Third Teen Worker Killed In Industrial Accident As States Try To Loosen Child Labor Laws
A 16-year-old boy’s death in Mississippi comes weeks after two other minors recently died on the job in Missouri and Wisconsin.
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Every time I think that the US is a civilized "first world" country, they find a way to remind me of the reality. It really is shocking how backwards some things are in certain states.
Hope you get a federal law to prevent similar accidents in the future...
First world = aligned with Western forces after WWII
Second world = aligned with Russia
Third world = everyone else
That was the original meaning, yes, but now they're used to refer to a country's stage of development.
They're not "first world" country, if you compare them to other "third world" countries, you'll notice only one difference - US is rich and that's it. Everything else they're just 3rd world country.
Well yes and no. In some sense US is very backwards, in others it's ahead of everyone else. It's a big country so lots of different things fit there.
Any example of it being ahead?
The tech industry for example. It is easily the biggest, most varied and in many cases the most innovative (due to educated people and resources) in the world. This benefits the economy and the military for example.
Colleges and universities.
You can complete a college without even studying if you're good at football, I wouldn't really call it ahead. And while your prestigious universities are great, it's the same issue as with healthcare - it's probably the best in the world, but it's only for the rich (or you can get into a huge debt).
Neither of that do I consider as being ahead.
The ruling class is rich.
Child labor has always been legal and widely used in the US agriculture. In fact American agriculture it's pretty much dependent on farmers using their large families as free labor.
They're trying to expand that to other industries but of course it doesn't work so well without the equivalent of the farmer argument.
But if you're upset because of the child labor or human rights themselves then that ship has long sailed.
In fact American agriculture it’s pretty much dependent on farmers using their large families as free labor.
That was always the excuse, but there's already exceptions for a family owned business regardless of industry.
I grew up on a tobacco farm, and most of my uncle's had them too. So me and all my cousins worked in them pretty much since we could walk. It wasn't that bad because it was a family thing.
We could have done that legally without the agriculture exception though. Especially since it was family we never got paid.
What the agriculture exception did mean tho was other kids were actual employees on someone else's farm or chicken/turkey processing plant. And that's a whole nother story especially considering the type of person to hire a literal child to slaughter birds for 8 hours at a time with a 100 other employees in shitty conditions just doesn't give a fuck about any of the employees.
They just want an employee they can pay less and won't stand up for themselves
Yes I know that very well. In fact I took part in creating a exhibition about American Child laborers in the turn of the 20th century. It's just that news like this remind you how backwards the world's greatest superpower can be...
Here in New York most of the labor on big farms get done by migrants. The Mexicans know more about cows than the locals. Tho laws for maximum hours on farms is being reduced gradually from 60 to eventually 40 before you start to get overtime. So the agricultural industry here is making big moves to automation.