11–20 of 127 posts
I haven't been to Iowa since the late 1990s, but when I did visit Cedar Rapids I was struck by how nice everyone was. It was like going back to the 1960s: nobody swore, everyone was ridiculously polite, people seemed to have visible respect for engineers and other expert professionals. I'm struggling to reconcile all those nice people in Iowa with a state that is repealing basic child-labor protections. ETA: sorry, I…
Laws that were intended to prevent children from working in dangerous factories should not apply to jobs in air conditioned offices.
> The Iowa bill would expand the number of hours that children under 16 can work from four to six a day, allow minors to work in previously prohibited industries if they are part of a training program, and allow 16- and 17-year–olds to serve alcohol with a parent’s permission.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/18/iowa-senate-...
This doesn't sound anywhere near as bad as the Washington Post is making it out to be.
Does anyone have a link to the actual bill? I only found articles talking about it and nothing on what it actually says.
As I was reading TFA, I tried not to let my cynicism dictate my theory on why these looser child labor restrictions are being pushed so hard lately. But then we get this gem: Supporters, meanwhile, have cheered the legislation as a potential solution to workforce shortages and rising labor costs. Yup, all that talk about "work ethic" is just bullshit. Plus their little hands make it easier to get the coal out.
There was a lot of discussion about getting SAHMs to re-enter, and how to get incentivize hiring disabled people, and stuff like that.
In the post-pandemic era our news cycle got captured by pandemic entitlement discussion, but ultimately this and measures like it was always going to be what Iowa's "return to normal" would end up looking like.
Notably off the table is how to get kids to go to school here and stay here. Currently they are going to school out of state and leaving the state. It seems like we will do anything except make the state more desirable to live in.
& quite frankly the politics here were only tolerable because the state used to be reliably purple, and we are swinging in a direction I do not really care for. My employer has offices in minnesota and I have been thinking of trying to transfer northwards for awhile now.
- then don’t let them? Why do you need to make it illegal for everyone else?
Iowa is mostly a rural state, and growing up on a farm you learn to operate power tools when you’re 10, and there are plenty of 16 year olds in Iowa that are more than capable of running a power saw and working on roofs and are proud to do it. Better than sitting around and playing video games, getting in trouble, or even sports for that matter. IMO more likely to get injured in sports like football than operating a power saw.
Laws that were intended to prevent children from working in dangerous factories should not apply to jobs in air conditioned offices.
Here's another take: > The Iowa bill would expand the number of hours that children under 16 can work from four to six a day, allow minors to work in previously prohibited industries if they are part of a training program, and allow 16- and 17-year–olds to serve alcohol with a parent’s permission. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/18/iowa-senate-... This doesn't sound anywhere near as bad as the Washington…
Here's another take: > The Iowa bill would expand the number of hours that children under 16 can work from four to six a day, allow minors to work in previously prohibited industries if they are part of a training program, and allow 16- and 17-year–olds to serve alcohol with a parent’s permission. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/18/iowa-senate-... This doesn't sound anywhere near as bad as the Washington…
It contains a lot of stuff that allows (relatively young) children to work in factories, industrial laundries and meat-packing plants. It also has some stuff that isn't really a big deal, which you've picked out. If I give you a sandwich that contains nails, but also some wonderful organic cheese and bread... is that a good sandwich? That's sort of the impression I get from this bill.
As I was reading TFA, I tried not to let my cynicism dictate my theory on why these looser child labor restrictions are being pushed so hard lately. But then we get this gem: Supporters, meanwhile, have cheered the legislation as a potential solution to workforce shortages and rising labor costs. Yup, all that talk about "work ethic" is just bullshit. Plus their little hands make it easier to get the coal out.
Teens don't really have smaller hands than adults. This bill is sane. Allowing kids to work for construction is going to improve lives more than blindly pushing everyone regardless of desire or aptitude in college and graduating them with a worthless degree and a half mil in debt. Let teens work in roofing and get some skills that the world actually needs.
Give me a rational argument please, not just an appeal to emotion.
Laws that were intended to prevent children from working in dangerous factories should not apply to jobs in air conditioned offices.
Let children be children.
I went to school with several kids who were gifted mechanically. They suffered in school. It wasn't just not beneficial. School was directly harmful. Had they been able to spend less time in school and more time working, they would've been much happier. Instead, school became a kind of purgatory they had to endure.
There are also situations in which kids are in a bad home environment but are essentially bonded to their parents by the fact that they cannot work. To be 100% clear, this bill sucks. I'm completly against it. But there is a form a child work reform that should happen IMO.