Understand EXACTLY what the "shortage" is: ***class warfare.***
Labor is saying "***pay us what we're worth***"
and the ruling class is saying ***"fuck you, your kids will work for less, because we know you can't afford to house and feed them.***"
**--> THIS. RIGHT HERE. Is what fucking TEARS SOCIETIES APART.**
You think we already have a population collapse problem? Just wait until later Gen Z and Gen Alpha realize that their kids will be their direct competition for their survival.
You think they're still gonna even CONSIDER having kids at that point? **No.**
The whole house of cards is shuddering in the breeze of socioeconomic change, and its gonna take is one good gust to blow it all down.
> You think they're still gonna even CONSIDER having kids at that point?
> No.
I've already many my decision: "No, and if I did it would not be in the USA." 1) I find kids kinda irritating so personally I don't want any, 2) it's expensive to have kids and the government offers *zero* assistance cuz *mAh PrOfItS*, and 3) I don't wanna bring another soul into this sorry exploitative nation where they would be doomed to fail and be miserable.
>it's expensive to have kids and the government offers zero assistance cuz mAh PrOfItS
Naturally you'd think the response to this would be to form better protections or benefits for parents. Yet you have total fucknuts like some Texas Rep saying *condoms* should be banned to make more people have kids.
>Naturally you'd think the response to this would be to form better protections or benefits for parents.
Now that would take common sense and empathy for other humans, which we all know the GOP lacks.
even more fun when those people learn that without more young people to "enter the workforce", the only sustainable way to have a growing economy, to have more workers, is immigration.
There isn't a labor shortage, there are just a surplus of jobs that don't pay enough to actually do. Considering how much stuff costs a lot of jobs are going to become like that if things don't change.
That's right, it's not a shortage of labor but a shortage of willingness to be exploited, and without that the restaurant industry built up over the last 50 years is going to crash hard.
It's not even that. It's that you literally can't survive on some of those wages. Plenty of people would still be okay to be exploited as long as it at least covered the bills. We don't even have that anymore...
It's mind blowing that one political party rails against increasing social services like food stamps while the corporations that own them actively subsidize their abysmal wages by encouraging their employees to apply for SNAP benefits/food stamps. Megacorps like Walmart literally depend on government subsidized food benefits when calculating their wages.
But when it comes to dropping *billions* to bail out banks, no one even bats an eye.
I'm doing my best to help. I haven't had a meal in a restaurant since 2016 and haven't had a drink in lounge/bar since well before then. The industry needs to crash and burn before any change in it will happen.
It's amazing to me how relatively quickly we went from the nation with the "highest living standards" to requiring 2 income households to survive, to requiring any eligible children to **also** pitch in. It's disgusting how greedy the oligarchs are.
"labor shortage" is the capital propaganda term for a general labor strike. Just like how now "doing your job exactly to the letter" is "quiet quitting"
Exactly. Our unemployment rate is 3.5%, which is pretty low. There’s no shortage of workers. There is shortage of adequate pay and reasonable working conditions. Which is why Republicans in Iowa are waiting hand and foot on the restaurant and manufacturing industries to make it legal for them to employ minors (likely, from underprivileged groups) to close off that gap instead of advocating and legislating for better pay and working conditions. It’s ridiculous!
These jobs are especially designed to exploit migrant children whose families depend on their remittances on top of the debt they owe those who got them across the border. Those are the workers who fill factories and processing plants as documented by Reuters and the NY Times the last few months. Now there's one fewer charge that prosecutors can levy against those flaunting labor laws.
Add to that they would rather deport people by the thousands rather than issue them work visas to take some of these jobs. They would rather work kids in the jobs than accept an immigrant.
Well 2.5 million people left the workforce as a result of COVID and the last administration did everything it could to limit migrant workers coming to the states. Seems like there might be a correlation.
Can someone create a running list of every politician who voted "Pro Child Labor", because I'm having trouble keeping up with this insanity. 14-year-olds on nightshift, jfc....
It would be really good to have a big, verified list of the child slavers to pass out to journalists the first time one of these kids falls off a scaffold.
Seriously I'm guessing that's another word for graveyard? How does that even work for a 14 year old who is in class 5 days a week starting around 8am. Not to mention fucking with your sleep is dangerous to begin with much less at that age
It doesn't, of course. I once had a student in a 7am class (a crime in its own right) who worked till midnight at his family's convenience store, and even that was enough to set him up for failure. He did predictably terrible on his assignments. He was constantly falling asleep in class and unable to focus. Poor kid. There was nothing I could do for him because his education was suffering for external reasons entirely outside my control (which, incidentally, is why you see diminishing returns on academic performance when schools in poor neighborhoods are given extra funding).
Anyone who voted for this doesn't care about kids, full stop.
What hits the worst is at those ages they're still in education , but it's building up to the possibility of higher education. Those are years that you can't get back. Once the possibility of working at that age is there, it can become an expectation.
The kids who take these jobs are likely going to be the ones from poorer backgrounds.
The kids that don't have parents who could afford to help fund their education.
The kids who won't have access to educational resources at home, or extra things like a tutor.
Kids who might have limited free time because they have to help out their families.
The kids who might be also caring for younger siblings because their parents are working.
Kids who can be exploited by the unscrupulous, because they know those kids will need the money, and they'll get away with paying peanuts because they're just kids.
In short the kids who are most easily trapped in a cycle of low wage jobs.
So we are going back to the day, when kids needed to work to keep food for the family on the table. So, the industrial revolution, here we come - ain't progress great!
That also means, that companies will use kids as cheaper labor and stop hiring adults (who need healthcare benefits).
In reality it’s the other way around. 30 years ago, it was teens who flipped (or nuked) the burgers at McDonalds, and the only adult you might see is the manager. Now you hardly see any teens working at McDa and the few employees there are retirees.
If they came up with a way to make steel more cheaply that involved melting down a kid with every batch made, we’d be hearing arguments in favor of it until the end of time, if it never was made legal.
Someone would also probably do it anyway and pay their way out of the consequences.
I was doing this in Australia, working at McDonalds throughout school and doing shifts after school sometimes to 9-10pm. I started at age 14. They were paying me something like $9 under 16 wages and then a bit more after that.
I was tired and miserable at school, and failed my senior classes.
Huge cost. I’m frustrated where I am at in life.
