Merged Where the Women Are Strong, the Men Are Good-looking, And All of the Children Are Working Second Shift at the Plant.

[ZiprHead]

https://wapo.st/3YsrIY8

As local economies grapple with a tightening labor market, some state legislatures are looking to relax child labor protections to help employers meet hiring needs.
It’s part of a persistent trend in labor economics, experts say. When employers struggle to find talent, many prefer to hire younger, cheaper workers rather than increase pay and benefits to attract adults.


“Because of the high demand for workers, where there are holes in the system, unfortunately child laborers can get caught up in staffing some of those holes,” said David Weil, a professor of social policy and management at Brandeis University, and a former wage and hour administrator at the Department of Labor.

Legislators in Iowa and Minnesota introduced bills in January to loosen child labor law regulations around age and workplace safety protections in some of the country’s most dangerous workplaces. Minnesota’s bill would permit 16- and 17-year-olds to work construction jobs. The Iowa measure would allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work certain jobs in meatpacking plants.

 

[Ford]

Reminds me of the endless refrain when someone suggests raising the minimum wage:

"Well these jobs are just entry level. A summer job for teenagers. Something where they can start out and learn what it's like to earn their own money. Why should we pay these kids enough to live on their own, let alone support a family? These are just starter jobs. Nobody expects this to be a career!"

But meat-packing and construction aren't necessarily part-time summer jobs. What's next? Manufacturing jobs? Hey kid...you've got your learner's permit...wanna learn how to drive this forklift? It's cool and pays a whole 50 cents over minimum! Yeah, your dad made a decent living as a forklift operator, but you're just a kid!

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Let employers hire more workers.

In addition to relaxing some of the labor laws including child-labor restrictions, they should relax the laws against hiring immigrants, or laws requiring special work permits for immigrants.

The law should be changed so that no one in the country is prohibited from working just because they're a foreigner or non-citizen, and so no employer is prohibited from hiring a foreigner or non-citizen.

Hiring a foreigner should be no different than hiring a citizen. All that should matter is the requirements to perform the work, the necessary experience, training, etc. Also health requirements, non-criminal background, etc. -- everything that a citizen is checked for, in the application process, should apply equally toward non-citizens or foreigners, with citizen-status or foreigner-status or nationality being irrelevant.

The purpose of jobs should be to get the needed work and production done, not to protect uncompetitive American crybabies from foreign competition. More competition is always good for the economy because it's best for consumers. And serving consumers is the proper function of the economy, not providing "jobs! jobs! jobs!" for uncompetitive native-borns threatening to go on a rampage if they don't get their entitlements.

 

[bilby]

The purpose of jobs should be to get the needed work and production done

Needed by whom?

The purpose of an economy should be to ensure that everyone has as high a standard of living as possible.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Jobs for teens should benefit teens first and foremost, not the employer. Apprenticeships in the trades should be readily available and structured by federal law (national apprenticeship program) with safe work practices always in the forefront. Similarly pay should be structured by the feds and commensurate with the percentage of hands-on work being performed as the apprentice progresses.
Time worked should be time compensated.

 

[steve_bank]

When I was growing up 50s 60s in Ct kids worked. In Stamford when I was 15 I got a work permit. Hours for minors were limited. Many kids I knew worked a part time job.

Grocery stores I worked in had a few full time workers with benefits, the rest of the jobs were part timers usually high school kids.

I washed dishes in a restaurant.

Aroound here a high mandatory min wage for all workers has led to less work for teens and also for disabled workers. Requiring an adult wgae for teems is counter productive.

Stating the obvious, getting teens working prepares for adult life. Develope good work habbits and discipline. Time management.

I don't see it as exploitative. I see it as opportunity for teens to get a start in life. Its better than hanging around playing video games.

 

[Gospel]

Sounds to me like we need to update that outdated age discrimination law to protect all ages & not just the old white men it was intended for.

 

[steve_bank]

Sounds to me like we need to update that outdated age discrimination law to protect all ages & not just the old white men it was intended for.

Sounds lie a knee jerk progressive play the race card response.

Should minors of any race working part time while students make an adult minimum wage, or should the wage be lowered to provide opportunities for more kids?

Here in Seattle I get around on public transit and walking.

What I see is many young healthy looking people acrossthe racial spectrum hm aging out, some pan handling.

Older street people who probably never had a job. Beyond rehabilitation and being employed.

The paradaigm I grew up with was a blue collar if you don't work you don't eat. All work is good.

