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

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

#91

Post by psychlops » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:05 PM UTC

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…

Few things are more educational than hard work. I did my time on an assembly line and worked like crazy through college so I didn't have to do that for a living.

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

#92

Post by flandish » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:05 PM UTC

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…

> encouraged

If the laborers own the business, sure. But .. when they do not, they are simply exploited for someone else’s profit.

Let me ask another way:

What is stopping the field/process owner from hiring an adult with minimum wages and attractive benefit packages?

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

#93

Post by danShumway » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:05 PM UTC

sclarisse wrote: post #63

danShumway wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a fair critique of this article at all. > Today, Castellano is a sophomore at Tufts University. But when he worked, he felt "this sense that working in those fields was going to be the rest of my life, that I had nothing else going for me." This article isn't really about the debate about whether it's OK for a teenager to have a part-time gig at a gas station on the odd weekend, or even whether i…

If you’re presenting this big article with an attention getting headline, in the middle of this big debate that’s filled with misinformation and rhetoric reaching fantastical heights about “forced birth for cheap child labor,” it is part of that ongoing trash fire, it is very likely to feed that misinformation, and it is unlikely to become a targeted intervention that addresses the actual problems. I could say the sa…

Okay, fair, that is a critique that I do somewhat agree with.

At the same time, I'm looking at the surrounding context here on HN, and the majority of weird comments I'm seeing here are not saying, "the broader issues being explored here are part of a larger debate that's often mis-characterized" -- they're saying "this kind of labor is good actually."

For sure, if we talk about a broader debate, there is a real risk of conversations about child labor forcing kids out of what would be beneficial activities because of reactionary responses. And for sure, that's something people should be cautious about during coverage. But there are a number of comments here that are kind of staggering to me to read and that really don't look like they're defending summer jobs of the kind that are mentioned in your article, and so maybe better I think is to point out that what's happening in this article should not be lumped together into a debate about summer jobs. It should be treated as an entirely separate debate and there should be clearer lines drawn there.

I mean, you bring up detransitioning, but even within trans communities themselves I don't think best way to handle that kind of thing is pretending that detransitioners don't exist, it's to point out that caring for them and protecting them is something that needs to happen in addition to caring for trans kids. And that's something that the actual trans community (at least, the specific parts I'm familiar with) is honestly somewhat decent at, although it could always be better. There's a pushback against the combining of detransitioners into a singular narrative used to oppress other people, but (I think most trans people would agree) that detransitioners are still valid and should be listened to and cared for. The narrative is not an excuse to stop caring about them.

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

#94

Post by dbspin » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:05 PM UTC

DrThunder wrote: post #64

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 don't agree at all. Children should not be forced to work but it would do many of them a lot of good to learn how to work. Most of them actually like to be helpful. Anyone that's grown up on or near a farm learns quickly what it takes to actually produce something. As opposed to handing them a tablet while they're a toddler and raising them that way, the "working" child is going to be far more grounded and just ove…

I think you need to read the article. You're comparing some hours helping with an adult activity with full time employment as a child, in dangerous conditions as vulnerable survival work.

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

#95

Post by nsxwolf » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:06 PM UTC

bigbillheck wrote: post #84

nsxwolf wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I started food service work at 14 in the early 90s and it's some of the greatest memories of my youth.

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

#96

Post by dbspin » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:06 PM UTC

flatline wrote: post #59

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 started working part time in the summers when I was 12, it was a great experience. My daughter is 12 now and I wish she could have that experience instead of a handful of summer camps and a lot of time at home watching youtube which is the current plan. There are simply no other options available. My friends worked in their family store from an even younger age. Full-time manual labor is of course not good and will…

Please read the original article.

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

#97

Post by flandish » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:06 PM UTC

roflyear wrote: post #71

hahamrfunnyguy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think most of these kids are saving all their money. They are working because their parents can't pay the bills so they need to work.

I don’t know why you are downvoted but - related: The Jungle is a fantastic book, everyone who’s ever held a job should read. It is completely related to every reply here and the article in question as well.

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

#98

Post by csdreamer7 » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

There are several things in the article I feel people should be discussing.

> He sometimes had trouble getting the money he was owed for his labor. At the start of his days, he says, he'd write his name and the hours he'd worked in a notebook and "hope that notebook wouldn't get lost" — which would mean he wouldn't get paid.

Unpaid labor. Wage theft is common between adults, how is a child suppose to defend their hours?

> All the while, nicotine — a substance he's barely old enough to legally purchase now — seeped into his skin. For all tobacco workers, but especially kids, that can cause nicotine poisoning, or green tobacco sickness, whose symptoms include nausea, vomiting, headaches and dizziness.

If adults struggle to avoid this, how is a child suppose to?

> Seventh-graders can't buy cigarettes, and they can't work at grocery stores or fast-food chains. But they can work in tobacco.

The heart of the argument to raise the minimum age laws.

> Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, kids 12 and up can work unlimited hours outside school hours in agriculture, and the rules are even more lenient for kids who work on their families' farms. Outside that industry, workers have to be 16 to work unlimited hours. Sixteen-year-olds and 17-year-olds working in agriculture can do tasks listed by the Labor Department as hazardous, versus 18 in other industries. Agriculture's hazardous occupation orders haven't been updated in 50 years, and they don't include tobacco, despite the known risks for workers of all ages.

Under the current law, completely legal.

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

#99

Post by arcticbull » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #90

arcticbull wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The minimum wage is already a "living wage"

We're not going to agree that $7.25 is a living wage.

In 1970 it was the equivalent of $12 today meanwhile house prices across the US exploded.

> 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.

I just don't understand when you see two disparate groups the desire not to raise the lower one up, but hold back the better off group. You can make both groups better off at the same time.

Labor advocacy matters. Things will regress if laborers don't constantly push for better. The discontent we see in society is imo in large part due to the decoupling of wage gains and productivity gains that started under Reagan.

And yeah, everyone deserves better because we can afford better thanks to massively higher productivity. The whole point of higher productivity is that everyone should benefit.

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

#100

Post by dbspin » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #73

danShumway wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today, Castellano is a sophomore at Tufts University. But when he worked, he felt "this sense that working in those fields was going to be the rest of my life, that I had nothing else going for me." [...] > He worked alongside other kids with one of North Carolina's most valuable crops. Some of them worked in the summer and went to school the rest of the year, like him. Some didn't go to school at all. ---- How are…

OP literally said: > The issue is when this starts being less of a learning experience and more of an actual full time job. Sending 12 year olds out to earn a living clearly isn’t right. You are straw manning. Nobody here wants kids working full time.

Lots of people in the comments are wilfully eliding the distinction between their fond memories of working for a few hours to save for candy and videogames, and the child exploitation being described in the article.