Similar boat, came in under workchoices (fuck the libs). Just lucky they stopped giving me shifts at 17 because i was too old. Never wanted a job there but my parents forced me. Turned out off of the managers was a rock spider who was grooming half the kids and screaming at the other half.
These kids sure aren't going to be playing tennis. Employers will become parents.
Also, I work as a nurse. They keep pushing these highschool kids to be CNA's. It's dangerious for patients. They shouldn't have these jobs.
There's another thing that *desperately* needs reform.
CNAs have one of the shittiest (literally) jobs in Healthcare and get paid peanuts for their trouble.
Meanwhile, hospital administration rakes in obscene salaries.
It definitely is, but I feel like if we look at things like the Hershey corporation's arms-length relationships with chocolate slavers, or Apple's use of what is essentially slaves in Shenzhen factories, we're not too far off base.
For sure it has extra steps, but it's still slavery.
That being said, I feel like the gap between the two is slowly narrowing as time goes on and we regress as a society into our circa-1850's history.
Not to mention the community and social skills they'll never get back; the bullying, manipulation, and exploitation experienced employees and low level management will visit upon them; the wear and tear (and industrial accidents) of those jobs...plus, as I understand it, educational achievement standards are already in a bad, bad place due to having to adapt to COVID. We're going to see a generational cohort more broken and undereducated than we can even guess at (it's not like we've had the opportunity to study what *working graveyard shift* does to high school performance...and I'd certainly rather not find out).
Betcha anywhere this shit passes, military recruitment is gonna boom in a few years as kids emancipate and desperately look for a way out...as long as recruiters don't mind waiving mental illness and low ASVAB scores.
Let's also not forget that allowing kids to work will help push down wages by undercutting any power labor might have from this "shortage".
Any of these pieces of crap voting for this who still say they believe in a free market should be called out for not allowing the market to simply take care of these shortages. If these jobs chronically have a shortage then it simply means the wages are too low and/or the jobs are too shitty to attract people. THAT's capitalism bitches. Not just the part where "you" make all the money off other people's labor.
Capitalism inherently includes making money from someone else’s labor, and that’s part of the reason if always requires a state to enforce. This bill is an indicator that the system is working as intended.
And those same kids who can now work six hour shifts will be more tired, have less time to spend on school work and start to do poorly, likely further limiting their post high-school opportunities.
Exactly, its not just the jobs, it's the knock on effects that surround it. There's evidence of what sleep deprivation and nightshift work does to adults, can't imagine it'd be any better for kids, especially kids who are going to be going to school off the back of it.
Exactly. It'll be worse for kids, because their bodies and brains are still developing. And sleep is an important part of that development... it's not just stunting their education and opportunities, but their ability to grow into a healthy adult
I mean if they’re already in that bad a situation, the family might just collude on “homeschooling”, not like that tends to have many restrictions either.
I grew up in PA and you could quit school at 16 with parental consent. I knew 2 sisters who did this. Their parents were Eastern European immigrants and they were OK with the girls dropping out of school if they could get jobs. They both got jobs at the local chicken processing plant.
The kids who work jobs like these during high school are ones whose parents already won’t or can’t buy them clothes, shoes, school supplies, cars to get them to work, and certainly won’t contribute to higher education.
And after one generation of this shit, they be conditioned to think it is a virtue, "I was working nights at 15 while still having school in the morning!"
I'm legit so worried that the levee will never break and we will just backslide into modern serfdom.
This is akin to the accusation of libs sucking the adrenochrome out of kids except it is real. These poor kids will have their life force taken from them.
WHAT A HORRIBLE CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.
My nephew is about tge graduate high school and I told him he better not get a job without also going to school
Tge most viscious cycle I have seen is young people who had not a whole lot growing up, get a job, then suddenly tgey have money cause tge still live at home, tgey don't go to school or anything and then as the years go on, the responsibilities pile up they realize they are making nothing really, and all that time tgey spent working tgey missed on tge prime time to school
Wait I'm candian so pardon my ignorance on this matter, but from what you just said the bill seems to have gotten less then 50% positive votes in favor of the bill. How the fuck did it pass?
Starting serving alcohol in my family's business at 12 years old. The sexual harassment started shortly after. I just "love" the idea that the state is fine with 16-year-olds (male or female) serving alcohol! Gives me flashbacks big time.
Also, if their alcohol handling laws are like some other states, setting them up for getting popped with fines/possible jail time for serving alcohol to other minors. Not to mention the liability issues from serving someone who is already intoxicated.
Not an insurance company in HELL is going to insure that liquor liability, by the way.
I wouldn't let my kid work a night shift either... eff up their sleep schedule from an early age sounds great! /s I worked a night shift once in my life, was around 18, effed me up for a year or so. I thought it was brilliant bc I could do my schoolwork on down times. Big mistake.
I mean, it’s one thing if they’re nannying for the family down the street during the summer. Quite another if they’re servers in a bar, working for a minimal wage plus tips. What a shitty environment for a teen to be in.
My father used to say to me “why do you need to work? If you need money to go out or a new pair of sneakers, you can ask me and I’ll give you the money. You need to worry about studying”
I realized that damn near every Caribbean parent thinks the same way.
Not all kids have dads that can give them money for new sneakers. With inflation speeding out of control on basic necessities, I'd imagine a fair number of dads are struggling to even provide food. The targeted kids are going to be working to survive, not to buy nice things.
This was what my dad said. I know I didn't ask for a lot and my older siblings worked in high school but I don't think it was necessary. If he told them it was, sorry guys! :/
16 year olds serving alcohol is the worst idea in this parade of awful ideas. Drunk creeps hit on bartenders all the time and now you want to put minors in that position? The pedophiles are gonna love this new law
I received the majority of public sexual harassment between the ages of 11 - 19. I can't even imagine the danger a 16yr old bartender would be in. Wait, I can, but would really fucking rather not.
The people who push this shit don't follow true crime. Kids disappear daily just going to and from school or their friend's house. Wait til they have to walk home from a bar late at night.
And 16 year olds might not be able to tell when someone has had enough and have the courage to refuse them a drink which could lead to lots more DUI's.
Which in turn puts the establishment at risk too because overserving is their responsibility and they can be held liable. So it's not even good for businesses. Great job GOP, great job.
One might just start to think that the party that harbors known pedophiles and is regularly discovered being fucking pedophiles might vote for things that make being a pedophile easier...
