Column: After a century, states are loosening child labor laws. Where’s the outrage? ⋆ Michigan Advance

When Jacob Riis came to Emporia in 1902

When Jacob Riis came to Emporia in 1902 to give a lecture, audiences knew what they could expect. Twelve years earlier, he had published “How the Other Half Lives,” which exposed through candid photographs the living conditions of the poor in the slums of New York City. The Danish-American muckraker’s subject for his Kansas audience that night was Tony, an orphaned immigrant boy living on the streets, and through his narrative and his magic lantern slides, Riis brought his middle-class audience into the boy’s world of hardship.

About a decade after Riis lectured in Kansas

About a decade after Riis lectured in Kansas, another photographer, Lewis Hine, working for the National Child Labor Committee, captured stark images of young children working in factories and cotton mills, particularly in the American South. Hine was a Wisconsin sociologist who had come to embrace documentary photography as a tool for social reform.

About the same time Riis was traveling to Emporia and Newton and Hutchinson

About the same time Riis was traveling to Emporia and Newton and Hutchinson to give his magic lantern lectures, Upton Sinclair was preparing to document the conditions in the Chicago meatpacking industry not with a camera, but with his pen. Sinclair spent seven weeks undercover gathering material, on a commission from the widely distributed socialist newspaper the Appeal to Reason, published in Girard, Kansas.

Public outcry over “The Jungle” resulted in the first federal meatpacking inspection laws

Public outcry over “The Jungle” resulted in the first federal meatpacking inspection laws and passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act. Documentary photography, like that of sociologist Hine, eventually contributed to the passage, in 1938, of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the first federal law that prohibited any type of exploitive child labor.

Kansas’ first child labor law

Kansas’ first child labor law, in 1905, prohibited those under 14 from working in factories, meatpacking plants or mines. It also required employers to obtain certificates stating the ages of the young people they employed. State officials visited schools to make the new requirements known, kept tabs on employers, and even cracked down on the use of children as dancing and singing entertainment in the red light districts of larger towns.

After more than a century of progress

After more than a century of progress, you might think child labor is a thing of the past, something we condemn other countries for but that we don’t need to worry about here. Tragically, that shadow army of workers is still with us, and many of those workers are children. These underage exploited are often immigrants and, as Upton Sinclair found, are working in meatpacking.

In February of this year

In February of this year, a cleaning company was fined $1.5 million for employing children ages 13 to 17 at meatpacking plants in eight states. The firm, Packers Sanitations Services Inc., was the target of a federal Department of Labor investigation that found 102 children working illegally, including 26 at the Cargill meatpacking plant at Dodge City.

For the Kansas violation

For the Kansas violation, the firm was fined $400,000.

Children must be at least 14 in order to work

Children must be at least 14 in order to work, according to the Kansas Department of Labor, although there are exceptions for children employed by their parents, in farm work, or engaging in paper routes or nonhazardous work. The state requires work permits for those under 16 who are not enrolled or attending school. Federal and state laws also limit how many hours children can work.

In June, a U.S. District court ordered 17 Sonic locations in Kansas to stop violating child labor laws

In June, a U.S. District court ordered 17 Sonic locations in Kansas to stop violating child labor laws. It was the second time BBR Investments of Newton, which owns the restaurants, had been in trouble for allowing 14- and 15-year-olds to work longer hours than permitted, and at hours not allowed. Last year, the Labor Department assessed the company $42,000 in fines for the violations.

Appallingly, many states are now racing to loosen — not tighten — child labor laws

Appallingly, many states are now racing to loosen — not tighten — child labor laws.

Other states are making similar moves

Other states are making similar moves.

Because it might be cheaper in the long run to pay the fines and keep employing children for lower wages than they could pay adults

Because it might be cheaper in the long run to pay the fines and keep employing children for lower wages than they could pay adults.

If we don’t hold the line on child labor

If we don’t hold the line on child labor, we risk losing one of the things the has sets us apart as a nation founded not only on laws, but of morals. Of course children provide cheap labor, but business profits should not be the gauge of our society. In addition to the mental and physical tolls that children suffer in jobs that are inappropriate — and can you really imagine a 16-year-old wiping down the bar and asking what’s your poison? — there’s also a danger these children will become primary breadwinners for their families, with their educations coming a distant second.

Now, more than a hundred years later, we’re faced with a choice

Now, more than a hundred years later, we’re faced with a choice. We can either turn our faces away from the magic lantern of news showing us the great shadow army of illegal and undocumented workers, many of them children, or we can act to protect them.

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

SDGs Addressed:

1. No Poverty (SDG 1)
2. Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8)
3. Reduced Inequalities (SDG 10)
4. Quality Education (SDG 4)
5. Good Health and Well-being (SDG 3)

Targets Identified:

• Target 1.2: By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women, and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions.
• Target 8.7: Take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labor, end modern slavery and human trafficking, and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labor, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labor in all its forms.
• Target 10.7: Facilitate orderly, safe, regular, and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through the implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies.
• Target 4.4: By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs, and entrepreneurship.
• Target 3.2: By 2030, end preventable deaths of newborns and children under 5 years of age, with all countries aiming to reduce neonatal mortality to at least as low as 12 per 1,000 live births and under-5 mortality to at least as low as 25 per 1,000 live births.

Indicators:

• Indicator 1.2.1: Proportion of population living below the national poverty line, by sex and age group.
• Indicator 8.7.1: Proportion and number of children aged 5-17 years engaged in child labor, by sex and age group.
• Indicator 10.7.1: Recruitment cost borne by employee as a proportion of yearly income earned in country of destination.
• Indicator 4.4.1: Proportion of youth and adults with information and communications technology (ICT) skills, by type of skill.
• Indicator 3.2.1: Under-5 mortality rate.

Table: SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

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Source: michiganadvance.com

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