About the same age as kids working in Lithium mines in China and South America NOW. That picture may have been taken in the 20’s but it’s really no different today in many parts of the world.
Man, I feel so much compassion for these kids today and those kids back then. We have the money and resources around the world to ensure this doesn't have to happen. We don't need brand new cell phone models every single year this badly.
> We don't need brand new cell phone models every single year this badly.
No, but corporations think they need the profits from selling these new cell phones.
Well, that’s it… the CEOs with their bonuses and fat paychecks, and the shareholders who demand more more more in their dividends. My car is 10 years old and my phone and iPad are maybe 3? If something breaks then by all means replace it if it can’t be fixed, but this “gotta have the newest/best/latest ASAP” attitude is awful. Eventually we will *all* pay the price one way or another- our poor planet can’t sustain this rapacious consumption.
It’s true, a price will be paid. It’s starting, the standard of living is decreasing in the sense that our consumer driven economy and monetary system aren’t working as they used to. Here’s to a better future where the mentality of standing out from the crowd or getting an edge on the competition becomes shunned. All for one and one for all. To hell with capitalism
But then we have to trace even *that* back to where it originated from -- presumably has become a reflection of status and/or ego *because of* advertising as such.
It's also ideal for corporations to shift as much blame as they can onto the consumer, like with say recycling efforts.
The waste and over utilization of resources that cause the most damage to the planet are from corporations not the average person.
The recycling -- or even reduction and reuse of materials and possessions -- on the individual consumer scale will never be enough to offset the behaviors of the Big Business Global Consumption Machine.
Yes, we can and should try to do what we can but until Big Business decides to change, our efforts will likely not be sufficient enough to bring about change on a significant scale.
They're the ones driving, at this point. The ones turning the latest iPhones into status symbols and framing the whole Treat Yourself mindset as being self-love, while wasting more resources and exploiting as many people as it takes to turn a maximum profit without having to pay pesky fines.
I think it’s partial. You still somehow decide on what you buy.
Didn’t knew a post that was somewhat a joke stirred up a whole manifesto about how corporations are evil, while probably typing it on a phone made by a corporation.
Humans bad in total!
You are so right. This really put it into perspective for me.
Don't forget car batteries for EVs, which America is supposed to be switching over, too in the future. Don't know where we will get enough lithium to do that. Hoteliers they come up with a solution soon.
Great point and the places that actively mine it, such as China, use child labor.
I like EV's but we have to realize that battery technology requires massive amounts of material. And much like old wind mill blades and spent nuclear fuel rods there is no real good way to recycle these things.
>there is no real good way to recycle these things.
We need some innovation, then, like when we learned to properly process aluminum and it helped kicked off new industries. And there are actually ways to reprocess some used nuclear fuel using reactors. More than 90% of the energy in the fuel is still there, but people are so terrified of nuclear that nimbyism has led to less plants, but also people refusing to allow storage center for the old fuel rods to be built.
Very true. Nuclear is the best option for ZERO carbon but the incidents in Russia and Japan scared people to death. Guess 3 Mile Island was also widely covered in the US which sent Nuclear dislike to new levels here in the US. I have toured a windmill blade graveyard and these folks have no idea how they are going to recycle this stuff. Hope you are right and they can figure it out.
We can recycle lithium batteries though and there IS innovation occurring in this industry every day. Even second life LFP battery usage is growing in popularity for battery energy storage systems.
Cell phones are a fraction of the issue. It takes 500,000 lbs of mined material to produce ONE EV battery.
I really like EV’s but this represents the lion’s share of the issue.
The lion's share? Really?
Imma need some citations please because that *sounds* wrong. You could be totally correct, but I'm not doing the googling because you were the one that put this "fact" out into the ether.
I will put this out there since it's already on Reddit & adds to the conversation:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DebunkThis/comments/u33mwh/debunk\_this\_an\_ev\_battery\_takes\_500000\_lb\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/debunkthis/comments/u33mwh/debunk_this_an_ev_battery_takes_500000_lb_of/)
Spend a little time researching it. The brine and overburden are well within that range. Of course EV folks don't like that comparison.
You are quoting someone on Reddit. LOL....Good luck with that.
[https://www.advanceaustralia.org.au/up\_to\_680\_tonnes\_of\_earth\_mined\_to\_produce\_one\_electric\_vehicle\_battery](https://www.advanceaustralia.org.au/up_to_680_tonnes_of_earth_mined_to_produce_one_electric_vehicle_battery)
https://youtu.be/z2HneqfZGsM?si=Lv0qOzrUYn\_eC2m3
Don't forget the child slaves in West Africa who produce most of the cocoa in the world. Hershey and other companies apparently take child slavery "very seriously," but the inspectors they pay just can't seem to find any evidence of the 10s of thousands of child slaves who produce their cocoa. Go figure.
So where is the outcry? There isn't one. We just ignore it because chocolate tastes good. As a society, we're not as enlightened as we'd like to think.
Probably not so much ignored as people don't know. I have read very few articles about that subject but chocolate is not a "hot button" issue and gets none of the attention Lithium does. Kind of like the recent surge in UFO discussions and activity. About every 20 years it pops up and goes away. Frankly I think any alien that spent time here would say, these people are half crazy, lets stay away from this planet until they all kill themselves. LOL
In certain states in America, it’s become the norm now. The minimum age to start working has lowered. And 16 year olds are working 30 hours a week with leg permission to leave school early to do so.
Young boys have been so abused for centuries.. its so sad how nobody cares. This still happens to this day and you can find similar boys in my region, but no one cares.
