Kids and work
The NYT addresses the increasing use of child labor in the US (the link allows access to the article whether you have a subscription or not):
Arriving in record numbers, they’re ending up in dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws — including in factories that make products for well-known brands like Cheetos and Fruit of the Loom.
“It was almost midnight in Grand Rapids, Mich., but inside the factory everything was bright. A conveyor belt carried bags of Cheerios past a cluster of young workers. One was 15-year-old Carolina Yoc, who came to the United States on her own last year to live with a relative she had never met.
About every 10 seconds, she stuffed a sealed plastic bag of cereal into a passing yellow carton. It could be dangerous work, with fast-moving pulleys and gears that had torn off fingers and ripped open a woman’s scalp.”
They came here for money reasons and the money for attending 7th grade is lousy. I’d make sponsors post a bond until these minors reach 20 or so. There are many church denominations as well as other institutions very committed to these kinds of immigrants that could be tapped. What is going to stop this? Seriously negative financial consequences for adults supposedly supervising them might do a lot of that lift.
I have read articles about Republicans in a few states wanting to rewrite the child labor laws to allow such work and more.
I am surprised this is still done by hand.
It isn’t. They were probably doing the ones over that had been kicked out of line for some reason or another. Imagine a tube being formed from a sheet of plastic sealed w/ heat and then filled w/ a wt of Cheerios, another double seal another fill … in a continuous process that includes separating the pouches filled w/ Cheerios and then putting the pouches into boxes that are weight checked.
They came here for money reasons and the money for attending 7th grade is lousy. I’d make sponsors post a bond until these minors reach 20 or so. There are many church denominations as well as other institutions very committed to these kinds of immigrants that could be tapped….
[ Where is there a precise reference? Do document this. ]
I have read articles about Republicans in a few states wanting to rewrite the child labor laws to allow such work and more.
[ Where is there a precise reference? ]
‘It’s just crazy’: Republicans attack US child labor laws as violations rise
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/10/1162531885/arkansas-child-labor-law-under-16-years-old-sarah-huckabee-sanders
Arkansas Gov. Sanders signs a law that makes it easier to employ children
RW:
You need the quote marks too.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/11/business/child-labor-meatpacking-plants.html
November 11, 2022
Labor Department Finds 31 Children Cleaning Meatpacking Plants
Packers Sanitation Services, a food safety contractor, hired children as young as 13 to clean dangerous equipment on overnight shifts, the department said. Several suffered chemical burns.
By Remy Tumin
One of the largest food safety companies in the United States illegally employed more than two dozen children in at least three meatpacking plants, several of whom suffered chemical burns from the corrosive cleaners they were required to use on overnight shifts, the Labor Department found….
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/17/business/child-labor-packers-sanitation.html
February 17, 2023
Food Safety Company Employed More Than 100 Children, Labor Officials Say
Packers Sanitation Services Inc. paid a $1.5 million penalty this week for employing children as young as 13 in dangerous jobs at meat-processing plants.
By Michael Levenson
One of the largest food sanitation companies in the United States illegally employed at least 102 children in dangerous jobs cleaning meatpacking and slaughtering plants, the Labor Department said on Friday….
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/25/us/unaccompanied-migrant-child-workers-exploitation.html
February 25, 2023
Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the U.S.
Arriving in record numbers, they’re ending up in dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws — including in factories that make some of the country’s best-known products.
By Hannah Dreier and Photographs By Kirsten Luce
It was almost midnight in Grand Rapids, Mich., but inside the factory everything was bright. A conveyor belt carried bags of Cheerios past a cluster of young workers. One was 15-year-old Carolina Yoc, who came to the United States on her own last year to live with a relative she had never met.
About every 10 seconds, she stuffed a sealed plastic bag of cereal into a passing yellow carton. It could be dangerous work, with fast-moving pulleys and gears that had torn off fingers and ripped open a woman’s scalp.
The factory was full of underage workers like Carolina, who had crossed the Southern border by themselves and were now spending late hours bent over hazardous machinery, in violation of child labor laws. At nearby plants, other children were tending giant ovens to make Chewy and Nature Valley granola bars and packing bags of Lucky Charms and Cheetos — all of them working for the processing giant Hearthside Food Solutions, which would ship these products around the country.
“Sometimes I get tired and feel sick,” Carolina said after a shift in November. Her stomach often hurt, and she was unsure if that was because of the lack of sleep, the stress from the incessant roar of the machines, or the worries she had for herself and her family in Guatemala. “But I’m getting used to it.”
These workers are part of a new economy of exploitation: Migrant children, who have been coming into the United States without their parents in record numbers, are ending up in some of the most punishing jobs in the country, a New York Times investigation found. This shadow work force extends across industries in every state, flouting child labor laws that have been in place for nearly a century. Twelve-year-old roofers in Florida and Tennessee. Underage slaughterhouse workers in Delaware, Mississippi and North Carolina. Children sawing planks of wood on overnight shifts in South Dakota….