Republican state lawmakers in Iowa have introduced a pretty reprehensible
child labor bill that would legalize minors as young as 14 years old to work
in jobs that include things like, no big deal, just a little bit of manual labor.
Stuff like mining, logging, animal slaughterhouses, those kinds of jobs.
I mean, what could go wrong?
It's not like the United States has a history,
a brutal dark history with child labor which we'll get to in just a moment.
But first, a few details about this legislation.
Senate File 167, introduced by State Senator Jason Schultz,
would expand job opportunities available to teens.
Including letting children as young as 14 work in freezers and meat coolers and
loading and unloading light tools, under certain conditions.
Now, there is a very real reason why Republican lawmakers in this state,
in Iowa are pushing for this.
The tight labor market might have something to do with it.
Employers not wanting to pay the workplace compensation for
anyone who might get injured, that's another part of this.
It's just so gross how far companies, with the help of Republicans,
with Republicans aiding and abetting them,
how far they'll go just to get their hands on cheap labor.
But more importantly, labor they can take advantage of, and
that's what I see this as.
Now, this is a proposal that hasn't passed yet, we're gonna keep an eye on it, but
what else do we know about it?
The proposed law contains an entirely new section that would allow
the Iowa Workforce Development and State Department of Education heads
to make exceptions to any of the prohibited jobs for
teens between the ages of 14-17 participating in work-based learning or
a school or employer-administered work-related program.
So not only would these employers get away with paying these minors less for
these incredibly dangerous jobs, but workman's comp, that
wouldn't apply to teenagers who are harmed in the process of doing their jobs, right?
So if they're working at a meat packing plant and something goes awry and
they're injured as a result.
Well, the way this bill is written would ensure that
the companies would not have to deal with any lawsuit or liability.
So before we get to those details,
I do wanna just give you a sense of what it was like when we allowed for
child labor to be carried out in this country.
Because luckily, labor unions fought hard to reverse that practice.
And now you have Republican lawmakers clawing back to a time
in America where this is what we experienced with children.
>> The kinds of jobs you would find children working in ranged from the mines,
the factories, the cotton mills,
to working out on the streets selling newspapers.
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Injuries, even deaths, were very common among children.
The parents would often say that they needed the income that their children
brought in, that that was what allowed them to continue to survive.
A number of parents were advocates for child labor and
their children thought that that was the way life was.
>> Well, luckily that changed.
There are still companies today who break child labor rules and
regulations, and they get fined for it.
And then they do it again because the profits they make from taking
advantage of vulnerable people outweighs the fines they end up paying.
We should probably do something about that to ensure
that we're actually enforcing our laws against child labor.
But nonetheless, as I mentioned earlier, the thing that makes these
proposals particularly disgusting is that knowing that these jobs are dangerous,
knowing that these jobs could get these kids hurt.
Republicans wrote the proposal in a way to ensure that should they get hurt,
the companies employing them wouldn't have to face any type of lawsuit or
liability for it.
It exempts businesses from civil liability if a minor is sickened,
injured, or killed due to the company's negligence.
So again, it takes workman's comp out of the equation entirely.
The bill in addition would allow 16 and
17-year-olds with the written permission of a parent, legal custodian or guardian
to serve alcohol to people who are drinking it on the premises of a business.
It is insane.
And what should terrify you is that when Republicans say they wanna do something
and when they have the backing, the financial backing,
the political backing of big business.
If they're persistent enough, more often than not, they get what they want.
And we should be concerned about that because we do not have what this
country had previously to fight back against child labor.
And that is strong labor militancy, labor unions,
all of that has been decimated considerably.
So what did it look like when workers fought against
child labor earlier in this country's history?
Well, let's take a look.
>> It was easy to find school aged kids like Furman Owens,
who started working in a south Carolina mill when he was only eight.
He said he and others like him didn't even know their ABCs,
and that they wanted to learn, but they couldn't because they worked all the time.
Individual workers and social reformers in the 1800s and 1900s
fought against child labor, dangerous working conditions, long hours and
bad wages, but they had little power until labor unions were formed.
