From WIZM:
Children ages 14 and 15 would no longer need a work permit or parental permission to get a job under a bill Republican Wisconsin lawmakers released last last week.
The proposal comes amid a wider push by mainly Republican state lawmakers to roll back child labor laws, despite the efforts of federal investigators to crack down on a surge in child labor violations nationally.
What could go wrong? From the article:
Earlier this year, the Labor Department fined Wisconsin-based meat packing contractor Packers Sanitation more than $1.5 million for employing at least 100 children, some as young as 13, to clean dangerous equipment such as bone saws and skull splitters in plants across the U.S. The company claimed it wasn’t aware that those workers were minors but said it has since taken steps to improve the way it verifies employees’ ages.
Maybe this is their solution to any Social Security shortfall. After all tax increases are off the table for this crew.
I think there are so many things that could go wrong here. The thing about alcohol is a big one. My Dad let me have about two sips of beer when I was 5 or 6 years old. Many people (including my Dad’s sisters) gasped when they hear this. But my Dad was a pretty wise guy. And his thought was, at age 6, the literally bitter beer flavor of some beers left behind in one of the motel rooms my Dad “owned” would put a “first bad experience” in my mind. I’m not certain if that worked, but I can honestly say the first time I was truly drunk was around age 28, and I had pretty “repressed” teenage years. How much that had to do with drinking 2 swallows of beer at age 6 is rather debatable. I think having your first experience with alcohol in your teen years, when impressing your peers seems to become so “all-important” is a rather more dangerous context to have the “first experience” with alcohol (though many would argue, a “natural part” of growing up). I never had a single puff of a cigarette until age 28 either, and my Dad always strictly forbid me to have those, I think because his father died of heart failure in his 50s, which my Dad connected to the cigarettes. My sister was raised the same exact way and was smoking heavily by high school, so….. if the parenting “nurturing” is the same, why the roughly 12 year difference between my sister’s and my first smoke?? Again, I have no idea.
At age 16 I was helping my dad build his dream house in the August heat outside of Atlanta when dad gave me my 1st beer. Budweiser sitting in the back of a station wagon with no cooling is AWFUL. I puked it out and did not have any other alcohol for 2 years. Yea – the beer at the Fraternity rush parties was much better!
@ pgl
I’m not much of a fan of Frat houses. But I will concede yours was probably the more healthy route. Or if not that you were certainly much better socially adjusted than I was in my teens–early twenties. Other commentary regarding myself currently will be withheld to protect the innocent (hahahaha)
The whole concept is build on the idea that the children of the underclass are not going to get educated anyway, so let them get out and make money rather than waste their time failing in school. It seems beyond these bastards to think that if those kids fail in school, then we may need to make changes to our education system.
Predatory capitalism has no soul, so it has no morals. The low unemployment rates have pushed employers into desperation with regards to finding cheep labor. The one thing they absolutely don’t want to do is cut down on their profits and just pay what they should for the work of those who make them rich.
the government should make sure that 14 years are going to school and receiving an education. they should not be working. if the family needs the money, then it should be provided by a social program. Packers Sanitation is an example of why we should have and need child labor laws. it is implausible the company did not know the age of those child laborers.
Well, there are no poor houses, per se, but our prisons are full of people too poor to hire adequate legal representation. Rikers is full of people too poor to post bail and who spend months waiting fora court date.
“our prisons are full of people too poor to hire adequate legal representation.”
As in those fools who helped Trump with 1/6/2021 but now have been told by fearless leader “bugger off”.
Oklahoma County Jail is probably worse than Rikers, and for some reason unknown to me always escapes national attention. And every time the federal government (DOJ) comes in to “take control” or threaten federal overtake of the jail the subtextual message from DOJ seems to be “Well, not really. We just want to make empty threats for federal overtake of the jail~~we want nothing to do with taking over this clusterf*ck”
The “big improvement” was supposed to come when they turned over control decisions to a “trust” which anyone paying attention knew from the get go was a way for prison officials and county politicians to shirk responsibility for the jail deaths and escapes, and prevalent contraband in the jail. “ANYTHING bad happens in the jail say ‘It was the trust’ “ Since the trust took over the jail the yearly rate of deaths has risen from the already shameful rate of deaths occurring up to the time the trust took over.
https://www.readfrontier.org/stories/oklahoma-county-promised-to-fix-its-jail-more-than-10-year-ago-but-deaths-and-staffing-issues-continue/
https://nondoc.com/2022/08/04/oklahoma-county-jail-deaths-mount/
https://nondoc.com/2023/03/24/grand-jury-report-on-the-oklahoma-county-jail/
https://nondoc.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/mcgj-2021-040_final_report_filed.pdf
https://okpolicy.org/oklahomas-debtors-prisons-arent-just-nuisance-theyre-epidemic/
They had one guy, who died in the jail, after he was arrested for riding a bicycle near the interstate. Most likely he committed suicide because he knew he didn’t have money for the county/court fees and he was going to rot his life away in the Oklahoma County Jail because they don’t release people who haven’t paid the county fees. They rot in there FOR YEARS because of unpaid fees.