 

[Jarhyn]

Should minors of any race working part time while students make an adult minimum wage

Yes.

If someone is doing work, and you would have to pay someone over the age of 18 (regardless of their personal costs of living) 15 dollars an hour for a task, you should have to pay a 16 year old the same.

If a person is doing that job, the pay needs to be agnostic to the person doing it, to the extent that the work is done to quality.

Paying someone less because they are younger and do not know the value of their work is FRAUDULENT. It is taking advantage of them.

Will they spend it on Doritos and fancy computer chairs rather than... Whatever it is Steve pays folks for? Almost certainly.

But that isn't up to Steve to set priorities upon because it isn't Steve's work and it isn't Steve's paycheck. They just get to learn the lesson of "easy come easy go, should have saved rather than spent when you had disposable income" rather than the lesson of "employer dun fucked you on wages".cw

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Getting the needed work done takes highest priority.

Jobs for teens should benefit teens first and foremost, not the employer.

They should benefit consumers first and foremost. The function of the business is to serve consumers, and those producers (employers and workers) who do better at serving consumers should be rewarded for their superior performance.

Apprenticeships in the trades should be readily available and structured by federal law (national apprenticeship program) with safe work practices always in the forefront. Similarly pay should be structured by the feds and commensurate with the percentage of hands-on work being performed as the apprentice progresses.

Employers do better than the federal government at structuring the apprenticeship programs and deciding the pay levels. Consumers are served better as the decisions are made by the employers and employees rather than outsiders like government.

If some government role is helpful, this should be local government, and possibly some state government for (geographically) small states (but probably not large states). Politicians and bureaucrats far away are not in a good position to dictate local business decisions.

Time worked should be time compensated.

meaning hourly wage is the only allowable form of compensation? not by-the-piece? What is the point of having government interfere into such decisions?

Rather than policing employers and interfering with their business, government could make itself useful by investing more in educational programs, perhaps also hiring more teenagers who could fill some public need going unmet, and expanding general opportunities for those wanting to improve themselves. Also there are probably some benefits government should provide to poor communities and families which would reduce some of the negative conditions which drive the poor to desperation. But the bad conditions are not the fault of employers. Fixing some of the bad social conditions does not include scapegoating employers, as if they are to blame.

There is an employer-bashing bias in our culture which is doing more harm than good. This includes also the impulse to punish employers for hiring non-citizens. Even when these are paid a lower pay scale, it is still a net gain for everyone -- as those workers are made better off, and also consumers benefit from the lower-cost more competitive production.

Business makes us all better off when it's able to reduce its cost, including its labor cost.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Getting the needed work done takes highest priority.

Jobs for teens should benefit teens first and foremost, not the employer.

They should benefit consumers first and foremost. The function of the business is to serve consumers, and those producers (employers and workers) who do better at serving consumers should be rewarded for their superior performance.

The function of a business is to make a profit. They need not serve consumers. Example: do you really think reverse mortgage companies serve consumers?

Apprenticeships in the trades should be readily available and structured by federal law (national apprenticeship program) with safe work practices always in the forefront. Similarly pay should be structured by the feds and commensurate with the percentage of hands-on work being performed as the apprentice progresses.

Employers do better than the federal government at structuring the apprenticeship programs and deciding the pay levels. Consumers are served better as the decisions are made by the employers and employees rather than outsiders like government.

If some government role is helpful, this should be local government, and possibly some state government for (geographically) small states (but probably not large states). Politicians and bureaucrats far away are not in a good position to dictate local business decisions.

Time worked should be time compensated.

meaning hourly wage is the only allowable form of compensation? not by-the-piece? What is the point of having government interfere into such decisions?

Rather than policing employers and interfering with their business, government could make itself useful by investing more in educational programs, perhaps also hiring more teenagers who could fill some public need going unmet, and expanding general opportunities for those wanting to improve themselves. Also there are probably some benefits government should provide to poor communities and families which would reduce some of the negative conditions which drive the poor to desperation. But the bad conditions are not the fault of employers. Fixing some of the bad social conditions does not include scapegoating employers, as if they are to blame.

There is an employer-bashing bias in our culture which is doing more harm than good. This includes also the impulse to punish employers for hiring non-citizens. Even when these are paid a lower pay scale, it is still a net gain for everyone -- as those workers are made better off, and also consumers benefit from the lower-cost more competitive production.

Business makes us all better off when it's able to reduce its cost, including its labor cost.