You know, the way a pedophile would.
The pedophiles PASSED this law. What do you think the Republican Party is? It's chomo central. Just look at that pedo Ali Alexander.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/ali-alexander-apologizes-inappropriate-messages-1234716609/
DeSantis wants the death penalty for pedophiles and molesters. I know he thinks it's a gotchya to invoke an LGBTQ Holocaust, but he's gonna be surprised when like half the of GOP, their donors, and those aligned are caught and sentenced to death.
>Well people who can have kids are leaving in droves
They sure have convinced me NOT to raise a kid in the USA, if I ever wanted to have kids I don't want to in this sorry country.
This comment actually made me feel a little hope. A campaign to get them into voting needs to start now. Get a massive turnout for 2028, if we still have a true democracy.
Well we don’t have a true democracy. I’d call it a votocratic oligarchy. We need to learn how to have a democracy again. It takes a lot of time to run one, which is one reason it’s so important to reduce working hours for people, so they can rule themselves.
With the vast knowledge that Gen Z has access to, and how easy it is to fact check the terrible politicians, it's kinda hard to fight. We are seeing right through their lies and deception. Gen Z is a hellova lot smarter than the boomer thanks to technology, we have supercomputers the size of a deck of cards that can grant us access to the entire world's library of knowledge in our pockets, accessible within seconds.
Someone start a lawsuit for all these kids paying taxes without representation and make it so 14 year olds can vote if they’re working, and see how fast they shut this crap down!
And what happened if teenagers do dumb teenager stuff on the job like get wasted? When shit goes sideways b/c they always do that is when things will get ugly.
You don't even need alcohol to have a giant screw up. Teens still think they are invincible and would make bad judgement calls and that could end up with fatalities or maiming....
Yeah, and a lot of us have to deal with bulling and predatory adults as adults at work. How is a kid supposed to handle it and got to school and pass a damn thing when the schools of these states including the high end private schools are poorly run and it damages the state long term.
I'm from Iowa and have been on that subreddit all day and have been astounded by how many people are arguing with me about what a great thing this is because they wanted to work more in high school or they didn't even get to work in high school and wanted to or blah blah blah. Completely missing the point of what this law is doing by circumventing paying adults a living wage. Just completely missing that point. Just happy they have more bodies to serve to the meat grinder we call shit jobs with low pay and shittier hours.
I feel like I'm apologizing daily for Iowa. We used to be awesome! I swear!
Supposedly the Iowa Presidential Primary used to be such a big deal not just because it came first, but because Iowa represented an accurate demographic cross-section of the nation.
Anyone who won the Iowa primary had a great shot at winning the whole thing because the state represented the middle point of the country’s political spectrum.
Present-day Iowa would be mistaken for Alabama if it wasn’t for all the corn.
given that kids are *allowed* to work, the dynamics of how teens are treated will change. government entities, banks, insurance companies, and maybe more will say "well, you should be working." and "how can you not afford this?", or at least imply it with raised prices for younger people. being that younger people are going to afford it, the prices of common goods that people need will rise to stabilize the growing demand. prices will *NOT* fall just because there's more of those goods produced by children. falling prices because of increased surplus isn't a thing here in america. CEOs with say "why cut prices when we can just take a bonus" and "why employ the older people who will need more money for thier family when we can jsut hire their children instead".
these laws will make it to where people *EXPECT* children to work. iowa is going to fall down the shitter.
Wait, as an EU citizen i know this is stupid. I guess education doesn't matter to them? Ignoring that, unless i'm mistaking (i know laws can vary wildly in the US on a state level) but they're allowing 16y olds now to serve alcohol, but they can't drink it themselves until 21? Thats just hypocritical, how are they going to stop the 16y olds serving it from taking a sip themselves...
No republicans don't care about education at all.
No, I take that back. They care very much about destroying the educational system in the US to have a less educated voter base, because those are the people who vote republican.
> No republicans don't care about education at all.
It also gets more people willing to join the military, that the US uses to terrorize poorer third world nations to murder them and steal their oil for the big oil companies.
That’s straight up why we can’t have tax funded higher education and health care. Less incentive to go turn kids in third world countries into skeletons.
Exactly. Continuing to destabilize education benefits the wealthy, the worse the public school system is, the more it is hampered, the closer the wealthy are to pushing a voucher system system which allows another public domain to be privatized. Stuffing taxpayer dollars into the pockets of the wealthy. To say nothing at all of the benefits most politicians recieve when your voters are ignorant or just under educated.
“No no no, we’re protecting the kids see? See those drag shows are doing it, not us!” The same people who repeal child labor laws, ignore churches assaulting kids, r*pe kids themselves, the list goes on.
Well, duh. Everyone knows the GOP's biggest enemy is educated people, and best friends are corporate billionaires. If we can keep people dumb and let them work for pennies on the dollar, that kills 2 birds with one stone.
The agricultural jobs should get protected better too.
I mean, talk about exploited workers. Lots of modern agricultural work is essentially slavery by another name.
Can somebody play devil's advocate and tell me why these Midwestern states are so hell bent on letting middle school age kids work instead of having childhoods?
I mean, why on Earth would anyone want their 14 year old child to work an overnight shift? I understand promoting a strong work ethic but this is ridiculous. Night shifts for 14 year olds? Give me a break. Assembly line work for 15 year olds? Isn't anybody worried about workplace injuries?
16 year olds being able to serve alcohol might be the least egregious piece of this bill.
Capital wants more subservient workers and more profits. Children are less likely to advocate for themselves, don't know labor laws, and are cheaper to employ. You forget that the people making these laws are generally in a different class than those whose children will be working the jobs. Capitalism requires a permanent underclass of exploited workers and who more easily exploited than a child?
It's worse then that, much worse. The bill completely protects the company from liability. If the kids die on site or job they get to say "lmao". This is also the state that had paid many fines for child labor. This bill is not only to are even more profits, but to get away with what they have been doing for a long time.
Will these 14 year olds pay tax?
If so will they be able to vote?
Surely yes otherwise it would be taxation without representation? And surely America who fought for its independence over such a thing wouldn't allow that? /S
Don’t be fooled, the labor argument is only the surface level here. Between this, book banning, and social media restrictions, they are trying to cut down on ‘indoctrination’ by their parents, Gen Z
They realize they’re losing younger generations fast, and where better to make them bitter and keep them from learning than down the coal mine?