Debtors’ prison.
it has since taken steps to improve the way it verifies employees’ ages
They now look inside the child’s mouth to see if their permanent molars have come in.
Tom: “I don’t know Bill, the baby face says 9 but these molars say 16.”
Bill: “16 it is.”
Tom: “This molar bullsh*t was a great idea!!!! Let’s not forget to thank our friend over at the Labor Department for that one.”
Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin on passenger list of plane that crashed
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/wagner-group-leader-yevgeny-prigozhin-on-passenger-list-of-plane-that-crashed/ar-AA1fGdFh
Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the passenger list of a plane that crashed in Russia’s Tver region on Wednesday, according to the press service of the Federal Air Transport Agency . Ten people were killed in the crash, but it is not yet clear whether he was actually on board the plane.
“An investigation has been launched into the crash of the Embraer aircraft, which occurred tonight in the Tver region. According to the list of passengers, among them is the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin,” the department said in a statement. Among the 10 dead were three crew members and seven passengers. Everyone on board the plane was killed.
“Russia’s Investigative Committee, a top law enforcement body, announced the opening of a case on the plane crash, on suspicion of a violation of air transport safety rules”
There were definitely some safety violations involved. You can’t just let a plane fall out of the sky with smoke coming out of it. I am sure the investigative committee already have a written report about how the violations of safety rules created an internal explosion that took the plane down. The good news is that the world is a better place without Prigozhin; the bad news is Putin is still alive.
“The good news is that the world is a better place without Prigozhin; the bad news is Putin is still alive.”
Amen to that!
I started working outside the home when I was about 12 or 13, babysitting and cutting other people’s lawns. At 14 I could bus tables, and within a couple of months I was promoted to short-order cook. It taught me a lot, not only how to cook (and be on time) but also how to both earn money and reduce my grocery bills at the same time (free meals are part of the job). That lasted through grad school.
Some 15 years later, I visited a hat factory in Chittagong where 10 year-old kids were making ball caps. This was a model factory, which was why we saw it. The kids – their families’ key breadwinners — had two hot meals a day and four hours of school. Bright, ventilated, safe work environment. More, the guide said that if they couldn’t hire kids, they would close. Adults were just too much trouble (politically motivated unions). Again, it was a model factory and we knew that other kids had it much worse.
Still, it taught me not to take everything about child labor at face value. Things like “the government should make sure that …”
I’ll assume the $ you earned was yours and was not necessary for family survival. And that you and your family were natural born American citizens and native English speakers. (Me too)
Many of the minors in the cases mentioned are working because they must, not simply to gain spending money. Much of my late wife’s teen pay went to her parents who often struggled to feed a fairly large family while dealing with sporadic employment layoffs.
True, and unrelated to the focus of my post: lessons learned.
@ Mr. Rear
I think something very important has flown over your head. And your attitude pretty much makes you incapable of ever “getting it”. But do carry on………
Let’s see if you can understand 1/10th of what is going on here as the thickheaded diplomat wannabe. Do you think in Bangladesh, a place renowned for shitty treatment of child laborers, when they knew 2 weeks in advance the dumb “ugly American” was dropping by the factory, they just maybe would have changed normal operating procedure to fool the American dunce?? Think real hard now……..
Mr Herzog,
Insults do not make you appear any more intelligent; quite the reverse.
I have been in factories in a lot of developing countries over a lot of years.
I have experience dealing with cover-ups and other ways of trying to fool the “dumb ‘ugly American.'”
One very, very useful technique is to know more than a little bit about the situation, the people organizing the visit, and the history of the place you are visiting. For example, does the organizer have one hell of a lot to lose by being caught trying to pull a fast one?
If so, why, oh why in the world would they even bring visitors to a factory?
Unrelated? That questions your post comparing your work babysitting and mowing lawns to children working the night and/or graveyard shifts to keep their families afloat.
