Arkansas Gov. Sanders signs law loosening child labor protections

Many of my friends in Israel dropped out of school at age 13, started working construction, and by the time they are 25, they each have a small construction company, wife, several kids, own a home, and learn Torah every evening (mostly Likutei Moharan, but still). Some have even later completed school and gotten engineers degrees, or at the very least general contractor licenses.

Good for them. People who are not built for college-level jons, should learn job skills.

jackk: Are you talking about forcing kids to quit elementary or middle schools (ages 13 and below) to start work, since that is what “child labor” refers to, or are you talking about encouraging teenagers to get jobs and training where they develop skills leading to meaningful employment. Giving kids a “liberal” education that will only qualify them them to be unemployed hardly benefits them, and in fact dooms them to a lifetime of poverty. Industrial skills are good even for Americans. I suspect you perceive the working class as “deplorables”, and do not understand there is as much honor, and income, as a machinist or an operator as there is as a poet or an artist or even as a paper-pusher. Your attitude may be part of why people are fleeing states such as New York and California for “red” states where honest work is encouraged and rewarded.

I have very strong feelings about the weakening of child labor laws by states. My mother started to work in the sweatshops at the age of 7 as a immigrant child. By the time the FLSA was enacted she was an adult.

Amil, to be put in historical context: your grandparents presumably immigrated to USA, understanding it was a better alternative. Same as many children in poor countries now benefit from factories employing them, preferring those jobs to starvation in villages. This is not to excuse horrible cases, but to see things in perspective.

Jack K > It boggles my mind that Republicans want to make voting as restricted and regulated as they can, but child safety gets thrown in the garbage because of inconvenience.

yes, they are mature enough to clean tables, but not mature enough to make political decisions.
There are pros and cons to universal franchise: pro – everyone’s interests are counted; cons – decisions are mediocre. Given current ability to manipulate opinions, cons grow and grow. So, maybe we need a two-tier system: people who pass IQ, SAT and political knowledge test will be allowed to vote. The rest could find someone in the previous group and delegate him with the vote.

Move to West Virginia. At least in the Mountain State, children can no longer be forced to marry under the age of 16. The Republican Senate had blocked the bill on Wednesday night but it was passed at the 11th hour yesterday before adjournment. Its ok for younger kids to work in some jobs but the Arkansas bill allows for children under 16 to work in shlachthoises and dangerous factories.

AAQ as I stated earlier, I can’t rationalize child labor like you do. My own life experience leads me to far different conclusions.

Amil, I understand your emotional response. Still, if someone wants to open a factory with child labor in a remote Bangladeshi village and save those kids from starvation, would you object on principle? I hope not and your humanity is above simple labels.

Coffee, would it be the same for a day camp in town? My kids worked there before 14, and (I think) it was legal in my state.

“For example, could anything be worse than having children work in sweatshops? Alas, yes. In 1993, child workers in Bangladesh were found to be producing clothing for Wal-Mart, and Senator Tom Harkin proposed legislation banning imports from countries employing underage workers. The direct result was that Bangladeshi textile factories stopped employing children. But did the children go back to school? Did they return to happy homes? Not according to Oxfam, which found that the displaced child workers ended up in even worse jobs, or on the streets — and that a significant number were forced into prostitution.”
-Paul Krugman, New York Times April 22, 2001

jackk > That is seriously misguided and evil.

pleazse, re-read your post. It consists of statements without any arguments. You could do better (by adding arguments or deleting unsupported statements).

“Coffee, would it be the same for a day camp in town? My kids worked there before 14, and (I think) it was legal in my state.“

It is in regards to a day camp in town

Welcome to NY

Children would be good auto mechanics. They could fit under the car more easily than adults, for doing oil changes, etc. And you wouldn’t have to pay them as much, which would reduce car-related expenses.

coffee > It is in regards to a day camp in town

Blushing. It did not even occur to me that those jobs my kids were doing might not have been legal. Thus, I did not even check! I’ll go consult a lawyer and report myself to authorities.