Death of boy, 16, at sawmill highlights rise of child labour in US | Hacker News Reader

Death of boy, 16, at sawmill highlights rise of child labour in US

theguardian.com

16 pointstoomuchtodo15 comments

I live near this area (gg dox myself), and this isn't the only instance I've seen children working jobs that are dangerous to even adults.

I've seen kids working bars here (not allowed, currently contested), which seems harmless until you realize most drunks are massive assholes and abuse wait staff nearly all the time.

The other instance I've seen kids working is farms and grain silos, which are incredibly dangerous. Things like a cow cornering you, or suffocating in grain. Wisconsin is going full pants on head, and the majority who vote against such conditions are often ignored, or side stepped by a particular party that has the legislation by the throat.

What's even more distressing is the mention of the child's father not having the means to pay for immediate needs, requiring his kids to saddle the responsibility of keeping the house afloat.

Absolutely wild how he just continues on to work for a place that clearly has a massive safety issue, let alone where his son died.

It is weird how children apperently need protection from books but not from exploitation. For the richest nation in the world that is just a sad state of affairs right now.

It looks like Florence County, WI votes[1] overwhelmingly for the party trying to remove these child labor protections. So, they're getting what they want.

1: https://www.florencecountywi.com/i/f/files/OFFICIAL%20Result...

I grew up around guys building custom cars and started working with my father building custom cars at Barris Kustom when I was 14 years old. I was cutting up brand new cars with an oxy/acetylene torch and mig welding custom sheet metal on them before I was 15 years old.

I think it's fair to say that most of the kids my age back then were no where near being ready to do the work I was doing at that age. I said "no" to adults I worked with when I was still a teen who told me to do something stupid too many times to recall them all.

When I was 16 years old I saw a guy set himself on fire when he started welding inside a van that another guy was spreading flammable glue on the floor to level it out with strips plywood. I could smell that glue 50 ft from that van. That guy went to school to learn how to weld and he had some kind of official certificate that certified he was qualified to do it.

George Barris set me on fire trying to start a truck he was buying by pouring gas in the carburetor from a pop can. It backfired and caught the can of gas of fire and he threw it and it hit me in the chest and caught my shirt on fire. I had to "stop, drop, and roll" to put it out. I didn't get burned at all because I knew what to do.

Tony Nancy almost cut his thumb off trying to show me how to do something I refused to do on a custom car he was building and that was after I explained to him why we didn't need to it.

All that said, it was up to the owner of that business to make sure that 16 year old kid was properly trained to do that work and I won't cut him any slack at all. It may not rise to "murder" but it's as close as one can get and absolutely negligent.

I will take the tangent and not talk about working kid at dangerous jobs.

First of all, i like your country, it's diverse and fun, you have a lot of great people.

But your tradesmen are under qualified. Your security protocol are shitty, the average precision of your painters, carpenter and woodworkers is equal to mine, or that of my father 20 years ago before he took carpentry classes. I have the impression every single tradepeople i've talked to learned on the job, and a good part did not have any mentor. In fact, the old guy i visit in WV mentored like a third of the people at the party, and everybody gushed about how it was nice and rare, how i was lucky to be related to him, and all that effusion of sentiments that make american endearing and likeable (for me), except with an Appalachian accent.

That this kind of accident happen do not surprise me.

Accidents like those happen in France too, recently a 20 year old apprentice died, and it came into light that his supervisor was 24 and not much more competent. The company lost a lot, the rule were tightened about supervisors and competencies, and mybe we will have like 5 accidents this decade. Hopefully no mortal ones.

Robert Frost got there first....

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53087/out-out

To me it's coming off like The Guardian is editorializing a terrible tragedy. Child labor violations have gone up, but it looks like labor participation has gone down or flatlined over time (with a Covid blip). What "rise of child labor"?

A lot of this stuff is off books- kids working in the family business in rural areas, and kids working with fake papers. The latter is where the big spike is, but all the 16 year old Guatemalans from the flood over the last couple years are using purchased Social Security numbers or working under the table.

This article is really scuzzy. What happened to the kid is a tragedy (and a horrific workplace accident). But these things happen. The fact that he was 16 is completely irrelevant, considering in most states you can work from 14 with some minor restrictions.

Let's also completely forget the tradition of summer jobs while we are at it. Child labor rising my ass.

> Michael was found to be among nine teens, ages 14 to 17, who illegally operated machinery at the company. They also employed seven teens, ages 14 and 15, outside legally permitted hours. Michael was one of those who worked outside legally permitted hours before he turned 16 – when the regulations change – and had also previously illegally operated dangerous equipment.

"These things happen" when employers flout the law in a regulatory environment that enables them to do so. You can have a tradition of summer jobs without getting teenagers up at 4 in the morning to operate heavy machinery. In any case, sawmills are explicitly identified as a hazardous work environment prohibited for minors under federal law.

Note : This applies to able bodied 15Y+ Kids.

Child labor was frowned upon because the future potential of education far exceeded potential when doing manual labor.

With the severe lack of trade skill workforce and higher paying potential, access to free education from anywhere, AI taking over knowledge work, shouldn't we all going back and thinking this from first principles instead of parroting "Child Labor Bad".

If I were a teenager now and love to do manual work and get compensated for it, I better not have arm chair elitists prevent my ability to do so.

There is also no study that proves Child labor (15+) harms development over long run.

> shouldn't we all going back and thinking this from first principles instead of parroting "Child Labor Bad".

No.

That's certainly a bizarre perspective. Given the competition from developing nations and the advancements in machine vision and robotics, betting on manual labor seems seriously shortsighted.

The trades are valuable skilled labor that include some kind of education, which is totally different than the McWork these teens are being saddled with. There are minimal growth opportunities in being a waiter.

> instead of parroting "Child Labor Bad".

That's an interesting way to describe an article about children working dangerous jobs and being killed in the process.

The boy in this article was working illegally at a sawmill because his family was desperately poor and his father was unable to work because of health problems associated with a lack of access to medical care (untreated diabetes). If considering that unacceptable makes me an "armchair elitist", just get me my pipe and tweed jacket.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com