More red state child labor - 10yr olds work til 2am

How does this occur in a public setting. McDonalds is rather public. If I saw a kid working I’d be calling the authorities b4 I left the place. I’d say child abuse is being conducted at and by a McDonalds.

 

Most of them were old enough to work but exceeded the working hour limits. The 10 year olds were children of the night manager and weren’t employed. But the accusation is that they were still performing tasks that they shouldn’t have been allowed to do.

 

Which link are you talking about?

 

Fair

 

Yet violations in NY are up 68% last year, are there not stories about their rise in violations. If not that’s curious.

 

“Serve alcohol” just means run it from the bar to the table. When I was a restaurant manager in Florida many years ago I had a 16 year old server. The laws wouldn’t even allow her to enter a beer into the POS system if a customer ordered it. She had to get someone to ring it in for her and to get it from the bar to bring to the table. I doubt a 16 yr old server would try to drink it between the bar and table. A drink still needs to make it to the customer if they want to get paid. “Serve alcohol” does not mean they can now be bartenders and make the drinks.

 

Gotcha. Just remembering working at Busch Gardens the 70s as a 15 yo

 

No, you didn't say it was only red states, my bad.
But as KYGator pointed out, these were the children of the night manager. They were not sweat-shop employees. But they still shouldn't have been there.

Yes, there's effort in some red states to relax child labor laws, but would any allow this, a 10-year-old working a fast-food fryer?

Basically, it was a Fox news headline - pointing your finger at the other side when it could have happened anywhere.

 

Let me first state that I do not condone the exploitation of children. There are plenty of instances across the country where children are actually exploited, and we should have laws to protect them. Defining exactly what those laws/regulations are and how they should be enforced is not a simple process. However, I think there is a lot of context missing from the majority of the comments here, and the original article posted. I also think the attempt by the OP and others to paint this as a red-state only issue to demonize conservatives is very weak and misleading.

I am curious how familiar many of you are with Child Labor Laws and exactly what the different violations are. The article about the two 10-year olds at McDonald's references 60 restaurants which, “employed 305 children to work more than the legally permitted hours and perform tasks prohibited by law for young workers." The only specific violation mentioned was regarding the two 10-year olds, but it also states they were visiting their parent, who was a manager. The franchisee states that the work they performed was without the franchisee's consent. It is conceivable, and highly likely, that these kids were at the restaurants while their parents were working, and their parents directed them to do some of these tasks mentioned in the article. Perhaps these kids were waiting for their parent to get off work, and the parent wanted them to help out. If so, that's on the parent. Now, if the franchisee knew about this and allowed it, that's on them. If the parent knew this was a violation of the franchisee's policies but did it anyway, that again, is on the parents. Running a restaurant that is open between 19-24 hours a day leaves a lot of time for things to happen that would be in violation of a company's stated policies and standards. If employees and managers do not enforce or follow those stated standards it might only be after a violation has occurred that an owner would be made aware.

The article does not give any specific information on what the other violations are. Each state has different laws for Child Labor. For example, in Florida the law states that a minor cannot work more than 4 hours without a 30-minute break. If a minor clocks in at 4pm, they must clock out by 8pm for a break, or to end their shift. If they clock out at 8:01pm, they have violated the Child Labor Law by working longer than the legally permitted hours. The article does not specify if these violations were a matter of minutes or of hours. Additionally, a 15-year-old minor who pours a cup of coffee has violated the Child Labor Laws by performing a task prohibited by law. Context makes a big difference in the perception of the severity in the violation.

As for some of the other posts criticizing law makers working to change existing labor laws, what are the proposed aspects of the law that are being changed or overturned? Having worked in this industry, and dealt with these laws, I will tell you that some parts of these laws are extremely difficult to accommodate in practice. For instance, take the example of a 15-year-old working the cash register at a fast-food restaurant. If they are approaching the end of their 4-hour window, and they are in the middle of taking your order, they would literally have to stop and walk away to clock out if they were in danger of violating. Depending on the time of day, and how busy the restaurant is, this can be nearly impossible to manage. Additionally, that same 15-year-old could not make a coffee. So, for a customer who only orders a coffee, that 15-year-old could handle the transaction, but could not fulfill the order, meaning an additional employee would need to help complete the transaction.

If you have not worked in a business like this it is very difficult to understand how challenging it is to manage, or just how easy it is for a Child Labor Law violation to occur by accident or over-sight. Laws and regulations vary depending on age and industry, but overall, they are extremely difficult to manage, leading to some accidental violations, some violations by oversight, and some violations from outright disregard for the law. For many businesses, they will either limit the number of minors they are willing to hire or avoid hiring them all together due to their limitations. Perhaps some of the laws being changed are to address this issue and lead to more employment for minors? Again, these articles and posts do not give specifics.

Generalizations, and conclusions made from them, almost always lack the context needed for a rational discussion. They are lazy ways to demonize others to try and score political and/or ideological points. All they do is divide. As for the actual Child Labor Law violations, they could be very minor, or they could be very severe, the articles cited do not give us the specifics. As for the proposed changes to the laws in "red" states, they could be legitimate attempts to increase employment opportunities for minors and address unnecessary regulations for businesses or they could be completely ridiculous. Again, that information has not been provided.

If we want things to actually get better, we should work to provide and gather all the facts, then discuss them rationally. As this is a message board (a college sports one no less - Go Gators!), that is asking a lot.

l

 

It doesn't happen in blue states because people in blue states don't work and live off the gubmint.


°° Runs away giggling devilishly °°

 

This isn't a red/blue state problem.

It's a "corporate America doesn't want to pay people decent wages so they are looking for cheap labor elsewhere" problem.