Child Labor In America

[Keanumoreira]

Okay, so I saw this topic pop up in another debate, and I became a little concerned. As some of you may know, Newt Gingrich wants to bring Child Labor back to America by giving poor children the opportunity to make more money and pull themselves out from a stagnant work ethic, replacing school janitors with children, ect. ect. These are his words, not mine. What do you think about this policy, what it really stands for, the reasons, the effects, the causes of this claim, and how it deals with children who are above the need for such jobs?

[zegh8578]

to me it seems like a shameful excuse to avoid any sort of "socialism", to extend the attitude of "get off your lazy ass and get a job" even to the children of the most unfortunate

[Keanumoreira]

to me it seems like a shameful excuse to avoid any sort of "socialism", to extend the attitude of "get off your lazy ass and get a job" even to the children of the most unfortunate

 

 

Yeah, I was thinking about the latter too. I don't agree with how some people are saying that just because they are children, that shouldn't mean that they are exempt from the working requirements of this nation. But then, I ask, how will they learn important factors like teamwork or other skills they will need when they become young adults? In my opinion, children need those years of non-working to grow and find themselves, but of course that doesn't mean they shouldn't be disciplined either.

Edited December 11, 2011 by Keanumoreira

[Ghogiel]

Sounds like an excuse to cut labour costs. You could pay a child less than a grown man surely. Secondly, increasing the labour force in face of shrinking job market is not addressing the issue imo. All it seems to do is take more jobs away from people who might need them. Yeah I know, it's the usual thing to bring in cheap labour, such as immigrant workers, that's what they are for. The US already has that type of work force, as unpopular as is, and it is a political power play piece. No one seems what to relax the borders to get more cheap labour in, quite the opposite, I guess goes down better with voters.

 

Stick to paper rounds and mowing the lawns of neighbours.

Edited December 11, 2011 by Ghogiel

[zegh8578]

to me it seems like a shameful excuse to avoid any sort of "socialism", to extend the attitude of "get off your lazy ass and get a job" even to the children of the most unfortunate

 

 

Yeah, I was thinking about the latter too. I don't agree with how some people are saying that just because they are children, that shouldn't mean that they are exempt from the working requirements of this nation. But then, I ask, how will they learn important factors like teamwork or other skills they will need when they become young adults? In my opinion, children need those years of non-working to grow and find themselves, but of course that doesn't mean they shouldn't be disciplined either.

 

its just a deluded direction to take

 

Problem: a family in poverty

Possible solutions: more jobs, better welfare system/social security,

Proposal: make the kids work, effectively forfeiting any education that they would have gotten despite poverty (at least primary education, its still free over there, no?)

[DeadMansFist849]

Sounds like an excuse to cut labour costs. You could pay a child less than a grown man surely. Secondly, increasing the labour force in face of shrinking job market is not addressing the issue imo. All it seems to do is take more jobs away from people who might need them. Yeah I know, it's the usual thing to bring in cheap labour, such as immigrant workers, that's what they are for. The US already has that type of work force, as unpopular as is, and it is a political power play piece. No one seems what to relax the borders to get more cheap labour in, quite the opposite, I guess goes down better with voters.

 

Stick to paper rounds and mowing the lawns of neighbours.

 

I agree with you there, children shouldn't really be doing adult types of work.

[Aurielius]

Just to be the devil's advocate most kids on farms do hard manual labor from an extremely young age and it was never considered to be harmful to their psyches. Families that are at or near the poverty line have their children doing some form of work to help the household stay above water, why shouldn't there be a legal way of allowing them (the children) to be paid without violating the Child Labor laws?

[grannywils]

Once again I find myself with mixed emotions. Child labor laws originally came into being in order to prevent the exploitation of children who were virtually being enslaved with no recourse.

 

By the same token by disallowing minors to work at all, we prevent some able bodied young people from contributing to the resources of lower income families.

 

Without question there must be a happy medium; and in my opinion this would need to be something with extreme regulations if it were to pass.

 

I agree that children on farms and in many other families are already doing manual labor to help out. If there were a way to enable wages to be paid in such situations and recourse for any abuse of the system put into place, I believe it could potentially work.

 

However, I also strongly believe that the most important thing for all young people is to get an education. It would not do for them to suddenly all be farmed out to labor, just because it was now "ok".

 

That is my opinion, anyway.

 

 

[Ghogiel]

I'm picturing 13yr olds mopping Burger Kings bathroom floors. The working on the farm thing sounds different to me. in the family setting, like chores. Fix a fence post, milk a chicken or something. :biggrin:

 

I had a job as a kid once. About all it did was allow me to go to the swimming pool with friends or have some extra quarters for the arcade. You could save up like 10 bucks a week or something and maybe at the end of the summer you could buy a Vision skateboard with tracker trucks and slimeball wheels...

I don't think I was doing anything illegal like violating labour laws.. maybe if it makes paper rounds legal, if it was even illegal... I would be for a change in the legislation. I also had chores as well. Had to wash my grandmoms windows and clean the dog crap out of her yard. I got some pocket money for doing it, chores are not a job.

[HeyYou]

Big difference between working the family farm, and going in to town for your 'job'. There ARE laws on the books that allow for kids to hold a job, but, I think the cutoff age is like 13 or 14? Kids younger than that don't need to be working anyway, at least, not in a 'work' type setting..... even if someone WOULD give them a job. Granted, their are serious restrictions on just what jobs they can do, and how many hours they can work.... Around here, it is pretty common to hire a boatload of kids for summer work. Corn detasseling, and suchlike. I did that for a couple years..... worked in a canning factory as well. (I was a forklift driver, at 15...... not exactly legal...... :D but, that was a farming community, and law enforcement looks at things differently in those settings.)