Many people on this site seem in favor of these age-based government restrictions on working. But at the same time, it seems they also opposed age-based government restrictions in many other areas like access to particular kinds of online content. These positions seem like a contradiction to me. Why do they think that it is reasonable for the state to restrict a child's ability to work but not their access to online content?
Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children
21–30 of 127 posts
Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children
#22Haha ok washington post this is why you are dying.
Allow teenagers the option to work more? Oh no we are "rolling back labor protections for children"
Allow teenagers to get sex hormones that will damage them for life? "Trans teens benefit" !
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/trans-teens-benefit-...
The washington post is a joke.
Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children
#23I 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…
[deleted]
Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children
#24In 18th century London children were disposable labor: like cheaper, less durable horses. Children as young as 5 would work in match factories, dipping matchsticks into boiling sulfur by hand. Their lungs dissolved after a while, but then the factory owner didn’t pay their parents much for them anyway.
Young children were the best chimney sweeps, too. London chimneys were a fucking mess, of course, built up rapidly and with no building codes. Little children could crawl around inside them more easily to clean them. Sometimes a child would get irretrievably stuck, but them it was easy enough to light the furnace to burn them out.
Western culture decide a long fucking time ago that the job of children is to educate themselves so they can be productive members of society. As our society gets more technological, the base level of education required to participate grows higher. This type of bullshit is going _the wrong direction_.
And let’s be clear — this is purely a play for corporate profits. There is no other motivation; everything else people say about it is bullshit.
Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children
#25I 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…
This is just “ Minnesota nice”. Cultural expectations of politeness are not really correlated with any specific ethics. As to the downvotes, you are inadvertently opening a can of political worms around competing values of the coasts and the Midwest.
Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children
#26Here'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…
and allow 16- and 17-year–olds to serve alcohol with a parent’s permission
Helloplease? If stuff like that is written into a bill, it's because of a lobbyist - evidently there's a shortage of workers in the hospitality field. How about improving working conditions instead? It's a market, if the offer is good, they'll come!
Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children
#27“Do I want my 16-year-old operating a power saw as a job? No, I don’t“ - 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 a…
[deleted]
Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children
#28Here'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…
This is likely the bill, passed two days ago:
https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/publications/LGR/90/SF542.pd...
It is an amended form of a previous bill passed in April (linked by another comment). I noticed that it now clarifies that children under 14 are not permitted to work (previously it was allowed under certain conditions). So, that’s good. 14 and up are allowed to work.
Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children
#29Any demographers in here?
I wonder if this has anything to do with the baby boomer generation all hitting retirement around now, and the incoming cohort being smaller than the retiring cohort.
Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children
#30As 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.
Iowan here, this is actually a long-running talking point. Prior to the pandemic, Iowa was experiencing "full employment" with a 2.5% unemployment rate, which was among the lowest in the country prior to the pandemic spike. Some amount of churn is actually desirable as it means that employers can grow their operations and employees are finding opportunities. However, businesses in the manufacturing, agricultural, and…
so is this an issue Iowans are concerned about or is this a synthetic issue that corporations are astroturfing? I can't see it being a very high priority imo even though I am sympathetic to 14 yr olds who want money.