Striking was an effective bargaining tool, but going on strike was not just a parade,
it was more like a rebellion and the situation could be terrifying and
dangerous.
Local and national governments treated strikes as civil unrest and
often dispatched armed troops to break them up.
Workers were injured and many died as they clashed with police and National Guard.
>> Unions worked very hard to demand legislation that
brought about an end to child labor in this country.
>> So the unions obviously had a major impact on various labor laws,
including regulations pertaining to child labor.
The thing that concerns me is labor membership, I'm sorry, union membership,
I should say, has gone down significantly since then.
In fact, I thought that there was more labor militancy in 2022, but I guess
I would be mistaken because according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
union membership or the union membership rate was 10.1% in 2022,
which was actually down from 10.3% in 2021.
So unless you have an organized workforce, unless you have strong labor
unions that are willing to fight back to protect workers' rights and
to ensure that children are not being preyed upon by big business.
You need to organize, you need to ensure that you have the backing,
the support of a union should you wanna strike, right?
We don't have that now, and that is what concerns me the most.
This is why you have Republicans constantly badmouthing unions.
This is why big businesses wanna squash any talk of their employees unionizing.
It's because you actually have the ability to fight back against some of these more
disgusting business practices.
Including employing children in incredibly unsafe jobs that require
working with heavy machinery that could lead to them losing a limb,
that could lead to them dying.
And by the way, we were already in a bad situation, even before this proposal,
because we've been consistently covering more and more stories involving child
labor regulations being violated by various companies.
They get a slap on the wrist, they pay the fine, and
then they're likely to do it again.
One of the more insane stories that came out this year had to do with Hyundai,
which severed its ties with two plants in Alabama because
of how they had been violating child labor laws.
Let's take a look at that.
>> Local authorities learned of the plant's practice of employing underage
workers after a Guatemalan migrant child went briefly missing in February.
It was later discovered that the girl, who was 13 at the time,
had been working at Smart along with her 12 and 15 year old brothers.
Reuters says the siblings were, quote, among a larger cohort of underage workers
who found jobs at the Hyundai-owned supplier over the past few years.
And cites interviews with a dozen former and current plant employees and
labor recruiters.
The report adds that the facility has a history of safety violations and
amputation hazards.
>> Amputation hazards.
So again, you have Alabama plants hiring immigrant minors to work in these plants.
Luckily, Hyundai took a stance and
severed ties with these two plants as a result of that.
But the point here is, companies are gonna focus on what they're supposed to
focus on, maximizing profits, and they're willing to do that at any and all costs.
There is no question of morality for them.
This is not a discussion about whether or not a company is a good company or
a bad company.
It's a discussion about how the system is set up and
what the motivating factors are.
The motivating factors for big business is to provide a return on investment for
their shareholders, maximize profits, that is what their responsibility is.
And if they can claw away at any regulation that stands in their way,
they will do it.
And so if you think the federal government is gonna step in and protect you or
your children or anyone in the workforce from the terrible behavior,
the bad treatment coming from corporate executives or these various businesses,
I think you'd be mistaken.
Because even when we finally did accomplish the labor regulations that we
desperately needed, it didn't just come out of nowhere.
There wasn't a group of politicians who were self-motivated and
wanted to do the right thing.
No, you had an organized outside pressure campaign in the form of organized labor
unions fighting back and making sure that these politicians bend to their will and
get the regulations that they desperately needed and wanted.
I think that we're far too comfortable with this ridiculous idea that
all we need to do is vote, and then that's it.
I mean, the politician campaigned on all the things I liked, so
they'll take it from here, right?
Except no, why would they, they're motivating factors within Congress
as well, including the desperate need to get along with your fellow colleagues.
Well, if we had an outside pressure campaign that was well organized,
maybe some of these progressive politicians, for instance, would remember
who elected them in the first place and who they're supposed to be working for.
Definitely not for their colleagues, for their constituents.
The problem is the constituents are not organized, and
the outside pressure campaign that we so desperately need doesn't exist right now.