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12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

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Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#81

Post by KRAKRISMOTT »

stolenmerch wrote: post #47
jl6 wrote: post #8

> Ten-hour days, five or six days a week, in North Carolina's summer heat. This is the problem, not the age of the child or the crop. Spending an occasional weekend working a few hours in a field sounds perfectly fine and character-building for a 12-year-old. More 12 year olds should be getting outside and tasting manual labor! The issue is when this starts being less of a learning experience and more of an actual fu…

As an Iowa kid, I detasseled corn every summer from when I was 12 to 16. 10 hour days, 5 or 6 days a week, in the Iowa heat and humidity. Not saying every ag job for kids is like mine or José Velásquez Castellano's, but it's not that cruel. I'm not sure if I was supplementing my family's income or not, but I sure was paying for things that other more well-off kids had their parents pay for. I'm not arguing for "child…

You missed out on career opportunities typical upper middle class inner city/suburban kids had access to. Outside of software engineering and a few other specific verticals, most high earning careers would require some sort of preparation from high school. There is a massive opportunity cost for kids when it comes to working in the fields.

People wonder how some public figures can just fail upwards, this sort of success requires preparation and grooming at an early age. The Gates and Zuckerbergs of the world did not get where they are through hard physical labor in their teenage years.

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#82

Post by ewgoforth »

jl6 wrote: post #8

> Ten-hour days, five or six days a week, in North Carolina's summer heat. This is the problem, not the age of the child or the crop. Spending an occasional weekend working a few hours in a field sounds perfectly fine and character-building for a 12-year-old. More 12 year olds should be getting outside and tasting manual labor! The issue is when this starts being less of a learning experience and more of an actual fu…

I'm from North Carolina, but never picked tobacco. Another problem I heard was that you absorb nicotine through your skin when picking tobacco, so it can make you sick if you aren't a tobacco user. It was used as an excuse to allow kids to smoke some cigarettes in order to get a tolerance for nicotine. This was back when there was an outside smoking area in high schools for students to smoke in.

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#83

Post by dbspin »

hahamrfunnyguy wrote: post #54
dbspin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

12 year olds are generally prepubescent children. This isn't like a sixteen year old working to save for a car, or even a fourteen year old gaining a little independence and exercise working a few hours after school. This is child labour. It's indefensible.

I am one of those twelve-year-olds that worked in the fields to save money for an education. We actually started when I was about 10 or 11. My sister and I grew pumpkins to sell at our roadside farm stand and grew vegetables that were sold to a local grocery chain through a program run by 4H/Cooperative Extension. It was hard work, but a great experience. There were some 10-12 hour days when we were planting, and it…

"My sister and I grew pumpkins to sell at our roadside farm stand"

You didn't work the fields. You had your own small business you owned and managed. Congrats, sounds like you did a great job, set your own schedule, learned loads and enjoyed yourself.

This is real world project based learning - I applaud and support it.

It is absolutely nothing like being employed as a child, by a profit making enterprise. That's being subject to an employment contract without the cognitive comprehension or legal protections of an adult.

Being an employee means being a productive tool of an enterprise - employees are protected from exploitation to the precise amount they have the economic power and social status to protect themselves. We're not talking about kids running a fruit stand, or even helping their parents with some hours in a shop here. We're talking about hard manual labour, for someone else, likely for a pittance.

It's like comparing playing doctors and nurses to child marriage. One is natural unforced experimentation between kids, the other is exploitation of children by adults.

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#84

Post by bigbillheck »

nsxwolf wrote: post #57
nverno wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think they would vote against be allowed to work? I always wanted jobs as a teen so I could do stuff- I wanted to be independent as do most teens I'd imagine.

I don’t know how old you are (over 40?) but I suspect there’s a generational gap here. In the 1990s and before, in my part of the US anyway, a teenager without a job was seen as lazy or entitled. Sometime after the mobile internet happened kids stopped working. They stopped driving cars and that was a big motivator for work. There was a lot of money flying around and parents just started handing spending money to the…

My first paid job was at 16, I'm pushing 50 and that's some terrifying Charles Dickens stuff.