You worked because you could. These children work because they must. I’ll also assume you didn’t spend too much time napping in school after putting in 8 hours on the night shift.
my grandmother lived in the days of child labor. i have heard the stories first hand. she did not get to high school, even though she was one of the most intelligent individuals i ever encountered. david, what you are describing is a fantasy land. that is not how it works. 10 year olds do not have a better life because they get to work for 8 or 10 hours a day.
and there is a big difference between baby-sitting and grass cutting compared to working for a shop even part time. that is where the labor laws come into play.
i see it today with college students, who are coerced by their boss to prioritize a minimum wage job over their academics. costing those college students a semester or more, or flunking out of college altogether. and you think a 12 year old would be more mature to prioritize their academics over the job? laughable. that is why child labor laws are in place. education is priority number one for children. full stop.
baffling,
On what do you base your assertion?
What evidence do you have that the alternative to work is school?
And, which part of Bangladesh does it apply to?
David, I think you not to better defend why letting 10 year olds work full time is a wonderful policy initiative. we eliminated that in the United States (at least until recently) for a reason. you are advocating for something that history has shown is not productive for society. if it were good and productive, it would not have been outlawed.
baffling,
You’re living up to your nom de plume.
I said nothing about factory child labor in the United States.
“I said nothing about factory child labor in the United States.”
david, it should not occur anywhere. my grandparents lived at a time when standard of living was not that different from what currently exists in some of those foreign countries you alluded to. it was bad practice then. it is not good practice today. based on your comments, my guess is you are very lacking in the current understanding of how a child’s brain develops and what is needed for that development. working as a 10 year old is not conducive for a child thriving into adulthood, in general. don’t go with anecdotal evidence here. just read the literature.
i find it amazing in the year 2023 that i would have a discussion with somebody who believes that child labor is a good thing.
Here is a discussion about “labor unions” in Bangladesh (the first link of the six links below). This moron, Mr. Rear, apparently can’t read well and only goes by what slave shop managers/owners tell him. Because the unions have zero power and the union leaders (the business owners themselves) have no interest to leverage higher wages, which is what Mr. Rear is implying in his comment about Bangladesh unions. It is quite easy to see from this how Mr. Rear was treasured by the Chinese government during his time there, as the aptly appointed village idiot.
https://www.newagebd.net/article/169476/trade-unions-in-bangladesh-benefit-workers-little-now
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/07/06/bangladesh-labor-activist-killed
https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/04/22/whoever-raises-their-head-suffers-most/workers-rights-bangladeshs-garment
https://sourcingjournal.com/topics/labor/shahidul-islam-bangaldesh-union-leader-death-eid-ul-azha-kalpona-akter-442716/
https://www.hrw.org/news/2012/04/11/letter-prime-minister-sheikh-hasina-re-wazed-killing-aminul-islam-bangladesh-center
https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/02/06/bangladesh-protect-garment-workers-rights
Mr Herzog,
Your references are from decades after the point in history when I visited a factory in Chittagong.
Your references point to the ability of unions to benefit workers, not the ability of politicians to use unions to harm factory operators.
Perhaps you might want to learn just a little bit about the history of Bangladesh politics.
I need context. I did not see the original story. If these are large employers (like Packers Sanitation), it sounds like they are taking undue advantage of young people, who cannot protect their own interests. But, I look at my experience–I started moving lawns and shoveling snow when I was eleven. I worked (part time) in a paint store when I was fourteen. I worked periodically in my uncle’s slaughterhouse from the age of 12. (Cleaning the dangerous equipment is not the same risk as operating the equipment) I worked (part time and seasonably) in a paint factory from the time I was sixteen. I worked as a bartender in Madison when I was 19. Between scholarships and earnings; I graduated from UW-Madison with $2,500 in student loan debt. My wealthy friends did not work and their families paid for their education. My similarly situated friends, either did not graduate or did so with a debt load. (This is back when UW was affordable) I cannot help but believe that my “child labor” was good for me. So, is this a blanket approval of 14 to 15 year-olds working every job imaginable for any business (foundries, etc)? Or, is this permitting that which my friends and family did–working at the gas station, local store, local plant, etc. Are we talking McDonald’s or Cargill?
B.A. Badger: Let’s be clear. You can work as a kid right now, as long as you have your parent’s permission. The legislation does away with it requirement.
All those orphan South American refuge children cannot produce a “parent permission”. So how are you going to enslave these kids if their parents cannot be found and arm twisted to put an X on the dotted line. Change the law and legalize the enslavement. Those children cannot produce any meaningful informed consent for what they are being asked to do.
And people used to wonder why I went at it with Professor Rosser on Copmala Harris. Here is a Black woman, a Black woman for Christ’s sake (or that’s “her story” and she’s sticking to it). Trying to make riding a suburban public school bus out like she experienced the Holocaust. “Boohoo Boohoo, I was that girl on the school bus”. She doesn’t know which minority is hurt the most by sitting in jail for next to no reason at all???~~when she was the DA/AG~~ example, Black parents for their child’s school truancy and minor drug offenses. And Prof Rosser thought he was “Mr. Woke” for praising a light skinned, suburban raised, East Indian slash “Black” lady??? What a damned joke.