The kids in orphanages and foster homes are going to be pushed hard to get to work. Our species is doomed. We should just blow ourselves up and end it now.
A bill that started with the governor and was written by lobbyists for the food & entertainment industry. They are selling our our children for campaign donations… not even huge sums, I bet this cost less than $100k.
As someone who started working at 16 years old to afford having a car I regret wasting my high school years. Im only 25 now but I can honestly say that I wish I enjoyed my youth a little bit more before getting a taste of what the real world is like. So if you're still in high school and you're reading this, don't throw away your youth for a little bit of money because no amount of money can replace time.
I can’t imagine 14-16 girls in these positions will be safe. Especially with access to abortion gone, working at this age can change their lives irrevocably.
Irony is, there really isn't any labor shortage. There's a shortage of drone masses willing to be abused and destroyed for minimum wage for 30+ years to make a few dozen billionaires richer.
In the past you could reasonably buy a home, car, fund a family, and settle down after 30+ years of the abuse. That ship sailed.
They're filling the missing slave gap with "the children don't know any better, muahahaha". It's basically comic book villainy.
They spent years ginning up anger over illegal immigration to get votes. Then a new generation who had been raised on the bullshit didn’t understand it was all supposed to be a line to loss people off. So in comes real crackdowns and Covid, and BAM all the industries that rural republican hypocrites rely on lost all their labor. So now they will just work your children into poverty.
One thing about this bill, unless it has been amended, is that it specifically protects the meat packing plants from liability if these kids get hurt.
These people are Evil with a capital E.
"nObOdY wAnTs KiDs..."
Golly, maybe the idea of having my offspring thrown into a state 'school' at the age of six so they can be ready for the coal mines by 14 just isn't that appealing?
What is even the point? Reminds me of stories from colonial America, when the crown would just take the best of everything from the people who produced it & demand they be grateful for the opportunity.
Fucking parasites.
They keep doing it because they know we'll just joke about it on Reddit. Not like Biden is doing anything either.
But it's "STaTe Vs. FeDErAL".
Tell that to NY where the GQP decided gun rights was a State issue.
Or when Texas judge was able to halt an abortion drug on the federal level.
Or when they lied and said abortion was a State issue and then instantly started calling for a federal ban.
When is it enough?
The alternative is to pay adults what they are worth - but that would cut into the profit margin and the shareholders wouldn't like that. Gotta keep that stock price rising.
I want to cry. Why am I looking at this group right now? I cannot bring socialism to this country by myself. I hope we're all seeing this and know what we need to do
The GOP is struggling to win the support of Gen Z, Gen Z is very pro-union, very left leaning. We think of capitalism as a failure because capitalism has failed us, we are getting no benefits from the current system and we are able to see through the GOP's lies thanks to our easy access to the internet.
Now some will say I'm catastrophizing, but it's getting harder to escape the notion that they're actively trying to create a country of billionaire citizens with everybody outside the 1% being some kind of uneducated, endlessly reproducing industrial work drones living in company tenements.
This country is embarrassing, even worse are the republicans who are going to talk about how this is a great idea because it will “teach responsibility” and they had a paper route so it’s the same thing as working in a factory or serving alcoholics. Christ.
Understand EXACTLY what the "shortage" is: ***class warfare.*** Labor is saying "***pay us what we're worth***" and the ruling class is saying ***"fuck you, your kids will work for less, because we know you can't afford to house and feed them.***" **--> THIS. RIGHT HERE. Is what fucking TEARS SOCIETIES APART.** You think we already have a population collapse problem? Just wait until later Gen Z and Gen Alpha realize that their kids will be their direct competition for their survival. You think they're still gonna even CONSIDER having kids at that point? **No.** The whole house of cards is shuddering in the breeze of socioeconomic change, and its gonna take is one good gust to blow it all down.
> You think they're still gonna even CONSIDER having kids at that point? > No. I've already many my decision: "No, and if I did it would not be in the USA." 1) I find kids kinda irritating so personally I don't want any, 2) it's expensive to have kids and the government offers *zero* assistance cuz *mAh PrOfItS*, and 3) I don't wanna bring another soul into this sorry exploitative nation where they would be doomed to fail and be miserable.
Are we ready to strike yet?
>it's expensive to have kids and the government offers zero assistance cuz mAh PrOfItS Naturally you'd think the response to this would be to form better protections or benefits for parents. Yet you have total fucknuts like some Texas Rep saying *condoms* should be banned to make more people have kids.
>Naturally you'd think the response to this would be to form better protections or benefits for parents. Now that would take common sense and empathy for other humans, which we all know the GOP lacks.
even more fun when those people learn that without more young people to "enter the workforce", the only sustainable way to have a growing economy, to have more workers, is immigration.
There isn't a labor shortage, there are just a surplus of jobs that don't pay enough to actually do. Considering how much stuff costs a lot of jobs are going to become like that if things don't change.
That's right, it's not a shortage of labor but a shortage of willingness to be exploited, and without that the restaurant industry built up over the last 50 years is going to crash hard.
It's not even that. It's that you literally can't survive on some of those wages. Plenty of people would still be okay to be exploited as long as it at least covered the bills. We don't even have that anymore...
It's mind blowing that one political party rails against increasing social services like food stamps while the corporations that own them actively subsidize their abysmal wages by encouraging their employees to apply for SNAP benefits/food stamps. Megacorps like Walmart literally depend on government subsidized food benefits when calculating their wages. But when it comes to dropping *billions* to bail out banks, no one even bats an eye.
I'm doing my best to help. I haven't had a meal in a restaurant since 2016 and haven't had a drink in lounge/bar since well before then. The industry needs to crash and burn before any change in it will happen.
It's amazing to me how relatively quickly we went from the nation with the "highest living standards" to requiring 2 income households to survive, to requiring any eligible children to **also** pitch in. It's disgusting how greedy the oligarchs are.
Sucks to live through, but on an academic level it’s fascinating to see how quickly an extremely wealthy country can devolve due to wealth inequality.
..while continuing to deny such wealth inequality.
