Stop the Rollback of Child Labor Laws

Are unions paying attention to the eroding child labor laws? I think all union members should be watching and pushing back against this. We, union people, should not allow all the work of Mother Jones to be lost just because we don’t care or understand what will be lost and how it will effect the labor market, jobs, wages, health and safety for all workers. The child labor laws were hard to win because the big corporations were making a lot of money from children doing very hard and dangerous jobs when they should be in school, and maybe just having a fun summer like children should have during their break from school instead of making a rich corporation richer. If the GOP succeeds in destroying most of the child labor laws, then unions must get these young workers into unions where they will have some protections from being exploited by these corporations and take advantage of the children and their parents. But that should not be unions first priority—that should be protecting children. The unions must fight against the GOP’s efforts to steal children’s childhoods. It’s not enough to fight for a living wage for the child labor because without it, corporations will use the child’s meager wages to drive down the wages of all workers. Consider how women still make less than males. All unions should be out there protesting and fighting against child labors laws being rolled back by reminding people, and even parents, that children are busy growing up in a complex world. Trying to figure out their place in the world at a disadvantage to adults who’ve already gone through the “growing pains.” Based on our history of having children working in adult jobs, children were more prone to be injured as they’re more apt to take chances that an experienced adult wouldn’t because adults can see the pitfalls that a child can’t. Children are easily manipulated by adults, especially if that adult has authority over the child, so children are less likely to join unions because they don’t understand the full protections unions provide. Trying to make children little adults is failing to see the world as a child would, and robs them of the “golden age of childhood.” Children need their childhood because they’re still developing their cognitive function, logic, planning and developing memory functions such as paying attention and memory strategies, their fine motor skills. Eye-hand coordination are still developing along with their frontal lobes. Their bodies haven’t even fully developed, and some haven’t lost their baby fat. Social interactions with others their age is crucial for children to develop confidence in life, develop friendships, learn to communicate and be involved in sports and other social activities. Childhood was so important that the United Nation adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in November 1989. The Preamble to the Rights of the Child states: “The United Nations proclaimed that childhood is entitled to special care and assistance—and children should be brought up in the spirit of ideas, as proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, and in particular in the spirit of peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity in all countries in the world. There are children living in exceptional difficult conditions and such children need special consideration.” Unions need to do all they can to put the brakes on the efforts of GOP states to drag us back to the 1800s through the 1930s by legalizing child labor. Protect our children while protecting working adults.