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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

#111

Post by mikecoles »

dbspin wrote: post #15
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…

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.

Wrong. It's not only defensible, it's beneficial. Picking up work when I was 10 allowed me to buy my first game console. It also was a time to learn how much things cost. Sure, parents could have bought me a game, but realizing how many hours were put in to buy the game made them less attractive.

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

#112

Post by dbspin »

mikecoles wrote: post #111
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.

Wrong. It's not only defensible, it's beneficial. Picking up work when I was 10 allowed me to buy my first game console. It also was a time to learn how much things cost. Sure, parents could have bought me a game, but realizing how many hours were put in to buy the game made them less attractive.

Please read the original article. You're comparing voluntarily part time work to save for a luxury, to being compelled to work - i.e.: having an adult job, and a deeply unpleasant and dangerous one at that.

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

#113

Post by dbspin »

starkd wrote: post #76
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.

There are a lot of 12 year olds looking for chances to earn extra money. It gives a sense of indepedence and satisfaction for getting something you worked hard for. 12-year olds are more capable and curious than you think.

I think 12 year olds are incredibly capable and curious. I also know that the only thing preventing them from being exploited in the labour market like adults are the scant legal protects that exist to prevent them from being treated as adult employees. Please read the original article to see why - since it provides and example of an industry where these protections don't exist.

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

#114

Post by Symbiote »

dahfizz wrote: post #72
triceratops wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the work. Manning the cash register at the family store or restaurant isn't the same as working in fields and factories. I don't mind my kids doing the former at a young age. The latter - hell no.

I'm going to guess you grew up in a city? I wouldn't have a problem with a kid of mine "working in fields", provided the hours are reasonable. Picking strawberries, outside, with friends their same age, a few hours at a time, would be great for them. I would go as far to say that its fun. I would prefer that over them having to interact with a bunch of asshole strangers, alone, trapped inside all day.

You can take your family to a "pick your own __berries" farm if there's one nearby. It's a fun family activity, if you like.

This is not the subject of the article.

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

#115

Post by Symbiote »

redeeman wrote: post #108
edent wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

so... it was a myth, but at the same time, the EU press release says "its ceasing to be in effect now!!" ? and I did say "until some years ago". in what way is what I said wrong? downvoters are just unhappy that their beloved big daddy government did a baddie

The older regulations included shape in the specifications for Class I cucumbers, Class II cucumbers, etc, as well as other measures of quality. Nothing prevented the supermarket or restaurant from buying unclassed cucumbers, though that category would include cucumbers not reaching Class I/II for other reasons (size, taste, colour/ripeness etc).

The change to the regulation removed shape from Class I and Class II, so they're more likely to be sold for the higher price, and the supermarkets can't reject vegetables for being the wrong shape.

So there was never a ban on selling vegetables of the "wrong" shape, but there were rules to categorize vegetables by shape as part of their overall quality. The EU harmonized these rules across the whole EU (that's the whole point of the Common Market), then later scrapped them and told the supermarkets they'd have to deal with the occasional knobbly carrot.

(This is my approximate understanding, I may have the numbers backwards or whatever.)

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

#116

Post by Symbiote »

thieving_magpie wrote: post #44
petee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, what about a 9 year old? Where do you draw the line and why?

There's too many factors for drawing lines. In wealthy countries laws ensuring a higher age for employment makes more sense. In really impoverished countries where there isn't enough money for a family to feed themselves I don't really think a nine year old would prefer to starve rather than work. I worked jobs around the neighborhood at 12 but that's obviously a lot easier than 10 hour shifts in a field (as the arti…

The article is about the USA, which is a wealthy country. Unless otherwise stated, the discussion is therefore also about the USA.

> I don't know what's right and I'm thankful I don't have to make the decisions.

If you are in the USA, I think you ought to have an opinion on child labour. It's a basic point of labour law.

My vote counts in the UK, where from age 14 children can work for up to five hours on a non-school day, with a one hour break, and only between 7am and 7pm. They cannot work on anything hazardous. We don't have any significant toxic crops, but I think tobacco would count as hazardous. These rules seem to fix all the major problems in the article, while still allowing the "character building" half the commenters seek.

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

#117

Post by redeeman »

Symbiote wrote: post #115
redeeman wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so... it was a myth, but at the same time, the EU press release says "its ceasing to be in effect now!!" ? and I did say "until some years ago". in what way is what I said wrong? downvoters are just unhappy that their beloved big daddy government did a baddie

The older regulations included shape in the specifications for Class I cucumbers, Class II cucumbers, etc, as well as other measures of quality. Nothing prevented the supermarket or restaurant from buying unclassed cucumbers, though that category would include cucumbers not reaching Class I/II for other reasons (size, taste, colour/ripeness etc). The change to the regulation removed shape from Class I and Class II, s…

which essentially means the scrap, as customers have been taught that anything else is low quality garbage

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

#118

Post by notduncansmith »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #53

"efforts to tighten agricultural child labor laws have repeatedly failed because of opposition from Republicans in Congress and farm lobbying groups. They argue that such changes would hurt family farms and make it harder to teach kids about farming." This is the bollocks. I have a farm. Kids have been out helping me since they were about 5 or 6, and around I've never herd of some formal wage system in a family farm…

(USAn here) As others have mentioned, it’s not really that something “has happened” — the country isn’t a monolith and there have always been folks that kick and scream as they are dragged into the future.

The European immigrants that settled those areas (often after violently displacing whoever was already living there) have relied on cheap labor since they arrived. Their influence on the USA’s moral compass is almost as old as the country itself, and includes literally going to war with the rest of the country to preserve slavery. They lost the war but that faction of USA politics never really died out, just shifted bit by bit into its current form.

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

#119

Post by Symbiote »

redeeman wrote: post #117
Symbiote wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The older regulations included shape in the specifications for Class I cucumbers, Class II cucumbers, etc, as well as other measures of quality. Nothing prevented the supermarket or restaurant from buying unclassed cucumbers, though that category would include cucumbers not reaching Class I/II for other reasons (size, taste, colour/ripeness etc). The change to the regulation removed shape from Class I and Class II, s…

which essentially means the scrap, as customers have been taught that anything else is low quality garbage

I'm sure Waitrose (choose your local above-average supermarket) can market it just fine. "Organic cucumbers traditionally grown with natural character." Job done.

Restaurants, canteens and ready-meal producers can easily buy these too.

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

#120

Post by DrThunder »

dbspin wrote: post #94
DrThunder wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No I'm not, I specifically said they shouldn't be forced to work... as in put to labor in a factory or something. Picking tobacco for extra money isn't being forced into employment. I think you need to read my comment again.
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