Today in Labor History June 1 is the day that U.S. labor law officially allows children under the age of 16 to work up to 8 hours per day between the hours of 7:00 am and 9:00 pm. Time is ticking away, Bosses. Have you signed up sufficient numbers of low-wage tykes to maintain production rates with your downsized adult staffs?
The reality is that child labor laws have always been violated regularly by employers and these violations have been on the rise recently. Additionally, many lawmakers are seeking to weaken existing, poorly enforced laws to make it even easier to exploit children. Over the past year, the number of children employed in violation of labor laws rose by 37%, while lawmakers in at least 10 states passed, or introduced, new laws to roll back the existing rules. Violations include hiring kids to work overnight shifts in meatpacking factories, cleaning razor-sharp blades and using dangerous chemical cleaners on the kills floors for companies like Tyson and Cargill. Particularly vulnerable are migrant youth who have crossed the southern U.S. border from Central America, unaccompanied by parents. https://www.epi.org/publication/child-labor-laws-under-attack/
Of course, what is happening in the U.S. is small potatoes compared with many other countries, where exploitation of child labor is routine, and often legal. At least 20% of all children in low-income countries are engaged in labor, mostly in agriculture. In sub-Saharan Africa it is 25%. Kids are almost always paid far less than adults, increasing the bosses’ profits. They are often more compliant than adults and less likely to form unions and resist workplace abuses and safety violations. Bosses can get them to do dangerous tasks that adults can’t, or won’t, do, like unclogging the gears and belts of machinery. This was also the norm in the U.S., well into the 20th century. In my soon novel, “Anywhere But Schuylkill,” the protagonist, Mike Doyle, works as a coal cleaner in the breaker (coal crushing facility) of a coal mine at the age or 13. Many kids began work in the collieries before they were 10. They often were missing limbs and died young from lung disease. However, when the breaker bosses abused them, they would sometimes collectively chuck rocks and coal at them, or walk out, en masse, in wildcat strikes. And when their fathers, who worked in the pits, as laborers and miners, went on strike, they would almost always walk out with them, in solidarity.
Courtney Gore, the co-host of a right-wing online talk show, won a seat on a Texas school board on the basis that she would undo leftist indoctrination and get rid of educational materials with inappropriate messages about sexuality and race. Then she took office and actually read the curriculum, finding that the subject matter simply taught children “how to be a good friend, a good human.” The Texas Tribune talked to her about why she ran for office, what she thinks is behind the push to take over school boards, and the backlash she's faced since speaking out against the ultra-right element of the Republican party.
A child stands behind barbed wire near a camp housing displaced Palestinians. An Israeli incursion in Rafah would put the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians at risk and be a huge blow to the humanitarian operations of the Gaza Strip, the UN humanitarian office said on Friday
I said none of what you are suggesting. #war is brutal and #civilians are always the casualty.
Every nation is responsible for the safety and prosperity of it's #civilian population. #Hamas failed to protect its #children after declaring #jihad in the streets of #gaza .
In short, if you are a #terrorist or sympathetic to Islamic Jihad, you will be hunted.
Cities and villages across Japan hold koinobori (carp-streamers) festivals in celebration of Children’s Day, May 5th. The koinobori are said to represent good health, happiness and success as a result of the courage and strength of the carp to swim upstream.
A girl walks among blooming tulips in a park, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine May 1, 2024. REUTERS/Alina Smutko TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
A woman with two children carries their belongings as residents of the Lower Delmas flee their homes due to gang violence, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. REUTERS/Ralph Tedy Erol
Two schoolgirls stand on the ruins of their school on Feb. 12, 2016, in Dzita, Ghana. The Dzita EP Basic School's four compounds fell victim to coastal erosion during the region's rainy season.
"To me this scene summarises it all: it captures the violence of nature that rebels, the powerlessness of the local communities and the lack of hope and future of the coming generations."
Matilde Gattoni
A young girl gazes out of a window in Jakarta, Indonesia, to a flooded street.
With over 80,000 kilometers of coastline comprising more than 17,000 islands, Indonesia faces an imminent threat from rising sea levels. Experts predict that by 2050, thousands of the country's islands and nearly one-third of Java, home to the capital Jakarta, will be under water.