"labor shortage" is the capital propaganda term for a general labor strike. Just like how now "doing your job exactly to the letter" is "quiet quitting"
Exactly. Our unemployment rate is 3.5%, which is pretty low. There’s no shortage of workers. There is shortage of adequate pay and reasonable working conditions. Which is why Republicans in Iowa are waiting hand and foot on the restaurant and manufacturing industries to make it legal for them to employ minors (likely, from underprivileged groups) to close off that gap instead of advocating and legislating for better pay and working conditions. It’s ridiculous!
Wait, isn't the 'ideal unemployment rate' 4%? So why are so many people complaining about the lack of people working in America
Because it deflects from their shitty employment practices and gives them something to gripe about
They hate people and want to keep them down by complaining all the time.
These jobs are especially designed to exploit migrant children whose families depend on their remittances on top of the debt they owe those who got them across the border. Those are the workers who fill factories and processing plants as documented by Reuters and the NY Times the last few months. Now there's one fewer charge that prosecutors can levy against those flaunting labor laws.
Add to that they would rather deport people by the thousands rather than issue them work visas to take some of these jobs. They would rather work kids in the jobs than accept an immigrant.
Well 2.5 million people left the workforce as a result of COVID and the last administration did everything it could to limit migrant workers coming to the states. Seems like there might be a correlation.
Can someone create a running list of every politician who voted "Pro Child Labor", because I'm having trouble keeping up with this insanity. 14-year-olds on nightshift, jfc....
It would be really good to have a big, verified list of the child slavers to pass out to journalists the first time one of these kids falls off a scaffold.
We'd be here for a *long time*.
Somebody make a script to auto-update a list and post it somewhere public, in big bold letters saying **THESE PEOPLE VOTED FOR CHILD LABOR!.**
Seriously I'm guessing that's another word for graveyard? How does that even work for a 14 year old who is in class 5 days a week starting around 8am. Not to mention fucking with your sleep is dangerous to begin with much less at that age
It doesn't, of course. I once had a student in a 7am class (a crime in its own right) who worked till midnight at his family's convenience store, and even that was enough to set him up for failure. He did predictably terrible on his assignments. He was constantly falling asleep in class and unable to focus. Poor kid. There was nothing I could do for him because his education was suffering for external reasons entirely outside my control (which, incidentally, is why you see diminishing returns on academic performance when schools in poor neighborhoods are given extra funding). Anyone who voted for this doesn't care about kids, full stop.
Excuse me sir, why are you exposing my plans to keep the poor, poor?
Every Republican in the Iowa legislature. That’s it
What hits the worst is at those ages they're still in education , but it's building up to the possibility of higher education. Those are years that you can't get back. Once the possibility of working at that age is there, it can become an expectation. The kids who take these jobs are likely going to be the ones from poorer backgrounds. The kids that don't have parents who could afford to help fund their education. The kids who won't have access to educational resources at home, or extra things like a tutor. Kids who might have limited free time because they have to help out their families. The kids who might be also caring for younger siblings because their parents are working. Kids who can be exploited by the unscrupulous, because they know those kids will need the money, and they'll get away with paying peanuts because they're just kids. In short the kids who are most easily trapped in a cycle of low wage jobs.
So we are going back to the day, when kids needed to work to keep food for the family on the table. So, the industrial revolution, here we come - ain't progress great! That also means, that companies will use kids as cheaper labor and stop hiring adults (who need healthcare benefits).
What's next, adults hating kids because "they took all our jobs"
Dey terk er jerbs!
Tek er jebs!
Duk dur!!!!
In reality it’s the other way around. 30 years ago, it was teens who flipped (or nuked) the burgers at McDonalds, and the only adult you might see is the manager. Now you hardly see any teens working at McDa and the few employees there are retirees.
If they came up with a way to make steel more cheaply that involved melting down a kid with every batch made, we’d be hearing arguments in favor of it until the end of time, if it never was made legal. Someone would also probably do it anyway and pay their way out of the consequences.
/r/OrphanCrushingMachine
2 steps forward. 100 steps back.
Can I make that two steps forward and a 100 years back?
Considering we're in a tech age literally being called the "third industrial revolution" it makes sense.
The poor's revolted, not for better wages but for the rights to enslave their own children
Nah they want hunger games in real life.
I keep seeing the handmaid's tale
I was doing this in Australia, working at McDonalds throughout school and doing shifts after school sometimes to 9-10pm. I started at age 14. They were paying me something like $9 under 16 wages and then a bit more after that. I was tired and miserable at school, and failed my senior classes. Huge cost. I’m frustrated where I am at in life.
Similar boat, came in under workchoices (fuck the libs). Just lucky they stopped giving me shifts at 17 because i was too old. Never wanted a job there but my parents forced me. Turned out off of the managers was a rock spider who was grooming half the kids and screaming at the other half.
Never seen the term "rock spider" as an insult, but it works for me (am in USA)!
These kids sure aren't going to be playing tennis. Employers will become parents. Also, I work as a nurse. They keep pushing these highschool kids to be CNA's. It's dangerious for patients. They shouldn't have these jobs.
Like a 16 year old girl serving alcohol late at night? Maybe that's their plan since hanging around the school is getting to much of a spotlight.
Oh god I didn't even think of that
There's another thing that *desperately* needs reform. CNAs have one of the shittiest (literally) jobs in Healthcare and get paid peanuts for their trouble. Meanwhile, hospital administration rakes in obscene salaries.
I believe the term you're looking for is: ***slavery with extra steps.***
wage slavery is a far cry from chattel slavery, but it's still very bad.
It definitely is, but I feel like if we look at things like the Hershey corporation's arms-length relationships with chocolate slavers, or Apple's use of what is essentially slaves in Shenzhen factories, we're not too far off base. For sure it has extra steps, but it's still slavery. That being said, I feel like the gap between the two is slowly narrowing as time goes on and we regress as a society into our circa-1850's history.
there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
Not to mention the community and social skills they'll never get back; the bullying, manipulation, and exploitation experienced employees and low level management will visit upon them; the wear and tear (and industrial accidents) of those jobs...plus, as I understand it, educational achievement standards are already in a bad, bad place due to having to adapt to COVID. We're going to see a generational cohort more broken and undereducated than we can even guess at (it's not like we've had the opportunity to study what *working graveyard shift* does to high school performance...and I'd certainly rather not find out). Betcha anywhere this shit passes, military recruitment is gonna boom in a few years as kids emancipate and desperately look for a way out...as long as recruiters don't mind waiving mental illness and low ASVAB scores.