Why are you stopping at teens? Shouldn't toddlers get to work, too? They are really good at fitting into small spaces to pick up screws and other parts when machines start to fall apart. If a local government and company wants them to be hired, you want the feds to stop it. Why do you hate freedom?

 

[Gospel]

Sounds lie a knee jerk progressive play the race card response.

Really? The act was established in the late 60's. Ya know, around the time when the civil rights movement ended. While the bill covers all races as it is written today, It's not a far stretch to believe brown folk weren't the reason they came up with the bill in the first place. Black people were too busy trying to stop discrimination based on our skin much less our age. It's highly likely some old white people did that.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Allow me to introduce you to the entirely historical, and not at all hysterical, character known as the all powerful black man, who has controlled politics and society in the US since at least the early 1600s.

Also he will steal all yor wimminfolk.

Trying to decide if Blazing Saddles (Where the white wimmin at?) Or Big Jim Slade is a more apprpriate clip here...

 

[ZiprHead]

Grocery stores I worked in had a few full time workers with benefits, the rest of the jobs were part timers usually high school kids.

You seem to think that's a good thing. I see it as no differant to outsourcing to a cheap wage country.

 

[Bomb#20]

The purpose of jobs should be to get the needed work and production done

Needed by whom?

The purpose of an economy should be to ensure that everyone has as high a standard of living as possible.

Tell that to this guy...

... There must be a redistribution of wealth from the owners of those tools and factories, to the people who they want to purchase the cheap products that those tools and factories generate. Whether that implies a far shorter working week, or a direct transfer (eg via a universal basic income, or via generous unemployment benefits), it's unavoidable that something has to change from the pre-technological idea that every ordinary person who wants money, must do equivalently productive work.

Society needs to get used to a new class of freeloaders, who can join with the existing classes of freeloaders with whom we have already learned to live (children, the elderly, the sick and infirm, the generationally wealthy, etc.

Freeloading is inefficient. Whatever system we come up with for redistributing wealth, if the system's non-producers produced too then there would be more production and that would make a higher standard of living possible.

An economy doesn't have a purpose, any more than an ecosystem has. Rather, various people have competing purposes they want economies to serve. There's no absolute rest frame making one of those people's purpose "the" purpose an economy should have while making everybody else's contrary purposes not what "the" purpose of an economy should be.

 

[Bomb#20]

Paying someone less because they are younger and do not know the value of their work is FRAUDULENT. It is taking advantage of them.

You appear to be taking for granted that there is such a quantity as "the value of their work" available to be known. Value is subjective. Different people have different sets of values. When somebody values a good or service differently from how much you value it, that does not mean the other guy is committing fraud. And when two other people negotiate an exchange rate between what they trade to one another, it is not safe for you to take for granted that one of them would hold out for more if only he weren't being deceptively kept in ignorance of how much you value what he is offering.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

How "fraudulent" is fraud?
What if the job-seeker lies in order to get hired?

Paying someone less because they are younger and do not know the value of their work is FRAUDULENT. It is taking advantage of them.

You appear to be taking for granted that there is such a quantity as "the value of their work" available to be known. Value is subjective. Different people have different sets of values. When somebody values a good or service differently from how much you value it, that does not mean the other guy is committing fraud. And when two other people negotiate an exchange rate between what they trade to one another, it is not safe for you to take for granted that one of them would hold out for more if only he weren't being deceptively kept in ignorance of how much you value what he is offering.

In addition to the above, there's another reason why it's not fraudulent to hire that younger person. Suppose we reverse who's doing the deception to whom: An older kid (but passing for a younger age) lies about his age, claiming to be younger, knowing this increases his chance of getting hired for a job that others are also applying for but being honest about their older age. So this kid who is lying (because he's desperate for a job) gets hired instead of the others, because he lied.

Is this kid guilty of fraud? No. In a stupid system he deceives the employer and also cheats the other applicants who were honest. He gets paid a little less than an older person would be paid, but maybe that employer was holding out for a younger applicant anyway, and so the choice is either 1) take this job at lower pay, but at least get hired; or 2) be honest and be rejected in favor of someone younger who would get hired. It's either take the lower-paying job, or take no job at all. So this teenager gets hired, by lying, and so is made better off.

The only real fraud is that of the dogmatists who pretend to dictate to others what wage they should pay or be paid, or pretending to know what their "real value" is, rather than letting all workers and employers make their own free personal choices based on what they think is in their best interest.