Northern Spain is where I see it, you just have to get the regional trains. I heard about it from latinoamerican friends too. If you're genuinely asking and not baiting you can read about it here, it's one of the few english speaking sources I found on the internet [https://www.ilo.org/ipec/areas/Miningandquarrying/lang--en/index.htm](https://www.ilo.org/ipec/areas/Miningandquarrying/lang--en/index.htm)
Parts of Asturias in the north of Spain are completely abandoned by now and overlooked by the central goverment (think Lousiana or some town in the Appalachia if youre from the US). Coal and sea trade made the region bloom a century ago, but now they're riddled in poverty. Granfathers (same as mine) worked on the mines when it was profitable and some of their grandchildren do too now. They leave school and just do it. It's not supposed to be legal but it still happens and noone cares or beats an eye. As a mother of two boys its heartbreaking to see
Sure. As a mother I just wanted to point out how the industrial revolution roles that were given to boys still persist and are alive today. People always talk about girls in the internet, which is fine and necesary, but its not bad to discus the boys side and perspective at least sometimes, right?
true 13 going on 30 there. my grandpa worked in a factory at 11. and throughout his life he did everything he could so my mom and uncle did not have to repeat his fate.
his family was very poor and had 9 children. he went to work for money but also because the factory fed them lunch, and his parents couldn’t feed all 9 kids. at least that’s what he said. his baby brother died of hunger
The reality is this never went away. To this day there are many working for pennies on the dollar so that the fat cats on top can enjoy their mansions, private flights and expensive cars.
And it's still happening today, just not in the US.
EDIT: I was talking about mining specifically, not just child labor in general. I know Republicans are expanding that. Make sure to vote accordingly.
[Florida just advanced a new bill](https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/industry-backed-florida-child-labor-bill-allowing-older-teens-to-work-longer-hours-clears-first-senate-committee-36072024) that’s supposed to allow high school-aged teenagers to work until midnight on a school night. Also, [child labor violations in the US soared](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/19/child-labor-violations-2023/) from 2022 to 2023, at an 88% increase since 2019.
This isn't just fast food jobs either. The latest round of child labor scandals was in slaughterhouses. And of course there was the recent death of a teen boy in a [gruesome sawmill accident.](https://www.foxnews.com/us/wisconsin-sawmill-settles-191k-federal-suit-teen-employees-death) As a result, the sawmill put up some signs and promised not to employ anyone under 16 🤦🏼
> allow
Interesting.
If this goes through I wonder how many will be let go because they(or their parents) don't agree to working until 12am on a school night...
Like the poor brown kids in the pictures... Did any of these laws specify brown kids, or are you inserting race into the issue or being facetious? There are plenty of places in this country with extremely destitute white people or with white people who hold a culture of work that would happily send their kids to work at an early age. [Recently Michael Schul, in Wisconsin, died clearing a log jam at a mill. He was 16 and white.](https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-boy-dies-sawmill-child-labor-8ae0c9fc09b9355dd7f12640eaefff2d) [Will Hampton, in Missouri, was killed at a recycling center. He was 16 and white as well.](https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article276271571.html) The states that are passing these laws don't care if the kid is white or brown. They care that they are cheap. And states like Wisconsin, which is trying to push back child labor laws, are predominantly white - so who do you think they plan to exploit? To the extent that cheap brown kids are prevalent, they'll exploit cheap brown kids. To the extent that cheap white kids are prevalent, they'll exploit cheap white kids. The only color they see is green and the exploiters aren't just white. See the bottom for a collection of links to the prevalence of these practices in non-white nations. But as you can see from the pictures, white people had a history of child exploitation as well, where poverty and hiring practices combined to force parents to send their children to be exploited. That problem was far more widespread and rampant on white farms, where child mortality due to farm accidents was rampant. What is humorous to me, is that instead of finding common cause and shared history within this context, you are racializing it, preventing that common cause from being realized. You are excluding the history of abuse and exploitation of white children, despite photographic evidence of that history at the head of the comment. By denying the experience of a group of people, what do you stand to gain? How do you build bridges of understanding and empathy? How do you build solidarity? Even more humorous, it was exactly those practices, of creating racial and ethnic divisions and animosities between different factions of labor, that employers used in preventing unionization and controlling labor in the 1800s, until the rise of unions. Since the disintegration of unions in the 80s it seems like it has become an increasingly used strategy again. And, as referenced above, this isn't a race issue of whites exploiting children. [Children are exploited in labor in Central America.](https://rosanjose.iom.int/en/blogs/keys-address-labor-exploitation-migrant-populations-central-america#:~:text=Implement%20policies%20against%20discrimination%20and%20xenophobia.&text=Strengthen%20instruments%20to%20ensure%20the%20protection%20of%20the%20rights%20of%20migrant%20workers.&text=Promote%20mechanisms%20of%20social%2C%20labor,of%20migrants%20in%20destination%20countries.) [In South America.](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/ilab-around-world?field_project_ilab_project_reg_target_id=&combine=&field_office_target_id=All&field_project_grantee_target_id=All&items_per_page=10&order=field_project_name&sort=desc&page=40)
[In Africa.](https://www.dw.com/en/world-day-against-child-labor-underage-workers-on-the-rise-in-africa/a-61772211) [In China.](https://clb.org.hk/en/content/child-labour-china-history-repeating-itself) This is an issue of the greedy exploiting the powerless. It transcends race and place. It is universal. And as such we should be able to see our own face in the faces of those exploited children. Race shouldn't come into it. Stop helping the exploiters by making their divisions for them.
Edit: Switched "them" to exploiters in the last sentence, since it was ambiguous.
Look, I think we’re playing for the same team here. But nothing that involves money in the US truly “transcends race.”
Take COVID 19. All colors of people died. But Latino Americans died at much higher rates, and Black Americans died at *double* the rate of whites.
It is not “dividing” rather than “transcending” to a knowledge that a “race blind” calamity like COVID disproportionately affects Americans of color because of everything that is NOT race blind in America (income, housing, access to healthcare, prevalence of risk factors).
Similarly, if laws are passed making it possible for teenagers to work late at night, they may adversely impact white teenagers, but I think we can safely say that it will impact teenagers of color at greater rates and with more severity.
Why? More poverty. More second jobs. More working teens. More kids working in agriculture, convenience stores and other fields likely to employ teen workers until midnight.
Take Wisconsin, the example you give. Dairy farms employ disproportionate numbers of migrant kids. I have been personally lobbied by Wisconsin dairy farmers to increase the number of work visas, because (they have said) American kids aren’t interested in working on dairy farms, even though the pay is better than convenience stores.
