Iowa governor will sign bill rolling back labor protections for children • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 05, 2023, 4:22 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #63

subsubzero wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding schools you have both the university of Iowa and Iowa state. I feel like those are both good schools, I had a family member go to Iowa state's PHD program and it was one of their top choices(for their profession). As for letting children(teenagers in this case) work earlier(and longer) I feel conflicted. In some sense the mantra that has been pushed on the past 2-3 generations has been everyone has to get a…

> a trap that having a 14-16 year make pretty good money in high school (via trades or apprenticeships) can dissuade them from ever getting into college Or have their parents dissuade them from ever getting into college. I think you could make a strong argument that the minimum full-time work age should be no lower than the age of being legally independent of the family. The hybrid solution, which is very rarely seen…

[deleted]

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

#72

Post by falcolas » Fri, May 05, 2023, 4:23 PM UTC

WillPostForFood wrote: post #59

matthewdgreen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is the bill the Senate passed on April 18: https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=90&ba=sf5... 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.…

The old law said, no one under 18 can work in a meat packing plant, the new law says no one under 18 can be a meat packer. It doesn't put teens to work at dangerous jobs, but allows them opportunity to work in those businesses.

> opportunity

What an odd choice of wording - as if meat packing is some highly desirable industry that children are clamoring to get experience in (even as adults avoid it when they can).

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

#73

Post by mindslight » Fri, May 05, 2023, 4:24 PM UTC

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…

The "allowing" someone to work is not a problem, when that choice is made in a free and voluntary manner. Rather the fundamental problem is the economic feedback loop that gradually turns "allowed" into "required". Women entering the workforce was most certainly an advancement for freedom and equality. But as the labor and economic laws weren't adjusted to compensate, it did have the effect of making the standard of full time household employment jump from 40 hours a week to 80.

Also there is a huge difference between a kid working with their family providing age-appropriate supervision (which can be done under the table regardless of this bill), and being left to the care of a stranger that's just following economic incentives. I could use most woodworking tools by age 12 under loose supervision, but that doesn't mean it would have been appropriate for me to work in a furniture shop.

And I don't know if you could have picked a worse example than roofing. There's just a basic level of competence one needs to maintain on heights and slopes. And it's basically a recipe for chest-thumping foremen rejecting fall protection and shaming the underlings into doing the same. At least silicosis doesn't show up for decades, unlike a fall from height.

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

#74

Post by falcolas » Fri, May 05, 2023, 4:25 PM UTC

Izkata wrote: post #13

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…

Serving alcohol... ugh. Bartenders already get enough guff from patrons. Imagine a 16yo having to deal with trying to cut somebody off.

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

#75

Post by the_only_law » Fri, May 05, 2023, 4:26 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #74

Izkata wrote: post #13

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…

Serving alcohol... ugh. Bartenders already get enough guff from patrons. Imagine a 16yo having to deal with trying to cut somebody off.

Imagine some drunk asshole trying to hit on and harass the 16 year old bartender. I’ve seen it plenty of times minus the 16 year old part.

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

#76

Post by falcolas » Fri, May 05, 2023, 4:27 PM UTC

tasty_freeze wrote: post #4

kasuki wrote: post #3

Laws that were intended to prevent children from working in dangerous factories should not apply to jobs in air conditioned offices.

> The measure would permit children as young as 14 to work in roofing, construction and demolition, Those are comfy air conditioned office jobs.

Don't forget cleaning meat packing plants. Fucking cush jobs, amirite?

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

#77

Post by BaseballPhysics » Fri, May 05, 2023, 4:28 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #64

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The primary defensible part of the narrative for cracking down on migrant labor was that it was lowering wages across the board. So wages going up should be celebrated as a good thing, and the same people pushing for immigration reform should be fighting these changes. Alas.

Most of the people pushing hardest for immigration reform aren't doing it because they believe it lowers wages...

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

#78

Post by legitster » Fri, May 05, 2023, 4:28 PM UTC

I'll just take the other side of the argument.

My family didn't have much money when I was growing up, so the only hope I had for things like a car or a computer or video games was a job. Despite wanting a job desperately, I couldn't get one in our state until I was 16. And even then, I was one of only a handful of teenagers at my school who were able to get one.

And on the job I was a second class citizen. This was your standard burger-flipping fast food restaurant. Yet it was kind of ridiculous the kind of rules and restrictions me and the employer had to follow for me to work there. I was allowed to operate a motor vehicle to drive to work, but once I was there I wasn't allowed to use things like scissors.

More punishing was that there were all sort of hour restrictions on when and how often I could work. So I was denied enough hours to be eligible for health insurance (something I didn't have at the time).

Working as a teenager was entirely and without exception a positive experience for me. It had almost no impact on my schooling (if anything, menial labor made me take school more seriously), it gave me a ton of experience, and it was a huge cash infusion that let me afford a car, save for college, and even have spending money to keep up with my richer peers.

So while I totally understand that we don't want children ripped from classes and forced to defuse landmines at 5c an hour, the comments in this thread are really disheartening to me. A lot of these restrictions were arbitrary BS. I am absolutely in favor of giving kids more responsibility if they want it. Taking away the options for the sake of "their own good" is moralistic pantomime coming from privilege.

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

#79

Post by falcolas » Fri, May 05, 2023, 4:29 PM UTC

the_only_law wrote: post #75

falcolas wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serving alcohol... ugh. Bartenders already get enough guff from patrons. Imagine a 16yo having to deal with trying to cut somebody off.

Imagine some drunk asshole trying to hit on and harass the 16 year old bartender. I’ve seen it plenty of times minus the 16 year old part.

Whelp. With that visualization I'm done with the internet today.

And you're wholly correct. Just depressing.

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

#80

Post by BaseballPhysics » Fri, May 05, 2023, 4:31 PM UTC

legitster wrote: post #78

I'll just take the other side of the argument. My family didn't have much money when I was growing up, so the only hope I had for things like a car or a computer or video games was a job. Despite wanting a job desperately, I couldn't get one in our state until I was 16. And even then, I was one of only a handful of teenagers at my school who were able to get one. And on the job I was a second class citizen. This was…

> A lot of these restrictions were arbitrary BS.

You say that, now, in a world of modern labour laws that have largely prevented large scale exploitation. In fact, today, the labourers most likely to be exploited are those that fall through the regulatory cracks because, for example, they are illegally in the US.

So it's very easy for you to tell this heartwarming story about your teen years, and claim these regulations are "arbitrary BS" now because, in general, the labour market is safe, fair, and equitable, specifically because those rules exist.

Your position is very much akin to anti-vaxxers saying "why do I need vaccines, diseases aren't a problem!" because they've never lived in a world where communicable diseases regularly killed people.

Edit: And as an aside, the fact that you didn't have health insurance as a teenager, and you conclude that's because you weren't allowed to work enough, as opposed to attributing the issue to a broken system that requires teen labour to ensure one has access to medical coverage, is truly insane to me...