Immigration could answer the call

Republicans have found a new hill to die on: rolling back child labor laws. It’s all part of a larger plan to crush worker protections, and it’s especially repugnant that children are a part of this scheme.

In Arkansas, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders just signed a bill that will allow children as young as 14 to work without getting a work permit from the state. Before this, anyone under 16 had to apply for a work permit with the state’s Division of Labor.

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[T]his law, and similar ones across the country, are the brainchild of a conservative think tank in Florida. The “Foundation for Government Accountability” has a website explaining that teens under 16 are a “critical source of labor” and complaining that “millions of adults would rather stay home than work.”

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A similar bill is going through the Iowa legislature right now. Iowa currently has a lengthy list of jobs teenagers aged 14-17 aren’t allowed to do because they are dangerous, but the law proposes that the state create a sort of apprenticeship program so teens could do dangerous jobs such as mining, meatpacking, or ones where they are exposed to radioactive substances.The bill also contains a provision that would limit civil liability for those businesses if a teen worker is hurt or killed on the job. The bill has passed out of committees in both chambers of the state legislature.

Minnesota Republicans are also pushing a child labor bill that would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work construction jobs. However, the state currently has a Democratic trifecta, so it is unlikely to get anywhere. In Ohio, there’s a proposal to allow teens as young as 14 to work until 9 pm on school nights.

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[C]hild labor violations have been increasing since 2015.

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[A] Department of Labor investigation [...] found Packers Sanitation, one of the country’s biggest food safety sanitation companies, employed 102 children ages 13-17 in 13 meatpacking plants across eight states, including three in Minnesota. These teens were using what the Department called “caustic chemicals” to clean dangerous meat processing equipment, including sharp saws.

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While these bills are focused on child labor, they’re part of a larger push by Republicans to roll back worker protections generally.

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The Trump administration went on a deregulation spree, gutting workplace protections in high-risk jobs like mining and meatpacking. The administration also tried to get rid of a child labor rule that prevented 16- and 17-year-olds working in nursing homes from operating power-driven patient lifts.

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Conservatives pushing these child labor bills say they are necessary because companies are having trouble finding workers in a tight labor market. Rather than making jobs safer or better-paid, they’ve decided to exploit children. 

  Aaron Rupar substack

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.