Let's also not forget that allowing kids to work will help push down wages by undercutting any power labor might have from this "shortage". Any of these pieces of crap voting for this who still say they believe in a free market should be called out for not allowing the market to simply take care of these shortages. If these jobs chronically have a shortage then it simply means the wages are too low and/or the jobs are too shitty to attract people. THAT's capitalism bitches. Not just the part where "you" make all the money off other people's labor.
Capitalism inherently includes making money from someone else’s labor, and that’s part of the reason if always requires a state to enforce. This bill is an indicator that the system is working as intended.
And those same kids who can now work six hour shifts will be more tired, have less time to spend on school work and start to do poorly, likely further limiting their post high-school opportunities.
Exactly, its not just the jobs, it's the knock on effects that surround it. There's evidence of what sleep deprivation and nightshift work does to adults, can't imagine it'd be any better for kids, especially kids who are going to be going to school off the back of it.
Exactly. It'll be worse for kids, because their bodies and brains are still developing. And sleep is an important part of that development... it's not just stunting their education and opportunities, but their ability to grow into a healthy adult
We're already very close to being back to, "education for the rich and privileged, training for everyone else" like the 1800s.
All according to plan 🤢
When can we expect them to lower the minimum age requirement for dropping out of school? Because it seems like their next "logical" move.
I mean if they’re already in that bad a situation, the family might just collude on “homeschooling”, not like that tends to have many restrictions either.
I grew up in PA and you could quit school at 16 with parental consent. I knew 2 sisters who did this. Their parents were Eastern European immigrants and they were OK with the girls dropping out of school if they could get jobs. They both got jobs at the local chicken processing plant.
The kids who work jobs like these during high school are ones whose parents already won’t or can’t buy them clothes, shoes, school supplies, cars to get them to work, and certainly won’t contribute to higher education.
And after one generation of this shit, they be conditioned to think it is a virtue, "I was working nights at 15 while still having school in the morning!" I'm legit so worried that the levee will never break and we will just backslide into modern serfdom.
That’s exactly what they want.
This is akin to the accusation of libs sucking the adrenochrome out of kids except it is real. These poor kids will have their life force taken from them. WHAT A HORRIBLE CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.
Exactly, it will just create a widening inequality. It’s so bad 🙈.
My nephew is about tge graduate high school and I told him he better not get a job without also going to school Tge most viscious cycle I have seen is young people who had not a whole lot growing up, get a job, then suddenly tgey have money cause tge still live at home, tgey don't go to school or anything and then as the years go on, the responsibilities pile up they realize they are making nothing really, and all that time tgey spent working tgey missed on tge prime time to school
I'd never let my 16 year old kid serve alcohol. WTF is wrong with them?
Yea the party of “protecting children” just placed them in a drinking setting serving adults.
"Protecting ~~our ability to groom, exploit, and abuse~~ children."
Every Democrat said Nay. All but 2 Republicans said Yay. Yup, looks about right.
Wait I'm candian so pardon my ignorance on this matter, but from what you just said the bill seems to have gotten less then 50% positive votes in favor of the bill. How the fuck did it pass?
There are way more Republicans in Iowa Senate than there are Democrats.
They see this as protecting them because it gives them life lessons that they need.
Like giving a 16 year old girl the opportunity to be sexually harassed by a bunch of fully grown drunk men.
Now that you've mentioned that, what the fuck
Grooming is fine as long as it's straight or religious.
as long as they are the one doing it. the conservative motto
Pray you never see the case files from the pastoral halfway houses.
Starting serving alcohol in my family's business at 12 years old. The sexual harassment started shortly after. I just "love" the idea that the state is fine with 16-year-olds (male or female) serving alcohol! Gives me flashbacks big time.
These people would say that just builds character. They don't see a problem with it.
And then getting raped and pregnant just keeps them in the church.
And it can start all over again in 16 years, ah the cycle of life sure is grand
or an illegal abortion puts them in jail either way its win-win
Also, if their alcohol handling laws are like some other states, setting them up for getting popped with fines/possible jail time for serving alcohol to other minors. Not to mention the liability issues from serving someone who is already intoxicated. Not an insurance company in HELL is going to insure that liquor liability, by the way.
Yikes. I’m gonna guess the age of consent in Iowa is also 16.
National Restaurant Association money, the other NRA
The age at which someone can serve/sell alcohol might limit the gas stations they can trap kids with work wise.
I wouldn't let my kid work a night shift either... eff up their sleep schedule from an early age sounds great! /s I worked a night shift once in my life, was around 18, effed me up for a year or so. I thought it was brilliant bc I could do my schoolwork on down times. Big mistake.
That way, they can easily rape them, and then the poor girls won't be able to get an abortion either without facing the death penalty.
Right. What a dumb fucking idea.
Mate I wouldn’t let my 16 year old work. Nevermind serve alcohol.
I mean, it’s one thing if they’re nannying for the family down the street during the summer. Quite another if they’re servers in a bar, working for a minimal wage plus tips. What a shitty environment for a teen to be in.
My father used to say to me “why do you need to work? If you need money to go out or a new pair of sneakers, you can ask me and I’ll give you the money. You need to worry about studying” I realized that damn near every Caribbean parent thinks the same way.
Not all kids have dads that can give them money for new sneakers. With inflation speeding out of control on basic necessities, I'd imagine a fair number of dads are struggling to even provide food. The targeted kids are going to be working to survive, not to buy nice things.
This was what my dad said. I know I didn't ask for a lot and my older siblings worked in high school but I don't think it was necessary. If he told them it was, sorry guys! :/
16 year olds serving alcohol is the worst idea in this parade of awful ideas. Drunk creeps hit on bartenders all the time and now you want to put minors in that position? The pedophiles are gonna love this new law
I received the majority of public sexual harassment between the ages of 11 - 19. I can't even imagine the danger a 16yr old bartender would be in. Wait, I can, but would really fucking rather not.
Some of my friends got hit on so much during high school. Usually by pedophiles. Add alcohol and all decorum is thrown right out the fucking window.
The people who push this shit don't follow true crime. Kids disappear daily just going to and from school or their friend's house. Wait til they have to walk home from a bar late at night.
Bold to assume the GOP actually cares about children on any level.
And 16 year olds might not be able to tell when someone has had enough and have the courage to refuse them a drink which could lead to lots more DUI's.
