When I was 14-years-old I had chores to do at home. I was tasked with laundry duties, dusting, cleaning the bathrooms, cutting the grass, and weeding the garden. When it snowed overnight I was out with my parents at 5 AM shoveling the (long-ass) driveway.
I did not, however, have to don PPE and go to work in a meatpacking plant.
Yet, if Republican lawmakers in some states get their way, we will see the rolling back of child labor law protections that harken back to the days of old.
The Wisconsin Senate passed a bill that would have expanded working hours to 11 PM for 14- and 15-year olds … but Governor Tony Evers vetoed it. #whew
But legislation is still working its way through the process in Minnesota and Iowa. The bill in Minnesota would enable 16-and 17-year-olds to do construction work. In Iowa, where meat is king, 14- and 15- year-olds would be allowed to work in the meatpacking industry. (Sadly enough, just this past November, the US Department of Labor was granted a temporary injunction against a company that offers cleaning services at meatpacking plants for – you guessed it – “oppressive child labor” violations.)
And here’s one of the key points of the Iowa bill – it exempts business from civil liability in the event a child/student is injured, sickened or killed due to the company negligence. So if, under the guise of a “work-study” program through the student’s school, the teen loses a limb (or loses their life!) due to the company’s negligence…there will apparently be just a “shrug” and a “sorry.”
Is there value in teens holding outside employment? Of course there is; a job promotes the learning of communication and time management skills and gives teens the chance to be independent and responsible. Not to mention the paycheck.
But teenagers also need 9 to 9.5 hours of sleep per night as they progress through the developmental stage of cognitive maturation. Their primary pursuit at this age should be education – and it’s what we should want as a society.
And we should be extraordinarily cautious about exactly which teens would be taking these jobs in slaughterhouses and on construction sites; chances are pretty good we won’t see Chad the star quarterback whose daddy owns the local car dealership hosing out a chicken coop. Rather we’ll see the exploitation of immigrants and families living in poverty who send their kids to work to have enough money for basic living expenses.
That’s a whole lot different than shoveling the driveway at home.
“The idea of putting children into work activities that could be dangerous is something that is not only irresponsible but reprehensible.”
Charlie Wishman, president of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO
