. They dare not speak out. They need the money. This makes them vulnerable & easily exploited..
We are witnessing across America a resurgence of cruel capitalism – a form of social Darwinism – in which business lobbyists & lawmakers justify their actions by arguing that they are not exploiting the weak & vulnerable, but rather providing jobs for those who need them & would otherwise go hungry or homeless..these same business lobbyists & lawmakers are among the first to claim we “can’t afford” stronger safety nets that would provide these children with safe housing & adequate nutrition...https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/31/child-labor-laws-republicans
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