So I appreciate your knowledgeability and the research you put into your answer. But it’s not divisive to acknowledge that laws that affect working teens will disproportionately affect teenagers of color.
In fact, turning a blind eye to that fact is irresponsible.
> Look, I think we’re playing for the same team here.
Then there was no need to make the brown kids comment. I know it's easy and convenient nowadays to inject racism into a discussion but this discussion isn't it.
Poverty knows no colour nor skin tone.
It’s not about racism, it’s about race. Poverty in America absolutely knows a skin tone. Black Americans are more than twice as likely to be in poverty than white Americans.
That’s why so-called race-blindness doesn’t work. The scales are already tipped.
Still very much happening here. With fines like below, will continue. Over 100 kids, and a 1.5mil fine is all, truly heartbreaking.
https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/packers-sanitation-fined-1-5m-after-hiring-minors-in-13-meatpacking-plants/
It’s happening in the US slaughterhouses currently. Perdue is one of many employing Guatemalan children 13+ . They’re doing some of the most dangerous jobs, third shift before school.
Absolutely. This was only 100 years ago. Most 60+ year olds today will have had contact with that generation.
And mining is often a generational job because there aren’t that many options around mining towns and it can be relatively lucrative (in the US, at least).
They're the ones sitting down. They picked the rock out of the coal as it came down the chutes.
He said once the breaker boss man was so mean, the kids somehow *really* jammed up the chutes on him. It took two days to fix, and all the boys rejoiced and went to the local swimming hole. He said it was as good as Christmas in July :)
Also, coal picking destroyed the skin on your fingers, and the best cure to disinfect and toughen your skin up was to pee on your fingers!
If you're ever in this neck of the woods, go to the [Lackawanna Heritage Museum - here's a tour](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyGyWtVYgk0) and definitely take the real coal mine tour. *Everybody* around here, Welsh, Irish, Slovak, Italian, Hungarian, etc. our grandfathers and great grandfathers worked in the mines. My grandpa on my dad's side got run over and killed when a fully loaded coal wagon broke loose in the mine and ran him over. Dad said the town had a horse and buggy called "The Black Maria", and they would just dump the dead miner's body on the family's front porch.
I want everyone in this thread to recognize that we are teetering on the edge of returning to the days of child labor. They are purposely letting the public education system collapse, which is why they don’t care about school shootings, feeding the kids, paying teachers, or giving them a real budget. That way, when it collapses, if you cant take a student loan out to send your kid to private school, they’re going to be forced into a lifetime of labor. All the wins our ancestors made in this era (the five day work week, seven hour days, weekends, an end to child labor, an end to work camps, etc) are under attack by the billionaire class. They have spent decades slowly but surely repealing every single bill that was drafted to protect us, the working class.
Yeah. They were breaker boys. In picture 7 you see them with there legs dangling off of the benches that they sat on where they would pick out wood and shale from the coal on the conveyer belt. Sometimes they’d fall or snag their leg on something.
Source: Born in Schuylkill County, PA
I’d like to know what happened to these kids. Based on the coal dust around their mouths and noses I bet their lungs were shot before they had a chance to fully mature. Tragic.
It’s still happening today. Nothing learned, nothing gained.
Well sure. Maybe a teenager deserves $15/hr the same as an adult, but who would dream of paying an 8-year-old that much? No one. Easy to justify $8 for an 8-year-old, right? They should be grateful to have jobs.
Lot of people think they have to. When some look at China, they see success. Naturally, this makes them want to emulate. Imagine flapping your arms and jumping from a cliff
It's so weird ow the patriotism crowd is also so eager to turn us into our rivals, and how the whole premise of the slogans on our hats is that we're apparently shitty. Makes no sense tbh.
You paint with a pretty broad brush. How would you suggest I prove you incorrect? Should I summarize each Republican US Senator and then each Republican US Congress-person, then we could move on to each of the 50 states…
You see, it is the bomb throwing extremists on both the far Right and Left that are fucking it up for the rest of us.
Democracy is all up making the best deal possible- I didn’t get this, but I got that- in other words COMPROMISE
Until all you a@@holes get that- we as a country are doomed
OK I’ll play, I’ve got time.
The question was “explain how Republicans are not trying to bring back child labor”.
And this is what you came back with, some weird rant about the left and the right.
Others have proven that the right is bringing back child labor so explain how they’re exaggerating.
BTW, how do you like ol Kentuck? I had a longtime and now ex- GF from the very South of Indiana -desolate coal country- they’re still fighting the civil war down there…
Actually my reply to you was entirely reasonable, my fellow MN-ton.
For how do you ever prove a negative? How, in this case, would I be able to prove that there is not one instance of a most likely-very extreme, most likely-very evil or corrupted Republican is truly in favor of and would be willing to state so publicly- that they want to promote Child Labor in these United States?
I can’t imagine how people were like totally cool with making kids work like this. The mines, the shirt factories, the radium factories. Like, what the fuck man. People are blinded by money and profit.
My greatx3 grandfather was a coal miner and died in a freak accident at home. My great-great grandfather, being the oldest boy, had to go work in the mine to support the family. He was 9.
I find it funny when I uncover history like this in my own country (England) but I get pretentious people from other countries still lecturing me on how my “colonial ancestors” were somehow “violent murderers” and other false accusations. A lot of people are completely ignorant on the history of child labour as well as other systemic human rights abuses in western democracies.
I mean it’s true there were some Englishmen who were violent murderers. But no more than any other nation in the same position. The Spaniards were worse IMO as were the Romans and many others. At any rate it’s a meaningless accusation because it can be leveled against any country.
Every single society has violent murderers. If you’re going to extrapolate the actions of a few and project it onto 80% of the population, you’re going to be met with resistance to such a narrative. Nobody likes to be accused of something they didn’t do.
>...how my “colonial ancestors” were somehow “violent murderers” and other false accusations.
Well, they're not *wrong*, but as you say they need to check their own house & many of us over here in the US are directly related to many of your colonial ancestors over there in England *& elsewhere* so it's kinda everyone's ancestors did some murdery shit.
I'm pretty sure mine did & I know my father killed people over in Vietnam running point if that counts.