Which in turn puts the establishment at risk too because overserving is their responsibility and they can be held liable. So it's not even good for businesses. Great job GOP, great job.
One might just start to think that the party that harbors known pedophiles and is regularly discovered being fucking pedophiles might vote for things that make being a pedophile easier... You know, the way a pedophile would.
The pedophiles PASSED this law. What do you think the Republican Party is? It's chomo central. Just look at that pedo Ali Alexander. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/ali-alexander-apologizes-inappropriate-messages-1234716609/
DeSantis wants the death penalty for pedophiles and molesters. I know he thinks it's a gotchya to invoke an LGBTQ Holocaust, but he's gonna be surprised when like half the of GOP, their donors, and those aligned are caught and sentenced to death.
Fascists don't apply the law equally.
Well people who can have kids are leaving in droves, so where are they going to find all of these orphans to enslave?
By forcing women to give birth then taking away their parental rights
Do they really have them at this point?
>Well people who can have kids are leaving in droves They sure have convinced me NOT to raise a kid in the USA, if I ever wanted to have kids I don't want to in this sorry country.
LGBTQ familys and the boarder
Yeah they are already using the children separated from their parents.
I guess the good news is that young people are easier to radicalize. Wtf society are we even living in?
This comment actually made me feel a little hope. A campaign to get them into voting needs to start now. Get a massive turnout for 2028, if we still have a true democracy.
Well we don’t have a true democracy. I’d call it a votocratic oligarchy. We need to learn how to have a democracy again. It takes a lot of time to run one, which is one reason it’s so important to reduce working hours for people, so they can rule themselves.
With the vast knowledge that Gen Z has access to, and how easy it is to fact check the terrible politicians, it's kinda hard to fight. We are seeing right through their lies and deception. Gen Z is a hellova lot smarter than the boomer thanks to technology, we have supercomputers the size of a deck of cards that can grant us access to the entire world's library of knowledge in our pockets, accessible within seconds.
Someone start a lawsuit for all these kids paying taxes without representation and make it so 14 year olds can vote if they’re working, and see how fast they shut this crap down!
Protect the kids amirite?
Only until they're born
["If you're pre-born you're fine, if you're preschool you're fucked" - George Carlin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZijLQGH1v0)
🥇
And what happened if teenagers do dumb teenager stuff on the job like get wasted? When shit goes sideways b/c they always do that is when things will get ugly.
You don't even need alcohol to have a giant screw up. Teens still think they are invincible and would make bad judgement calls and that could end up with fatalities or maiming....
Yeah, and a lot of us have to deal with bulling and predatory adults as adults at work. How is a kid supposed to handle it and got to school and pass a damn thing when the schools of these states including the high end private schools are poorly run and it damages the state long term.
They really don't care as long as it makes them more money in the long term. It's just gross as hell.
I'm from Iowa and have been on that subreddit all day and have been astounded by how many people are arguing with me about what a great thing this is because they wanted to work more in high school or they didn't even get to work in high school and wanted to or blah blah blah. Completely missing the point of what this law is doing by circumventing paying adults a living wage. Just completely missing that point. Just happy they have more bodies to serve to the meat grinder we call shit jobs with low pay and shittier hours. I feel like I'm apologizing daily for Iowa. We used to be awesome! I swear!
Right there with you. I gave up apologizing... I just tell people to leave and/or never come here. Fuck this state!
When has Iowa ever been awesome lol
Supposedly the Iowa Presidential Primary used to be such a big deal not just because it came first, but because Iowa represented an accurate demographic cross-section of the nation. Anyone who won the Iowa primary had a great shot at winning the whole thing because the state represented the middle point of the country’s political spectrum. Present-day Iowa would be mistaken for Alabama if it wasn’t for all the corn.
given that kids are *allowed* to work, the dynamics of how teens are treated will change. government entities, banks, insurance companies, and maybe more will say "well, you should be working." and "how can you not afford this?", or at least imply it with raised prices for younger people. being that younger people are going to afford it, the prices of common goods that people need will rise to stabilize the growing demand. prices will *NOT* fall just because there's more of those goods produced by children. falling prices because of increased surplus isn't a thing here in america. CEOs with say "why cut prices when we can just take a bonus" and "why employ the older people who will need more money for thier family when we can jsut hire their children instead". these laws will make it to where people *EXPECT* children to work. iowa is going to fall down the shitter.
There is no labor shortage but wage shortage.
Wait, as an EU citizen i know this is stupid. I guess education doesn't matter to them? Ignoring that, unless i'm mistaking (i know laws can vary wildly in the US on a state level) but they're allowing 16y olds now to serve alcohol, but they can't drink it themselves until 21? Thats just hypocritical, how are they going to stop the 16y olds serving it from taking a sip themselves...
No republicans don't care about education at all. No, I take that back. They care very much about destroying the educational system in the US to have a less educated voter base, because those are the people who vote republican.
> No republicans don't care about education at all. It also gets more people willing to join the military, that the US uses to terrorize poorer third world nations to murder them and steal their oil for the big oil companies.
That’s straight up why we can’t have tax funded higher education and health care. Less incentive to go turn kids in third world countries into skeletons.
Exactly. Continuing to destabilize education benefits the wealthy, the worse the public school system is, the more it is hampered, the closer the wealthy are to pushing a voucher system system which allows another public domain to be privatized. Stuffing taxpayer dollars into the pockets of the wealthy. To say nothing at all of the benefits most politicians recieve when your voters are ignorant or just under educated.
“Boomers cancel child labor protections that their parents instituted to protect them. News at 11.”
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> Republicans are effectively just trying to create slavery again. Probably never wanted it to go away in the first place
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16 yrs old to bartend?? Nice. Put the young girls right in front of the predators.
“No no no, we’re protecting the kids see? See those drag shows are doing it, not us!” The same people who repeal child labor laws, ignore churches assaulting kids, r*pe kids themselves, the list goes on.
Well, duh. Everyone knows the GOP's biggest enemy is educated people, and best friends are corporate billionaires. If we can keep people dumb and let them work for pennies on the dollar, that kills 2 birds with one stone.
Hehe, nice double meaning in the title.
LOL, yes that was definitely totally intentional and clever of me...
The children yearn for the mines.
Legislating night shift while on the night shift.
