Tuesday, April 18, 2023

GET ME REWRITE: Iowa GOP fights crime and inflation by watering down child labor laws

 
Top headlineDes Moines Register, 4/18/2023
Bottom headlineNPR, 3/5/2023

From the Des Moines Register:
And the bill says that teens who are injured on the job can seek benefits under the state's workers compensation program. The initial version did not include those protections for minors who could be hurt on the job. [emphasis added to highlight GOP concept of 'family values']
The bill also eliminates decades-old provisions in current law that let children between the ages of 10 and 13 work in street occupations like selling newspapers, or migratory labor conditions.
The vote was 32-17 in favor, with all 15 Democrats and 2 Republicans voting against the bill.

From NPR:
RASCOE: Reuters and the New York Times have recently published investigations about how children as young as 13 are working full-time jobs, like in factories and at construction sites, which is against the law. Has this practice grown in the past several years? Because it just - it feels so shocking to even state that. WEIL: It really is shocking, and it has really exploded in the last few years. There's always been problems of child labor in different sectors, but we haven't seen such widespread numbers of children working in meatpacking and in auto manufacturing and food production since really the 1930s.

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