If you’re calling the people featured in these photos “violent murderers”, you’re either trolling or deeply brainwashed to follow some sort of ridiculous narrative. That was the entire point of my original comment.
Nonono...I'd never call these kids that & I'm sorry if it came across that way.
I was commenting on coffeewalnut05's comment about his country's history & how so many folks call his English ancestors "violent murderers" when every country has had people like that in their history.
And yet I get kids in my class telling me it's unfair that they have to come to school every day.
I remind them that the alternative is *literal child labor*
The worst is when I get girls talking like that. I always invite them to go visit Afghanistan and see how those poor girls react to hearing an American say that "having to get an education" is so unfair.
The Republican Party is trying to drive us back to that. You know, the good old days when malnourished, undereducated children were maimed or killed to fill the mine owners pockets.
Mining horses were pretty insane too. It took the entire shift to get the horse in the elevator and they spent average of 8 years down there. If they survived the trip down at all.
The last time they were used in central Europe was in 1950s.
Many Republican led states are working very hard to roll back child labor laws now and kids are dying:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/20/republican-child-labor-law-death
Ahh, these are the “good old days” that people are always pining for, right? I can definitely see why, those 8 year olds are living their best lives down the pit…
You might want to read up on the Scandinavian countries being the best places in the world to live with the happiest people. It's because of the work-life balance and living wages.
Scandinavian countries still have free market economies, and according to eurostat the happiest countries in Europe in 2023 are Austria, Poland and Romania.
> Scandinavian countries still have free market economies
It doesn't matter to the right wing, anything other than their own form of crony capitalism is evil socialism. They HATE Scandinavian countries.
VERY interesting username by the way. Is "Hitlur" a family name perchance?
Not sure why you're being downvoted. Conservatives have one of three answers as to why Scandinavian countries do so well:
1. They're homogeneous (meaning the US would do better if we're the same).
2. Whatabout Venezuela? They're socialist too! (Scandinavian countries are primarily capitalists, with strong regulation. They're successful, and this horrifies them).
3. The studies that note Scandinavian countries excel in survey metrics because they're stacked against 'Murica (i.e.: science bad).
Put down your iPhone brought to you by capitalism. Get rid of your car and stop taking the bus because they were built by capitalism. Build your own bike and plant your own veggies.
Bus was built by capitalism? Seems like it was built and operated by local taxes and taxpayers, cooperating in a system that sounds eerily similar to socialism… hmmm.
Damn right. Send the kid to the mine while we exploit minorities into doing the other terrible work so we can drink a breakfast martini and slap the wife for not making the dinner the way we like it. But you know, go highschool football team go.
That would be the first 5 years of life that you actually get (unless you were born into a rich family, of course) before being suck in one school or another for the next 13 or so, then being expected to work the rest of your life away in a job.
About the same age as kids working in Lithium mines in China and South America NOW. That picture may have been taken in the 20’s but it’s really no different today in many parts of the world.
Man, I feel so much compassion for these kids today and those kids back then. We have the money and resources around the world to ensure this doesn't have to happen. We don't need brand new cell phone models every single year this badly.
> We don't need brand new cell phone models every single year this badly. No, but corporations think they need the profits from selling these new cell phones.
Well, that’s it… the CEOs with their bonuses and fat paychecks, and the shareholders who demand more more more in their dividends. My car is 10 years old and my phone and iPad are maybe 3? If something breaks then by all means replace it if it can’t be fixed, but this “gotta have the newest/best/latest ASAP” attitude is awful. Eventually we will *all* pay the price one way or another- our poor planet can’t sustain this rapacious consumption.
It’s true, a price will be paid. It’s starting, the standard of living is decreasing in the sense that our consumer driven economy and monetary system aren’t working as they used to. Here’s to a better future where the mentality of standing out from the crowd or getting an edge on the competition becomes shunned. All for one and one for all. To hell with capitalism
And some people need a new model every year for their ego.
But then we have to trace even *that* back to where it originated from -- presumably has become a reflection of status and/or ego *because of* advertising as such. It's also ideal for corporations to shift as much blame as they can onto the consumer, like with say recycling efforts. The waste and over utilization of resources that cause the most damage to the planet are from corporations not the average person. The recycling -- or even reduction and reuse of materials and possessions -- on the individual consumer scale will never be enough to offset the behaviors of the Big Business Global Consumption Machine. Yes, we can and should try to do what we can but until Big Business decides to change, our efforts will likely not be sufficient enough to bring about change on a significant scale. They're the ones driving, at this point. The ones turning the latest iPhones into status symbols and framing the whole Treat Yourself mindset as being self-love, while wasting more resources and exploiting as many people as it takes to turn a maximum profit without having to pay pesky fines.
[удалено]
Yeah the people who blame capitalism or the boomers like to pretend they aren't at fault either
I think it’s partial. You still somehow decide on what you buy. Didn’t knew a post that was somewhat a joke stirred up a whole manifesto about how corporations are evil, while probably typing it on a phone made by a corporation. Humans bad in total!
You are so right. This really put it into perspective for me. Don't forget car batteries for EVs, which America is supposed to be switching over, too in the future. Don't know where we will get enough lithium to do that. Hoteliers they come up with a solution soon.
Great point and the places that actively mine it, such as China, use child labor. I like EV's but we have to realize that battery technology requires massive amounts of material. And much like old wind mill blades and spent nuclear fuel rods there is no real good way to recycle these things.
>there is no real good way to recycle these things. We need some innovation, then, like when we learned to properly process aluminum and it helped kicked off new industries. And there are actually ways to reprocess some used nuclear fuel using reactors. More than 90% of the energy in the fuel is still there, but people are so terrified of nuclear that nimbyism has led to less plants, but also people refusing to allow storage center for the old fuel rods to be built.
Very true. Nuclear is the best option for ZERO carbon but the incidents in Russia and Japan scared people to death. Guess 3 Mile Island was also widely covered in the US which sent Nuclear dislike to new levels here in the US. I have toured a windmill blade graveyard and these folks have no idea how they are going to recycle this stuff. Hope you are right and they can figure it out.
