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fandomtownies2011-08-10 03:09 pm
glasses-justice.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomtownies2011-08-10 03:09 pm
Entry tags:
Civics: Failed Amendments, The Community Center, Wednesday Evening
To say Alex was distracted was an enormous understatement. Katniss was alive; there was progress, in District Thirteen, and she had decided not to go. She was close to filing on the judge's case load, here. She could get someone thoroughly incompetent -- no, not incompetent, malicious -- disbarred, or help to, or try to. She knew very well she wouldn't be any help at military planning. She could always join up once her paperwork diminished. And yet, it felt ridiculous to sit here while everything was going on there.
Today's topic didn't help, either.
"Child labor," Alex began, without waiting for any kind of introduction. "This one passed the House and Senate, but didn't get ratified by enough states. This amendment was accepted in 1924. There were two million children working in the year 1910. In this timeframe, we're not simply talking about the rights of children to work a job like you might have here in town, answering telephones or working retail. There were sweatshops with dangerous working conditions, ones where employers would lock the doors to ensure that employees couldn't take breaks or leave. Combine a high-rise building with a fire, and you get the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire -- a horrifying example of what can go wrong when the rights of workers aren't protected. How does that relate to child labor? Many of the victims were sixteen. Two were as young as fourteen."
Alex took a sip of her tea and tried to stop, or at least slow, the tide of words. "Horrific labor conditions can happen anywhere, however, and some would argue that allowing a sixteen-year-old to leave school and work twelve-hour days is preferable to forcing him to remain in school while his family can't afford to put food on the table, and he and his siblings starve. And if sixteen is okay, why isn't fifteen? What about fourteen? Should we go nine hours for fourteen, but only if the family can prove that it is destitute?"
"It's not always that simple. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is, thankfully, far in this country's past, but it's very much a reality in other places in the world. Other, larger countries put pressure on specific corporation to remove their sweatshops from those countries, to stop using underage and underpaid labor. Studies done later found that most of those employees, no longer able to work in those horrific conditions for low pay, were instead turning to child prostitution, or other illegal activities. So while doing something ethical, we may have actually made life worse for those very children we were hoping to protect."
Why had she not poured Scotch into her tea today? It might have kept her from being such a pessimist.
"Sorry," she said, abruptly. "Child labor. We didn't pass it. It might be moot, now, because the states have fallen in line since then, by and large. Should we have? How do we approach it, on a global scale? Is there ever an answer if all the answers are bad?"
Today's topic didn't help, either.
Section 1. The Congress shall have power to limit, regulate, and prohibit the labor of persons under eighteen years of age.
Section 2. The power of the several States is unimpaired by this article except that the operation of State laws shall be suspended to the extent necessary to give effect to legislation enacted by the Congress.
"Child labor," Alex began, without waiting for any kind of introduction. "This one passed the House and Senate, but didn't get ratified by enough states. This amendment was accepted in 1924. There were two million children working in the year 1910. In this timeframe, we're not simply talking about the rights of children to work a job like you might have here in town, answering telephones or working retail. There were sweatshops with dangerous working conditions, ones where employers would lock the doors to ensure that employees couldn't take breaks or leave. Combine a high-rise building with a fire, and you get the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire -- a horrifying example of what can go wrong when the rights of workers aren't protected. How does that relate to child labor? Many of the victims were sixteen. Two were as young as fourteen."
Alex took a sip of her tea and tried to stop, or at least slow, the tide of words. "Horrific labor conditions can happen anywhere, however, and some would argue that allowing a sixteen-year-old to leave school and work twelve-hour days is preferable to forcing him to remain in school while his family can't afford to put food on the table, and he and his siblings starve. And if sixteen is okay, why isn't fifteen? What about fourteen? Should we go nine hours for fourteen, but only if the family can prove that it is destitute?"
"It's not always that simple. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is, thankfully, far in this country's past, but it's very much a reality in other places in the world. Other, larger countries put pressure on specific corporation to remove their sweatshops from those countries, to stop using underage and underpaid labor. Studies done later found that most of those employees, no longer able to work in those horrific conditions for low pay, were instead turning to child prostitution, or other illegal activities. So while doing something ethical, we may have actually made life worse for those very children we were hoping to protect."
Why had she not poured Scotch into her tea today? It might have kept her from being such a pessimist.
"Sorry," she said, abruptly. "Child labor. We didn't pass it. It might be moot, now, because the states have fallen in line since then, by and large. Should we have? How do we approach it, on a global scale? Is there ever an answer if all the answers are bad?"
Sign In - CIV206
Arrive and Mingle - CIV206
Discussion - Child Labor - CIV206
Talk to Alex - CIV206
OOC - CIV206