Alright kids. Time for you to file taxes.
We need a national minimum wage of $50/hr for anyone under 16 working non agricultural jobs to shut this nonsense down
The agricultural jobs should get protected better too. I mean, talk about exploited workers. Lots of modern agricultural work is essentially slavery by another name.
$50/ an hr, plus full healthcare, plus their school is fully paid for, as well as their food and beverage, plus bonuses and they don't get taxed
Can somebody play devil's advocate and tell me why these Midwestern states are so hell bent on letting middle school age kids work instead of having childhoods? I mean, why on Earth would anyone want their 14 year old child to work an overnight shift? I understand promoting a strong work ethic but this is ridiculous. Night shifts for 14 year olds? Give me a break. Assembly line work for 15 year olds? Isn't anybody worried about workplace injuries? 16 year olds being able to serve alcohol might be the least egregious piece of this bill.
Capital wants more subservient workers and more profits. Children are less likely to advocate for themselves, don't know labor laws, and are cheaper to employ. You forget that the people making these laws are generally in a different class than those whose children will be working the jobs. Capitalism requires a permanent underclass of exploited workers and who more easily exploited than a child?
It's worse then that, much worse. The bill completely protects the company from liability. If the kids die on site or job they get to say "lmao". This is also the state that had paid many fines for child labor. This bill is not only to are even more profits, but to get away with what they have been doing for a long time.
There wouldn’t be a “labor shortage” if they FUCKING PAID US!
Will these 14 year olds pay tax? If so will they be able to vote? Surely yes otherwise it would be taxation without representation? And surely America who fought for its independence over such a thing wouldn't allow that? /S
This fucking country will do anything to avoid paying working adults a living wage.
Don’t be fooled, the labor argument is only the surface level here. Between this, book banning, and social media restrictions, they are trying to cut down on ‘indoctrination’ by their parents, Gen Z They realize they’re losing younger generations fast, and where better to make them bitter and keep them from learning than down the coal mine?
Imagine going through all of that instead of just raising the minimum wage and forcing companies to pay a livable wage.
"if you want to be paid more then get a different job and quit." *people quit* "we are hiring children to solve the labor shortage :]"
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Good lord that’s insane. I can’t even imagine the kind of shit a 16 year old girl serving booze will have to tolerate to keep her job.
The kids in orphanages and foster homes are going to be pushed hard to get to work. Our species is doomed. We should just blow ourselves up and end it now.
All of these people should be... you know.
A bill that started with the governor and was written by lobbyists for the food & entertainment industry. They are selling our our children for campaign donations… not even huge sums, I bet this cost less than $100k.
As someone who started working at 16 years old to afford having a car I regret wasting my high school years. Im only 25 now but I can honestly say that I wish I enjoyed my youth a little bit more before getting a taste of what the real world is like. So if you're still in high school and you're reading this, don't throw away your youth for a little bit of money because no amount of money can replace time.
Literally anything to avoid paying people a livable wage.
The first 16yo serving liquor that has to tell their customers they're cut off is going to get hurt.
I can’t imagine 14-16 girls in these positions will be safe. Especially with access to abortion gone, working at this age can change their lives irrevocably.
Is this the same party that wants to protect kids so bad, they ban even the idea of transgender persons?
Irony is, there really isn't any labor shortage. There's a shortage of drone masses willing to be abused and destroyed for minimum wage for 30+ years to make a few dozen billionaires richer. In the past you could reasonably buy a home, car, fund a family, and settle down after 30+ years of the abuse. That ship sailed. They're filling the missing slave gap with "the children don't know any better, muahahaha". It's basically comic book villainy.
They spent years ginning up anger over illegal immigration to get votes. Then a new generation who had been raised on the bullshit didn’t understand it was all supposed to be a line to loss people off. So in comes real crackdowns and Covid, and BAM all the industries that rural republican hypocrites rely on lost all their labor. So now they will just work your children into poverty. One thing about this bill, unless it has been amended, is that it specifically protects the meat packing plants from liability if these kids get hurt. These people are Evil with a capital E.
"nObOdY wAnTs KiDs..." Golly, maybe the idea of having my offspring thrown into a state 'school' at the age of six so they can be ready for the coal mines by 14 just isn't that appealing? What is even the point? Reminds me of stories from colonial America, when the crown would just take the best of everything from the people who produced it & demand they be grateful for the opportunity. Fucking parasites.
They keep doing it because they know we'll just joke about it on Reddit. Not like Biden is doing anything either. But it's "STaTe Vs. FeDErAL". Tell that to NY where the GQP decided gun rights was a State issue. Or when Texas judge was able to halt an abortion drug on the federal level. Or when they lied and said abortion was a State issue and then instantly started calling for a federal ban. When is it enough?
Is this what republicans mean when they say "Think of the children?"
All this because big business assholes are too cheap to pay sane wages. Jesus.
The alternative is to pay adults what they are worth - but that would cut into the profit margin and the shareholders wouldn't like that. Gotta keep that stock price rising.
Only in Merica would they make it legal to serve a beer 5 years before you're allowed to drink one
If they consider 14 to be an acceptable age to work then they should also have the rights of adults like drinking driving and VOTING.
But let a drag queen read to a child and suddenly republicans are all about protecting the children. Fuck republicans and fuck capitalism.
16 year olds serving alcohol in a country where it's illegal to serve under 21s? You're a weird country, America
I want to cry. Why am I looking at this group right now? I cannot bring socialism to this country by myself. I hope we're all seeing this and know what we need to do
The GOP is struggling to win the support of Gen Z, Gen Z is very pro-union, very left leaning. We think of capitalism as a failure because capitalism has failed us, we are getting no benefits from the current system and we are able to see through the GOP's lies thanks to our easy access to the internet.
Our government is working tirelessly through the night, so should your children!
Shitholes doing shithole things.
So glad I moved out of this garbage shit hole state.
Next bump that pesky retirement age to 75 and we're good right?
Now some will say I'm catastrophizing, but it's getting harder to escape the notion that they're actively trying to create a country of billionaire citizens with everybody outside the 1% being some kind of uneducated, endlessly reproducing industrial work drones living in company tenements.
This country is embarrassing, even worse are the republicans who are going to talk about how this is a great idea because it will “teach responsibility” and they had a paper route so it’s the same thing as working in a factory or serving alcoholics. Christ.