Beginning on August 1, children in Arkansas under the age of 16 will no longer need employment certificates to work, thanks to a law passed in the last legislative session.
I’m not seeing the issue here. The protections for approrptate child working conditions remain in place. It just eliminates the need to make a special application for every single worker.
I started refereeing soccer games at age 14 and didn’t have to go through any of that process. It was a great learning experience for me and gave me some spending money. I’m all for reducing the burden of hiring kids so that they can get exposure to the working world.
To be clear, I still very much think that there need to be strong protections for work hours, working conditions, and not being permitted to work in certain industries.
It must be nice to see children as an exploitable resource. And in classic conservative posturing you equate child labour with refereeing soccer games at age 14. Must be nice to look back and have such pleasant memories. I doubt these kids will be so wistful about industrialised farming, chicken preparation or other sweatshop jobs. I’m pretty certain you don’t even see these kids.
At 14 you had the support of your parents and a safety net of laws that made it so their oversight was baked into your employment. Lots of kids are poor and have families who can’t offer the sort of support and financial security you enjoyed.
Children are not just an exploitable resource, they are a renewable one!
But yeah. I was one of those 14 year olds working jobs that were meant for adults. I don’t really have strong opinions about this law change but I am in the position that my kids will never have to do what I had to do as a teen.
Ah the classic “fuck you, got mine”.
Not at all. It’s the exact opposite.
I want other kids to be able to have similar experiences with working and earning money.
Experiences like this?
What do you mean by this?
Either you are responding in error or the person I replied to is your alt. Please clarify.
That is not an accurate characterization of my view.
You’re free to clarify at any point.
Are you open to changing your view on aspects of this and discussing this topic with nuance?
You proferred the opinion so you need to clarify. I don’t need to be open to what you consider nuance.
Thank you for your acknowledgement that you’re unwilling to look at this situation with the level of nuance required.
That isn’t what I said and you know it. If you feel misunderstood the onus is solely on you to clarify any misunderstanding. Pretending that you’re making this about me isn’t going to change your bad take or initial downvotes.
Am Arkansan. Sarah Schmuckabee Slanders made the case to the public that this would return control [of child employment] back to parents. The actual law passed does the opposite by removing the requirement for parents to give written consent. Naturally, the sales pitch was a bald faced lie. The fact that more Arkansan’s aren’t upset about that aspect alone tells you all you really need to know about the current state of politics in this state.
Also from Arkansas. I’m upset. I haven’t heard anything about this outside my friend group though.
