Big Tobacco - Child Laborers. In America. In 2014.
- Thread starter erinq
- Start date
- th_trl_thread_readers 0
- Status
Thank you for posting this.
I watched a news special on this once (I can't remember when or where). They mostly employ migrant children, which is one reason why they fall through the cracks. These kids are working extremely long hours in the blistering heat with inadequate hydration. On top of that, the hazards of nicotine poisoning can be prevented simply by providing them with protective gear (i.e. gloves), and yet they do not.
This is disgusting, and shame on the current administration for taking such huge measures to supposedly prevent tobacco use by kids while simultaneously turning a blind eye to some of our nation's most vulnerable children.
I watched a news special on this once (I can't remember when or where). They mostly employ migrant children, which is one reason why they fall through the cracks. These kids are working extremely long hours in the blistering heat with inadequate hydration. On top of that, the hazards of nicotine poisoning can be prevented simply by providing them with protective gear (i.e. gloves), and yet they do not.
This is disgusting, and shame on the current administration for taking such huge measures to supposedly prevent tobacco use by kids while simultaneously turning a blind eye to some of our nation's most vulnerable children.
If anyone needed yet another reason to not buy a pack of cigarettes ever again, there it is.
We might not be out of the weeds with this ourselves. Tobacco = nicotine, yes? And we (most of us?) vape nicotine. Are we sure our lab sourced nic isn't harvested similarly?
Do a little google searching on "child labor, farming" and perhaps you'll find reason never to buy certain foods (like those grown on a farm), ever again.
There are a number of reasons I buy only locally-sourced produce from local independent stores and never from chain supermarkets. You've touched on one of them.
I like and respect this response, even while I don't know if local independent store get food from farms where child labor occurs. I would think yes, given the law of the land, but don't really know.
When you live in a county overflowing with orange trees, but your local supermarkets only sell orange juice that's been trucked in 3000 miles from Florida, I guess anything's possible.
Edit: but to your specific point, I think the chances of above-board labor practices being adhered to are generally much better with smaller family-run farms than with the Big Agra outdoor glorified sweatshops that supply the supermarkets and fast food chains.
Last edited:
Any serious inquiry into the lives of migrant workers will find that they improve their economic situation by moving out of areas of abject poverty where no work is available, to farm areas where work is available and part of that consideration of using 'child labor' is part of the parents' consideration because of various circumstances, one of which is being paid by 'piece work' and also 'who takes care of the kids while I'm in the fields?'
It's a reality for those seeking those jobs. It doesn't fit well with Ivy League activists but they create situations where those families are sent back to their abject poverty areas from the demands made on producers - who find it more economical to use machinery instead of humans. I'm not saying everything is 'rights' about those situations, only that they are very real for the people affected.
It's a reality for those seeking those jobs. It doesn't fit well with Ivy League activists but they create situations where those families are sent back to their abject poverty areas from the demands made on producers - who find it more economical to use machinery instead of humans. I'm not saying everything is 'rights' about those situations, only that they are very real for the people affected.
Farms are exempt from almost all child labor laws - this dates from the long-gone era of "family farms" where a farmer needed his whole family to pitch in in order to survive.
- Status
Similar threads