Nothing prevents someone from giving advice to a worker who might be making a mistake and could hold out for a higher wage. Or giving advice to anyone who might be better off choosing something different.

 

[Gospel]

You land of make believe people never cease to amaze me.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Getting the needed work done takes highest priority.

Jobs for teens should benefit teens first and foremost, not the employer.

They should benefit consumers first and foremost. The function of the business is to serve consumers, and those producers (employers and workers) who do better at serving consumers should be rewarded for their superior performance.

Consumers and workers are one and the same. So with all companies extending "benefits" in the form of a fair living wage and proper training, everyone benefits.

Apprenticeships in the trades should be readily available and structured by federal law (national apprenticeship program) with safe work practices always in the forefront. Similarly pay should be structured by the feds and commensurate with the percentage of hands-on work being performed as the apprentice progresses.

Employers do better than the federal government at structuring the apprenticeship programs and deciding the pay levels. Consumers are served better as the decisions are made by the employers and employees rather than outsiders like government.

If some government role is helpful, this should be local government, and possibly some state government for (geographically) small states (but probably not large states). Politicians and bureaucrats far away are not in a good position to dictate local business decisions.

Employers do not "do better than the federal government". You're making an assumption. Employers maximize savings everywhere. Everywhere including safety. I would submit Hyundai's suppliers in Alabama as evidence.
The federal government does have a national apprenticeship program through the Dept of Labor. Obtaining a Journeyman's License should be standardized throughout the country then tailored by the state as needed for things such as climate, propensity for earthquakes, etc. Particulars for a company's equipment is the company's concern with state approval.
This standardizes safety and practices throughout which will cut down on accidents and retraining as employees cross state lines.

Time worked should be time compensated.

meaning hourly wage is the only allowable form of compensation? not by-the-piece? What is the point of having government interfere into such decisions?

Rather than policing employers and interfering with their business, government could make itself useful by investing more in educational programs, perhaps also hiring more teenagers who could fill some public need going unmet, and expanding general opportunities for those wanting to improve themselves. Also there are probably some benefits government should provide to poor communities and families which would reduce some of the negative conditions which drive the poor to desperation. But the bad conditions are not the fault of employers. Fixing some of the bad social conditions does not include scapegoating employers, as if they are to blame.

There is an employer-bashing bias in our culture which is doing more harm than good. This includes also the impulse to punish employers for hiring non-citizens. Even when these are paid a lower pay scale, it is still a net gain for everyone -- as those workers are made better off, and also consumers benefit from the lower-cost more competitive production.

Business makes us all better off when it's able to reduce its cost, including its labor cost.

Meaning money is the only compensation. Yes, money. I do work. You give me money. Mr. Employer does not get to play games with interns "gaining valuable experience" fetching coffee as compensation. Work for money. And the reason for government interference is greed. You can analyze the greed six ways to Sunday and label it as you wish but it all comes back to regulating business so they compensate their employees fairly.
When businesses give low wage employees salaried job titles and work them like hourly employees for no other reason than to not have to pay overtime, government is needed. When businesses give employees daily quotas that are impossible to safely meet, government is needed. When state governments shield businesses from liability, federal government is needed.

 

[Jarhyn]

Paying someone less because they are younger and do not know the value of their work is FRAUDULENT. It is taking advantage of them.

You appear to be taking for granted that there is such a quantity as "the value of their work" available to be known. Value is subjective. Different people have different sets of values. When somebody values a good or service differently from how much you value it, that does not mean the other guy is committing fraud. And when two other people negotiate an exchange rate between what they trade to one another, it is not safe for you to take for granted that one of them would hold out for more if only he weren't being deceptively kept in ignorance of how much you value what he is offering.

Which is my point. There is a minimum set up on "value" through cultural values by applying majority rule upon representation.

That minimum "value" of any job paying a wage to a human is "the minimum wage".

The value of their work is additionally available in looking at the value of the company, as a percentage of their profits. If the company is turning a profit, especially the record profits we see today, then it is clear someone is being fucked on value.

If the company can't figure it out, it's up to the government to FINE them for not doing the work to figure it out, and TAX them on those profits, and then PAY the balance of those taxes to the least paid people at the company.

Because it's NOT true that value cannot be quantified. We have a bunch of people who all need and want jobs to survive, who all offer to participate in our economy.

Trying to treat value, something we as a society quantify as money, as unquantifiable, as an excuse to treat some folks as if their work doesn't have value on account of their age or personal priorities, is honestly sick.