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- Child Labor: Back to the 19th Century?
- From
- Dick Meister
Young workers, already often highly exploited, face the possibility of even worse treatment because of attacks on the child labor laws that could weaken their protections to 19th century levels by repealing key state protections and undermining federal laws.
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Piece Description
Young workers, already often highly exploited, face the possibility of even worse treatment because of attacks on the child labor laws that could weaken their protections to 19th century levels by repealing key state protections and undermining federal laws.
Transcript
Even the most casual students of American labor history undoubtedly have come across the appalling accounts of child labor, accompanied by photos of exhausted, grime-covered teen and pre-teen children staring sad-eyed into the camera.
The children stand outside the mines, mills and other highly dangerous places where they worked 10, 12, 15 hours a day, sometimes even more. They worked at home as well, in their impoverished families' dilapidated tenement flats, rolling cigars, stitching garments and doing other work for long, miserably paid hours.
It began with the New England colonists, who brought the practice of child labor with them from England. Use of child labor regardless of the age or frailty of the child was common throughout the colonies, and remained common after independence – including in the southern U.S., where the black slaves' children were ordered to work along with...
Read the full transcript
Intro and Outro
INTRO:Commentator Dick Meister says highly exploited child laborers need our help.
OUTRO:Dick Meister is a veteran labor and political journalist. Contact him through his website, dickmeister.com