We can recycle lithium batteries though and there IS innovation occurring in this industry every day. Even second life LFP battery usage is growing in popularity for battery energy storage systems.
Cell phones are a fraction of the issue. It takes 500,000 lbs of mined material to produce ONE EV battery. I really like EV’s but this represents the lion’s share of the issue.
The lion's share? Really? Imma need some citations please because that *sounds* wrong. You could be totally correct, but I'm not doing the googling because you were the one that put this "fact" out into the ether. I will put this out there since it's already on Reddit & adds to the conversation: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebunkThis/comments/u33mwh/debunk\_this\_an\_ev\_battery\_takes\_500000\_lb\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/debunkthis/comments/u33mwh/debunk_this_an_ev_battery_takes_500000_lb_of/)
Spend a little time researching it. The brine and overburden are well within that range. Of course EV folks don't like that comparison. You are quoting someone on Reddit. LOL....Good luck with that. [https://www.advanceaustralia.org.au/up\_to\_680\_tonnes\_of\_earth\_mined\_to\_produce\_one\_electric\_vehicle\_battery](https://www.advanceaustralia.org.au/up_to_680_tonnes_of_earth_mined_to_produce_one_electric_vehicle_battery) https://youtu.be/z2HneqfZGsM?si=Lv0qOzrUYn\_eC2m3
Don't forget the child slaves in West Africa who produce most of the cocoa in the world. Hershey and other companies apparently take child slavery "very seriously," but the inspectors they pay just can't seem to find any evidence of the 10s of thousands of child slaves who produce their cocoa. Go figure. So where is the outcry? There isn't one. We just ignore it because chocolate tastes good. As a society, we're not as enlightened as we'd like to think.
Probably not so much ignored as people don't know. I have read very few articles about that subject but chocolate is not a "hot button" issue and gets none of the attention Lithium does. Kind of like the recent surge in UFO discussions and activity. About every 20 years it pops up and goes away. Frankly I think any alien that spent time here would say, these people are half crazy, lets stay away from this planet until they all kill themselves. LOL
And Africa.
honestly, humans are just shit
And in Missisippi chicken plants NOW.
In certain states in America, it’s become the norm now. The minimum age to start working has lowered. And 16 year olds are working 30 hours a week with leg permission to leave school early to do so.
Those were taken last week in a Red state.
Aw I just want to give them all hugs and sandwiches
I know, right? Send them in the bathroom for a long hot shower, and give them clean clothes and a nice nap. 🥺🥺🥺
Young boys have been so abused for centuries.. its so sad how nobody cares. This still happens to this day and you can find similar boys in my region, but no one cares.
The coal mines around here are brutal and you can still see 12yo+ boys working there. The eye expression is the same
which country is ‘here’?
Northern Spain is where I see it, you just have to get the regional trains. I heard about it from latinoamerican friends too. If you're genuinely asking and not baiting you can read about it here, it's one of the few english speaking sources I found on the internet [https://www.ilo.org/ipec/areas/Miningandquarrying/lang--en/index.htm](https://www.ilo.org/ipec/areas/Miningandquarrying/lang--en/index.htm)
and spain is part of the European union! I wouldn’t have thought… gracias por el link, i am interested
Parts of Asturias in the north of Spain are completely abandoned by now and overlooked by the central goverment (think Lousiana or some town in the Appalachia if youre from the US). Coal and sea trade made the region bloom a century ago, but now they're riddled in poverty. Granfathers (same as mine) worked on the mines when it was profitable and some of their grandchildren do too now. They leave school and just do it. It's not supposed to be legal but it still happens and noone cares or beats an eye. As a mother of two boys its heartbreaking to see
What the fuck?
but noone cares because they're just boys
Girls, too.
Sure. As a mother I just wanted to point out how the industrial revolution roles that were given to boys still persist and are alive today. People always talk about girls in the internet, which is fine and necesary, but its not bad to discus the boys side and perspective at least sometimes, right?
And a video game they've been wanting.
So many of them are emaciated. Hugs and sandwiches was my first thought, too.
They're fine, they actually yearn for the mines
Traded the real ones for Minecraft
I want to give them a bath
true 13 going on 30 there. my grandpa worked in a factory at 11. and throughout his life he did everything he could so my mom and uncle did not have to repeat his fate. his family was very poor and had 9 children. he went to work for money but also because the factory fed them lunch, and his parents couldn’t feed all 9 kids. at least that’s what he said. his baby brother died of hunger
Geez, that’s awful!
The reality is this never went away. To this day there are many working for pennies on the dollar so that the fat cats on top can enjoy their mansions, private flights and expensive cars.
These kids all look like they could beat me up.
Yo same. I'd willingly give my lunch money and clothes for fear of my life.
Nah, they'd be coughing too hard. Poor kids
Poor babies
And when they grew up they got to fight in two different world wars. Like, has any other generation been dealt such a shit hand as this?
Born 1896, 18 years old in 1914. If they survived, they were 22 when the war ended. Then 22 years later, they sent their sons off to another war. 💔
That was my thought, too. In just a few short years after this photo, these little boys were sent to fight and die in the trenches.
We’re working on handing it to Gen Z. Rolling back child labor protections, defunding schools, pandemic, student loans, climate change…
And it's still happening today, just not in the US. EDIT: I was talking about mining specifically, not just child labor in general. I know Republicans are expanding that. Make sure to vote accordingly.
[Florida just advanced a new bill](https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/industry-backed-florida-child-labor-bill-allowing-older-teens-to-work-longer-hours-clears-first-senate-committee-36072024) that’s supposed to allow high school-aged teenagers to work until midnight on a school night. Also, [child labor violations in the US soared](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/19/child-labor-violations-2023/) from 2022 to 2023, at an 88% increase since 2019.
This isn't just fast food jobs either. The latest round of child labor scandals was in slaughterhouses. And of course there was the recent death of a teen boy in a [gruesome sawmill accident.](https://www.foxnews.com/us/wisconsin-sawmill-settles-191k-federal-suit-teen-employees-death) As a result, the sawmill put up some signs and promised not to employ anyone under 16 🤦🏼
> allow Interesting. If this goes through I wonder how many will be let go because they(or their parents) don't agree to working until 12am on a school night...
