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Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

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Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#51

Post by tarotuser »

aaomidi wrote: post #41
oramit wrote: post #19

"Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the department assessed PSSI $15,138 for each minor-aged employee who was employed in violation of the law. The amount is the maximum civil money penalty allowed by federal law." Wow, I knew that labor laws in the US were toothless but to have it spelled out like this is so depressing. A max penalty of ~15k per violation, just bravo team, bravo.

I got called insane for saying politicians don't care about people and outright hate people yesterday https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35125683 Here's more evidence.

I think attributing any sort of emotion to them is out of place.

I'd argue that there's complete antipathy at the politician and elite level. And that turns "illegal child labor" into a cost of doing business. And from the looks of it, a quite lucrative form of doing business.

I think you're misjudging the emotions (I'd argue they have none). I don't think you're insane.

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#52

Post by throw93 »

nostromo wrote: post #21

There are millions of undocumented workers in the US using fake identities to get jobs. Both major parties support this system. Some Republican interests enjoy the access to dirt-cheap labor. Some Democratic interests want immigrants to be able to find jobs despite it being illegal to employ them. So we end up with a system where employers have no easy way to verify that an employee is who they say they are and has a…

> There are millions of undocumented workers in the US using fake identities to get jobs.

How is this related to the story? The story is about companies using children as workers in hazardous job. It’s illegal regardless of their documentation status. Iowa has proposed bill to to legalize exactly this. This is happening because companies don’t want to pay fair wage.

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#53

Post by aaomidi »

tarotuser wrote: post #51
aaomidi wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got called insane for saying politicians don't care about people and outright hate people yesterday https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35125683 Here's more evidence.

I think attributing any sort of emotion to them is out of place. I'd argue that there's complete antipathy at the politician and elite level. And that turns "illegal child labor" into a cost of doing business. And from the looks of it, a quite lucrative form of doing business. I think you're misjudging the emotions (I'd argue they have none). I don't think you're insane.

You're not wrong. I think I use the word `hate` because the status quo is to squeeze the average person out more and more. So since they "don't care", that lack of care ends up being the same as if they hated us.

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#54

Post by sokoloff »

stonemetal12 wrote: post #31
DeathArrow wrote: post #20

Is it legal to work in the USA if you are 13 years old?

In non farm jobs, No.

I was cutting grass for neighbors and a small business lot in the neighborhood at age 13 (and maybe a few weeks before my 13th birthday). I don't know if it was legal or not, but it seemed/seems appropriate to me.

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#55

Post by roenxi »

throw93 wrote: post #52
nostromo wrote: post #21

There are millions of undocumented workers in the US using fake identities to get jobs. Both major parties support this system. Some Republican interests enjoy the access to dirt-cheap labor. Some Democratic interests want immigrants to be able to find jobs despite it being illegal to employ them. So we end up with a system where employers have no easy way to verify that an employee is who they say they are and has a…

> There are millions of undocumented workers in the US using fake identities to get jobs. How is this related to the story? The story is about companies using children as workers in hazardous job. It’s illegal regardless of their documentation status. Iowa has proposed bill to to legalize exactly this. This is happening because companies don’t want to pay fair wage.

Presumably the children in question lied about their age when they signed up. The most likely scenario is the meat plant offered them the best wage-earning opportunity in the area. If there aren't systems to verify who workers really are then the meat plant might not have had an easy way to find out. Seems plausible as theories go although obviously I only read this press release and moved on.

I mean; if the likely outcome was just losing their job these kids would probably have lied to the investigators too. The evidence here is they wanted to work since this isn't a slavery situation.

100 is such a small number in the grand scheme of things. There are much more than 100 children illegally employed in the US. I'd guarantee it. A lot of families need money.

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#56

Post by bruceb »

nostromo wrote: post #21

There are millions of undocumented workers in the US using fake identities to get jobs. Both major parties support this system. Some Republican interests enjoy the access to dirt-cheap labor. Some Democratic interests want immigrants to be able to find jobs despite it being illegal to employ them. So we end up with a system where employers have no easy way to verify that an employee is who they say they are and has a…

Immigration is one of the areas that such blatant lying happens by partisans. We do have defacto open borders. A good segment of Dems politicians and activists try to cover this up. They also misrepresent temporary "humanitarian" visas as being temporary. They are never temporary and always get extended.

On the other side is the lack of enforcement on the employer side which a good segment of Rs ignore. Cut off incentives and fewer people will come.

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#57

Post by anonymouskimmer »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #13
Invictus0 wrote: post #7

> Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the department assessed PSSI $15,138 for each minor-aged employee who was employed in violation of the law. The amount is the maximum civil money penalty allowed by federal law.

So if they employ 10k kids they get the y can turn a profit despite the fine?

They don't keep getting to employ these kids after being caught and made to pay the fine. So the risk is that they get fined before getting $15k worth of after-wage labor from the kids, and of course now they have to backfill the jobs posthaste or they violate their contract (with any potential fees from that).

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#58

Post by dsfyu404ed »

I used to do this sort of overnight cleaning but in medical. Based on my experience I would be very surprised if the overwhelming majority of these kids weren't a) immigrants and b) working the same shift least one of their parents. I wouldn't say it was typical to have teenagers around but when you saw one it almost always turned out that they carpool with a parent even if they didn't necessarily work in proximity to each other.

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#59

Post by FireBeyond »

nostromo wrote: post #21

There are millions of undocumented workers in the US using fake identities to get jobs. Both major parties support this system. Some Republican interests enjoy the access to dirt-cheap labor. Some Democratic interests want immigrants to be able to find jobs despite it being illegal to employ them. So we end up with a system where employers have no easy way to verify that an employee is who they say they are and has a…

A few years ago in the South, coordinated ICE raids of a bunch of chicken "factories" owned by Tyson netted 800-900 arrests of undocumented employees.

Many of them testified that Tyson encouraged and coached them, even provided written instructions on how to deal with various employment/taxation things as someone undocumented.

Asked about this at a press conference, and whether there were "any plans to issue fines, or charges/arrests against the company or management at the company who were very much aware they were employing undocumented workers"?

DA / prosecutors: "We have not discussed and do not have plans to do so at this time."

And to no-one's surprise, no "plans to do so" showed up later, or at all, either.

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#60

Post by tarotuser »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #49
stonemetal12 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In non farm jobs, No.

Sure it is. The Federal labor laws only apply to businesses engaged in interstate commerce (individual state laws apply locally). But even then exemptions are listed on page 5 of this non-copypastable PDF: https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/chil... https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/youthrules/young-workers If you are under the age of 14, you are only allowed to do the following jobs: - Deliver new…

Public schools have been instituting in "gig work" before that even became a term.

I remember in my elementary years (5-11 year olds) that the school would 'force' (peer pressure, competition, punishment of class for you not doing, etc) kids to get fliers of absolute utter garbage merchandise at exorbitant prices, and then go door-to-door selling these items. And the public school would get some unknown kickback for sales.

I remember when my parents said no to this, the teacher in class said "Since tarotuser won't sell anything, the class can never get a pizza party".

But... as a worse thought, that would indicate that Instacart et al should be able to target any age group, since gig-work is endorsed by the public school system and technically isn't "employment". But we all know better.

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