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Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children

#31

Post by eganist »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #19
mikestew wrote: post #2

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.

16- and 17-year-olds can work and allows them to serve alcohol 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…

16 and 17 year olds have even less of a risk assessment capacity than 18 year olds (worth noting that this faculty fully matures by around 25), but jobs where bad decisions have more impact aren't the place for people new to the workforce to cut their teeth; there's too much risk not just to themselves (which we're disregarding here; people should be fine making whatever stupid decision they want) but to the people around them.

Start them off doing jobs that have responsibility but less consequence. Then progressively ramp up the responsibility and accountability as they grasp it.

That's your rational argument.

Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children

#32

Post by matthewdgreen »

foooobaba wrote: post #15

“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…

Because it's dangerous and a lot of kids have economic pressures that force them to do dangerous jobs they don't choose to do. Sometimes those kids don't have engaged parents or guardians present (many are recent immigrants or migrants) and sometimes their parents/guardians are economically desperate. These laws were created to stop terrible abuse of child labor that took place in this country, seeing them repealed even slightly is very concerning.

Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children

#33

Post by BaseballPhysics »

sonofhans wrote: post #24

In 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 a…

Let's admit it: The real issue, here, is that after fighting so hard to push out migrant labour, there's now a cheap labour shortage, and instead of fixing the migrant labour system to be fair, equitable, transparent, and sustainable, they're opting for child labour instead because, hey, at least they're good, red-blooded American child labourers.

Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children

#34

Post by toomuchtodo »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #19
mikestew wrote: post #2

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.

16- and 17-year-olds can work and allows them to serve alcohol 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…

I do not believe any rational argument will appease. Risk can be objectively measured but people vote their feelings. This bill is being used to avoid raising wages to draw adult labor into the state's marketplace for manufacturing, agriculture, and other objectively higher risk industries. These young workers will be harmed, and they will have no recourse (as typically happens in America).

Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children

#35

Post by DubiousPusher »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #19
mikestew wrote: post #2

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.

16- and 17-year-olds can work and allows them to serve alcohol 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…

Here's a rational argument. Roofing in particular is one of the most dangerous, demanding and environmentally harsh trades in the construction industry. Just as there is an age below which most children's bodies are not ready to begin heavy weight lifting, there is an age below which most children's bodies are not prepared to handle roofing.

Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children

#36

Post by dicriseg »

winstonewert wrote: post #21

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…

Because you can’t actually restrict access to online content. Also, “restricting a child’s ability to work” is a funny way of framing a policy goal of keeping children engaged in education instead of being exploited as cheap labor.

Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children

#37

Post by duxup »

foooobaba wrote: post #15

“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…

>Why do you need to make it illegal for everyone else?

Because 16 and 17 year olds aren't adults and in a position to make that call? Just because a parent might be ok with them operating a saw / take the risks doesn't mean the child should take that risk.

Child labor historically speaking involved parents sending their kids to work.

Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children

#38

Post by jabroni_salad »

onetimeusename wrote: post #30
jabroni_salad wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is a real issue and not just repealing labor laws for funsies.

There are too many predators and not enough prey in the ecosystem. Either we need to accept that some of the businesses will starve or find a way to increase the labor force.

Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children

#39

Post by pjc50 »

jabroni_salad wrote: post #14
mikestew wrote: post #2

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.

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…

> Notably off the table is how to get kids to go to school here and stay here.

Ah, so the plan is to put the 16/17 year olds in the workplace because they're too young to live independently and leave the state.

Re: Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children

#40

Post by matthewdgreen »

dougmwne wrote: post #25
matthewdgreen wrote: post #8

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…

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.

It is also possible that Iowa has changed; certainly the voting patterns of the state have. I'm not looking for a flame war: I am curious if people who know the state better have things to say about what's going on there, because that would be much more interesting than every other comment in this thread right now.
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