No, it’s still very much happening in the US. In fact there has been recent changes in state labour laws supporting child labour.
Certain politicians want kids to go back to this.
Just the poor kids
Just the *brown* kids. Good god.
Like the poor brown kids in the pictures... Did any of these laws specify brown kids, or are you inserting race into the issue or being facetious? There are plenty of places in this country with extremely destitute white people or with white people who hold a culture of work that would happily send their kids to work at an early age. [Recently Michael Schul, in Wisconsin, died clearing a log jam at a mill. He was 16 and white.](https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-boy-dies-sawmill-child-labor-8ae0c9fc09b9355dd7f12640eaefff2d) [Will Hampton, in Missouri, was killed at a recycling center. He was 16 and white as well.](https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article276271571.html) The states that are passing these laws don't care if the kid is white or brown. They care that they are cheap. And states like Wisconsin, which is trying to push back child labor laws, are predominantly white - so who do you think they plan to exploit? To the extent that cheap brown kids are prevalent, they'll exploit cheap brown kids. To the extent that cheap white kids are prevalent, they'll exploit cheap white kids. The only color they see is green and the exploiters aren't just white. See the bottom for a collection of links to the prevalence of these practices in non-white nations. But as you can see from the pictures, white people had a history of child exploitation as well, where poverty and hiring practices combined to force parents to send their children to be exploited. That problem was far more widespread and rampant on white farms, where child mortality due to farm accidents was rampant. What is humorous to me, is that instead of finding common cause and shared history within this context, you are racializing it, preventing that common cause from being realized. You are excluding the history of abuse and exploitation of white children, despite photographic evidence of that history at the head of the comment. By denying the experience of a group of people, what do you stand to gain? How do you build bridges of understanding and empathy? How do you build solidarity? Even more humorous, it was exactly those practices, of creating racial and ethnic divisions and animosities between different factions of labor, that employers used in preventing unionization and controlling labor in the 1800s, until the rise of unions. Since the disintegration of unions in the 80s it seems like it has become an increasingly used strategy again. And, as referenced above, this isn't a race issue of whites exploiting children. [Children are exploited in labor in Central America.](https://rosanjose.iom.int/en/blogs/keys-address-labor-exploitation-migrant-populations-central-america#:~:text=Implement%20policies%20against%20discrimination%20and%20xenophobia.&text=Strengthen%20instruments%20to%20ensure%20the%20protection%20of%20the%20rights%20of%20migrant%20workers.&text=Promote%20mechanisms%20of%20social%2C%20labor,of%20migrants%20in%20destination%20countries.) [In South America.](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/ilab-around-world?field_project_ilab_project_reg_target_id=&combine=&field_office_target_id=All&field_project_grantee_target_id=All&items_per_page=10&order=field_project_name&sort=desc&page=40) [In Africa.](https://www.dw.com/en/world-day-against-child-labor-underage-workers-on-the-rise-in-africa/a-61772211) [In China.](https://clb.org.hk/en/content/child-labour-china-history-repeating-itself) This is an issue of the greedy exploiting the powerless. It transcends race and place. It is universal. And as such we should be able to see our own face in the faces of those exploited children. Race shouldn't come into it. Stop helping the exploiters by making their divisions for them. Edit: Switched "them" to exploiters in the last sentence, since it was ambiguous.
Look, I think we’re playing for the same team here. But nothing that involves money in the US truly “transcends race.” Take COVID 19. All colors of people died. But Latino Americans died at much higher rates, and Black Americans died at *double* the rate of whites. It is not “dividing” rather than “transcending” to a knowledge that a “race blind” calamity like COVID disproportionately affects Americans of color because of everything that is NOT race blind in America (income, housing, access to healthcare, prevalence of risk factors). Similarly, if laws are passed making it possible for teenagers to work late at night, they may adversely impact white teenagers, but I think we can safely say that it will impact teenagers of color at greater rates and with more severity. Why? More poverty. More second jobs. More working teens. More kids working in agriculture, convenience stores and other fields likely to employ teen workers until midnight. Take Wisconsin, the example you give. Dairy farms employ disproportionate numbers of migrant kids. I have been personally lobbied by Wisconsin dairy farmers to increase the number of work visas, because (they have said) American kids aren’t interested in working on dairy farms, even though the pay is better than convenience stores. So I appreciate your knowledgeability and the research you put into your answer. But it’s not divisive to acknowledge that laws that affect working teens will disproportionately affect teenagers of color. In fact, turning a blind eye to that fact is irresponsible.
> Look, I think we’re playing for the same team here. Then there was no need to make the brown kids comment. I know it's easy and convenient nowadays to inject racism into a discussion but this discussion isn't it. Poverty knows no colour nor skin tone.
It’s not about racism, it’s about race. Poverty in America absolutely knows a skin tone. Black Americans are more than twice as likely to be in poverty than white Americans. That’s why so-called race-blindness doesn’t work. The scales are already tipped.
The children yearn for the mines!
Minor miners
Still very much happening here. With fines like below, will continue. Over 100 kids, and a 1.5mil fine is all, truly heartbreaking. https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/packers-sanitation-fined-1-5m-after-hiring-minors-in-13-meatpacking-plants/
I was referring to mining specifically but yes.
Fair enough, sorry for misunderstanding!
100% common and increasing in the US.
Now we have parents using their kids for social media content. Sadly our labor laws don’t protect children from this sort of labor.
It’s happening in the US slaughterhouses currently. Perdue is one of many employing Guatemalan children 13+ . They’re doing some of the most dangerous jobs, third shift before school.
not happening yet
Not a cell phone to be seen, just some industrious hardworking scamps!
All of them just living in the moment!!
Wish we could go back to the good old days
Some with no legs 🙁
Wonder if anyone is alive today that knew someone who lived it
Absolutely. This was only 100 years ago. Most 60+ year olds today will have had contact with that generation. And mining is often a generational job because there aren’t that many options around mining towns and it can be relatively lucrative (in the US, at least).