They got Prigozhin. Sorry about the collateral damage.
It is not clear just yet it was him on that plane. And it is not clear just yet that this was a deliberate act. Of course we may never know as the investigation is being run by the Putin government.
If you were an “Russian expert” connected to “Russian Insiders” (say for example listening to your wife tell you something she saw on Russian state TV while visiting her Mom) based out of Virginia, I’d then have to ask you if this was a “rumor fact” or a “fact rumor”, and when you would later tell us “you said” it was a rumor when it didn’t happen, or when was it that “you had insisted” it was fact before it occurred. But that you were right the entire time.
But here is most likely what the “Russian expert” would have said today: “Yes, this is no surprise, my Russian connections had told me this was very likely to happen. I just didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag on Prigozhin, for fear of the danger it would bring about to my very highly placed Russian connections”. Thanks chief, you and most 10 year olds pieced it together. Only with 10 years olds you subtract nauseating pretentiousness and delusions of partial divine status.
Breaking News Update: Elvira Nabiullina still has her job. I know….. shocking.
A large surface to air missile could take out both engines, but there could be situations where one engine survives and only modest damage to tail/flight surfaces would get the aircraft safely down.
A man potable SAM could hit using infrared and knowledge of flight plan. But the smaller charge would leave a good chance for survival and emergency landing.
The chance of both engines flaming is very small suggesting contaminated fuel issue, which is likely sabotage.
An on board bomb would be a modestly reliable method. Last minute gift of high shelf wine……
A good sized SAM could be picked up by satellite, however, the observing country likely would not state it.
Maybe Hersch will give the answer in a few months.
Accident is possible, but the rarity!
@ Macroduck
For the record, I still say Prigozhin is very sharp, and a survivor. I put it 75% that he is still alive. Does it make sense to you he would get on ANY plane in Russia with his real name on the manifest?? It strikes me a large part of this story is missing, and not adding up.
The way that plane went down – it had to be an attack and not some mere accident. Whether Prigozhin was on it is still not clear to me as there seem to have been two planes en route. Film at 11?
I’ll be watching, nay, scouting, the news for trace fragments. As the cornball out-of-date saying goes, you can bet your bippy.
No doubt, as I post, JohnH is hoping Seymour Hersh will prove the U.S. government was behind this to cast more blame on Putin, further tarnishing his good name and his desire to end the pointless war begun by NATO.
we all know that putin was behind this assassination. if it failed, it would make putin look extremely weak and incompetent. I am sure the instructions were clear, either achieve success or take your cyanide pill quickly.
I was just an accident. Russian air defense thought it was a Malaysian commercial airliner.
Is it true Matthias Rust was the pilot?
@ Macroduck
3 days old article, still relevant:
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/historic-drought-hot-seas-slow-panama-canal-shipping-2023-08-21/
I saw this on the news. They said they need to use fresh water which rules out pumping in water from either the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. It’s weird that the canals were designed this way.
@ pgl
I can’t figure it out. It may have something to do with salt water effecting/”contaminating” the local drinking water and inland fish. This is my best guess. If anyone knows the answer I would love to hear it.
It’s pretty simple — water doesn’t flow up hill — at least not by itself.
The Suez Canal has no locks and is constructed entirely at sea level so ships can freely travel from the Med Sea to the Red Sea.
The Panama Canal, on the other hand goes up hill in both directions to the 88-foot high mid-point at Gatun Lake. A series of locks are required which are operated by allowing water to flow from Gatun Lake down hill. Each ship passing through the canal requires about 50 million gallons of water to be released — about 2 billion gallons a day. This 2 billion gallons a day comes from the rivers and streams in the mountains surrounding Gatun Lake, which is in short supply because of drought.
If you wanted to pump sea water up hill to replace the fresh water, it would require pumping something like 3,000 cubic feet per second, which is a good sized river. This would require a power plant of around 50 megawatts operating 24 hours a day.
And then there is the fact that freshwater Gatun Lake is the drinking water supply for thousands of people, which would be poisoned. And the fact that you don’t want cross-species contamination directly between Atlantic and Pacific.
Of course, I’m sure there are people (MAGA-hatters mostly) who think the Panama Canal could operate like this:
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/118144/waterfall
Great explanation. And the link was classic!
Oh, and apropos the current Barbenheimer mania, it’s worth mentioning that his Edward Teller nemesis has a plan to build a sea level Panama Canal using 250 nuclear bombs with Project Plowshare. Just a bit of radiation. Not enough to get your hair mussed.
[ Ed Shaughnessy rimshot ]