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#85

Post by lizknope »

I grew up in North Carolina in the late 1980's. There was tobacco all around and I knew many classmates that picked tobacco from at least age 14. Some people in the thread are remembering their own experiences fondly. I can't remember any of my friends saying anything positive about picking tobacco. I don't think they made much money either.

As for not being able to buy cigarettes, everyone I knew that wanted to smoke could get cigarettes. We had a lot of hotels in town and they all had cigarette vending machines where you just insert your money and get a pack. No cashier and no age verification of any kind.

https://poserworld.com/70s-era-vintage-cigarette-vending-mac...

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#86

Post by kube-system »

arcticbull wrote: post #69
HarryHirsch wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a work safety issue, not a child labour issue.

It’s both, children can’t report workplace issues because they don’t know what they’re looking for, and nobody would believe them anyways.

That applies to many adults too. People don’t automatically become familiar with labor law when they turn 18, nor is labor law a part of public school curriculum.

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#87

Post by edent »

redeeman wrote: post #66
GeoAtreides wrote: post #50

In comparison, the EU legislation on teenage working (it's a quick and easy reading): https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/human-resources/employ... First sentence: "You cannot employ young people under the age of 15"

and to put context into EU, lets also remember that this is the same legislative body that until a few years ago would have farmers scrap perfectly good cucumbers if their bend is too big. the EU is utterly out of control, and legislates EVERYTHING, most often poorly. They would also tell you how fast you're allowed to vacuum your livingroom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromyth#Straight_bananas and https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_09_...

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#88

Post by bigbillheck »

vxNsr wrote: post #39
micromacrofoot wrote: post #4

children under 18 can’t vote for better labor laws either, they should be able to vote

Have you seen how kids vote in their school elections? Why in the world would you want them to have any real say in anything? It’s bad enough people get to vote before they turn 30 you want to give kids who think produce is made in the back of the grocery store the ability to make decisions?

This is an argument for improving education so that the kids make more informed choices, not for limiting the franchise.

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#89

Post by dbspin »

werdnapk wrote: post #28
dbspin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

12 year olds are generally prepubescent children. This isn't like a sixteen year old working to save for a car, or even a fourteen year old gaining a little independence and exercise working a few hours after school. This is child labour. It's indefensible.

I worked in strawberry fields during summer months at about 12 years old or younger. I actually enjoyed it and loved the money I made to be able to buy some Nintendo games or candies. More kids should be learning some job skills early and get out of the house.

Hobby work for luxuries isn't comparable to full time work for survival. Did you read the article? Did you "wake up at 4AM?" to pick strawberries? Did you work "a full adult schedule"? Were you working in 90 degree heat? Did you have "this sense that working in those fields was going to be the rest of my life, that I had nothing else going for me." Did you have "trouble getting the money [you were] owed for [your] labor." Did you experience nicotine poisoning?

It's like comparing a home woodshop to a factory job.

Re: 12-year-olds can't buy cigarettes – but they can work in tobacco fields

#90

Post by logicchains »

arcticbull wrote: post #75
mprovost wrote: post #38

I spent my summers from ages 14-18 picking shade tobacco (for cigar wrappers) in Connecticut's Tobacco Valley. I'm not sure if it was state law but you couldn't start until you were 14. This was during summer vacation when school was out - but it used to be such an important local industry that if the crop was late they would delay the start of the school year so kids could keep picking. Boys and girls could both wor…

Were you paid a full adult salary? With benefits? If not, this is a harmful labor practice because you were undercutting the wages of full adult workers. In the same way that prison labor and undocumented workers undercut pay of adult workers, so too do child laborers. Neither are really able to report labor and safety violations, neither are able to decide not to work, and neither are paid a proper living wage. Neit…

>I’d say if we mandated a living wage this problem would likely sort itself out.

The minimum wage is already a "living wage"; people's expectations just keep getting higher and higher. Someone on the minimum wage is eating much better than somebody in Africa, and can afford much better accommodation (clean water, a roof over their head, albeit maybe a shared room). So if a person on Africa can live on much less, why does an American deserve more? If anything, if the world was fair then the American minimum wage would be lower, with that money diverted to people in underdeveloped places like Africa instead.

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