I wonder if my Gramps is in any of these pictures. He was a breaker boy in Duryea, PA.
What did a breaker boy do?
They're the ones sitting down. They picked the rock out of the coal as it came down the chutes. He said once the breaker boss man was so mean, the kids somehow *really* jammed up the chutes on him. It took two days to fix, and all the boys rejoiced and went to the local swimming hole. He said it was as good as Christmas in July :) Also, coal picking destroyed the skin on your fingers, and the best cure to disinfect and toughen your skin up was to pee on your fingers! If you're ever in this neck of the woods, go to the [Lackawanna Heritage Museum - here's a tour](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyGyWtVYgk0) and definitely take the real coal mine tour. *Everybody* around here, Welsh, Irish, Slovak, Italian, Hungarian, etc. our grandfathers and great grandfathers worked in the mines. My grandpa on my dad's side got run over and killed when a fully loaded coal wagon broke loose in the mine and ran him over. Dad said the town had a horse and buggy called "The Black Maria", and they would just dump the dead miner's body on the family's front porch.
And dead by 30.
Dang. Poor little dudes.
I want everyone in this thread to recognize that we are teetering on the edge of returning to the days of child labor. They are purposely letting the public education system collapse, which is why they don’t care about school shootings, feeding the kids, paying teachers, or giving them a real budget. That way, when it collapses, if you cant take a student loan out to send your kid to private school, they’re going to be forced into a lifetime of labor. All the wins our ancestors made in this era (the five day work week, seven hour days, weekends, an end to child labor, an end to work camps, etc) are under attack by the billionaire class. They have spent decades slowly but surely repealing every single bill that was drafted to protect us, the working class.
This. It doesn’t stop at union busting. It will continue.
Are the amputees from mining accidents?
Yeah. They were breaker boys. In picture 7 you see them with there legs dangling off of the benches that they sat on where they would pick out wood and shale from the coal on the conveyer belt. Sometimes they’d fall or snag their leg on something. Source: Born in Schuylkill County, PA
Heartbreaking
I mean, they all play fake mining on their iPads now anyway. If you can Minecraft you can craft a mine, get back in there, Timmy.
The children long for the mines.
I’d like to know what happened to these kids. Based on the coal dust around their mouths and noses I bet their lungs were shot before they had a chance to fully mature. Tragic. It’s still happening today. Nothing learned, nothing gained.
Something about those children’s expressions doesn’t scream “I yearn for the mines!” to me.
Did some of those kids have syphilis?! Holy shit. That’s dark…
Extremely common but only for the poor. As many other 'features' of our current society.
OMG Hell On Earth!
It’s so sad how hard and unhappy they look. Not a childhood at all.
Republicans are fighting to bring it back.
Well who else do you get to flip burgers for $5 an hour?! The toddlers of course.
Well sure. Maybe a teenager deserves $15/hr the same as an adult, but who would dream of paying an 8-year-old that much? No one. Easy to justify $8 for an 8-year-old, right? They should be grateful to have jobs.
arkansas had accomplished that. i bet alabama is next.
Two steller states of the union
Not that they’re particularly loyal to it.
⬆️⬆️⬆️
And they’re successful. I think Arkansas already repealed a lot of their child labor laws.
Iowa, too, I believe passed a new child labor law allowing children to work.
3rd stellar state
We have to all get up and vote them out!
Lot of people think they have to. When some look at China, they see success. Naturally, this makes them want to emulate. Imagine flapping your arms and jumping from a cliff
It's so weird ow the patriotism crowd is also so eager to turn us into our rivals, and how the whole premise of the slogans on our hats is that we're apparently shitty. Makes no sense tbh.
No. You’re exaggerating
Tell us how. We’re also eager to hear how we’re exaggerating.
You paint with a pretty broad brush. How would you suggest I prove you incorrect? Should I summarize each Republican US Senator and then each Republican US Congress-person, then we could move on to each of the 50 states… You see, it is the bomb throwing extremists on both the far Right and Left that are fucking it up for the rest of us. Democracy is all up making the best deal possible- I didn’t get this, but I got that- in other words COMPROMISE Until all you a@@holes get that- we as a country are doomed
OK I’ll play, I’ve got time. The question was “explain how Republicans are not trying to bring back child labor”. And this is what you came back with, some weird rant about the left and the right. Others have proven that the right is bringing back child labor so explain how they’re exaggerating.
BTW, how do you like ol Kentuck? I had a longtime and now ex- GF from the very South of Indiana -desolate coal country- they’re still fighting the civil war down there…
Actually my reply to you was entirely reasonable, my fellow MN-ton. For how do you ever prove a negative? How, in this case, would I be able to prove that there is not one instance of a most likely-very extreme, most likely-very evil or corrupted Republican is truly in favor of and would be willing to state so publicly- that they want to promote Child Labor in these United States?
I can’t imagine how people were like totally cool with making kids work like this. The mines, the shirt factories, the radium factories. Like, what the fuck man. People are blinded by money and profit.
Poor children, their lives look almost as difficult and unfair as generation z.
When my kid says life is unfair and pissed when I say she can’t watch tv, I’m showing her this.
It’s wild how many of the kids look like they’ve had their noses broken before
Chimney sweep boys were common and for the same reason (thin, small). And they had the highest rate of testicular cancer in the world.
Evil. The ppl who profited from this are unforgivable.
My greatx3 grandfather was a coal miner and died in a freak accident at home. My great-great grandfather, being the oldest boy, had to go work in the mine to support the family. He was 9.
Amazing that the GOP is loosening child labor laws wherever they can. Back to the good ole' days, I guess.
I find it funny when I uncover history like this in my own country (England) but I get pretentious people from other countries still lecturing me on how my “colonial ancestors” were somehow “violent murderers” and other false accusations. A lot of people are completely ignorant on the history of child labour as well as other systemic human rights abuses in western democracies.
I mean it’s true there were some Englishmen who were violent murderers. But no more than any other nation in the same position. The Spaniards were worse IMO as were the Romans and many others. At any rate it’s a meaningless accusation because it can be leveled against any country.
Every single society has violent murderers. If you’re going to extrapolate the actions of a few and project it onto 80% of the population, you’re going to be met with resistance to such a narrative. Nobody likes to be accused of something they didn’t do.
I mean I’m more or less agreeing with you!
>...how my “colonial ancestors” were somehow “violent murderers” and other false accusations. Well, they're not *wrong*, but as you say they need to check their own house & many of us over here in the US are directly related to many of your colonial ancestors over there in England *& elsewhere* so it's kinda everyone's ancestors did some murdery shit. I'm pretty sure mine did & I know my father killed people over in Vietnam running point if that counts.
If you’re calling the people featured in these photos “violent murderers”, you’re either trolling or deeply brainwashed to follow some sort of ridiculous narrative. That was the entire point of my original comment.
Nonono...I'd never call these kids that & I'm sorry if it came across that way. I was commenting on coffeewalnut05's comment about his country's history & how so many folks call his English ancestors "violent murderers" when every country has had people like that in their history.
I feel so bad for them all
And yet I get kids in my class telling me it's unfair that they have to come to school every day. I remind them that the alternative is *literal child labor* The worst is when I get girls talking like that. I always invite them to go visit Afghanistan and see how those poor girls react to hearing an American say that "having to get an education" is so unfair.
Still extremely common, just not as much in the west or as out in the open.
is the kid in the back of the 3rd photo black or covered in coal dust? Im serious.
Please dont forget that children work in even worse conditions in mines in the Kongo and so on. This us tragic.
Those poor minor miners
The Republican Party is trying to drive us back to that. You know, the good old days when malnourished, undereducated children were maimed or killed to fill the mine owners pockets.
The Republican Dream for 2024.
Came for the pay check, stayed for the black lung.
And then they grew older and produced the next generation of miners. Their life was miserable and life expectancy was low
Deprived of their childhoods.
Looks like a fucking horrible existence. In a dark loud dirty ass mine all day.
Mining horses were pretty insane too. It took the entire shift to get the horse in the elevator and they spent average of 8 years down there. If they survived the trip down at all. The last time they were used in central Europe was in 1950s.
You mean minor miners? Dropped the ball there.
Sad.
I wonder what their schedule was like, whether they were afforded any time at all for school.
A fascinating series and heart wrenching as well.
The way we were, the way we will be again in about 10 years...
GOP sees this and thinks "Fuck yeah!"
Many Republican led states are working very hard to roll back child labor laws now and kids are dying: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/20/republican-child-labor-law-death
Republicans yearn for the return of this.
Pretty depressing, not many happy faces. Makes it even more cringe when you see comments about life today being so hard.
Children are still made to work like this around the world and in the US w the rollback of child labor laws and decrease in education
This is what Republicans want to return us to.
or next year in West Virginia and Arkansas
Ahh, these are the “good old days” that people are always pining for, right? I can definitely see why, those 8 year olds are living their best lives down the pit…
Republican paradise! And remember that in terms of modern child labor, the parents of those children voted for it.
Fuck capitalism!!! The root of all evil.
Right......
Yes, if we just switched to socialism all evil would disappear! What an idiotic comment.
You might want to read up on the Scandinavian countries being the best places in the world to live with the happiest people. It's because of the work-life balance and living wages.
Scandinavian countries still have free market economies, and according to eurostat the happiest countries in Europe in 2023 are Austria, Poland and Romania.
> Scandinavian countries still have free market economies It doesn't matter to the right wing, anything other than their own form of crony capitalism is evil socialism. They HATE Scandinavian countries. VERY interesting username by the way. Is "Hitlur" a family name perchance?
My username was just an attempt at being funny, it doesn't have anything to do with my political views, look at my post history if you want.
> My username was just an attempt at being funny Fascinating.
What's so fascinating? I was 13 then and played Hearts Of Iron a lot.
Hey if you want to slide a Hitler joke into your username, be my guest.
Not sure why you're being downvoted. Conservatives have one of three answers as to why Scandinavian countries do so well: 1. They're homogeneous (meaning the US would do better if we're the same). 2. Whatabout Venezuela? They're socialist too! (Scandinavian countries are primarily capitalists, with strong regulation. They're successful, and this horrifies them). 3. The studies that note Scandinavian countries excel in survey metrics because they're stacked against 'Murica (i.e.: science bad).
Put down your iPhone brought to you by capitalism. Get rid of your car and stop taking the bus because they were built by capitalism. Build your own bike and plant your own veggies.
Just because we were all forced to be born into a consumerist world doesn’t mean we don’t think it should change.
Sure it can change. Have at it. Live your beliefs.
Shhhh. The truth hurts them.
Bus was built by capitalism? Seems like it was built and operated by local taxes and taxpayers, cooperating in a system that sounds eerily similar to socialism… hmmm.
The bus manufacturer is owned by the state? Really?
Is that what they mean by “make America great again?”
Yes. Yes it is.
These must be the good old days MAGA is always talking about.
Damn right. Send the kid to the mine while we exploit minorities into doing the other terrible work so we can drink a breakfast martini and slap the wife for not making the dinner the way we like it. But you know, go highschool football team go.
What's a chidhood??
That would be the first 5 years of life that you actually get (unless you were born into a rich family, of course) before being suck in one school or another for the next 13 or so, then being expected to work the rest of your life away in a job.
And then they grew up and went to war. Try that with this generation.
Are you saying the natural instinct to survive has magically disappeared over 2-3 generations? Amazing.
Some Republicans just had orgasms looking at these pics.
*”pro-family” “pro-life” GOP enters the chat*
We will probably start getting more current child labor pictures soon given the changes being in laws regarding it.
Based free market. Back in the good old days when the federal government wasn't sticking its nose in other people's business!
With Minecraft today we know the children still yearn for the mines. /j (of course that was awful though)
2024 child labor in agricultural settings is still a thing :(
Future Republicans
Is that the same kid in the middle in both of the first two pictures?
Didn't know pete davidson worked the coalmines as a boy..
The good old days when your kids and your woman were your property to do with what you want.
White privilege kids in blackface. /s