The Dickensian spirit that animates a vast swath of American conservatism has moved from aspirational to operational in recent years. Anti-abortion laws now force women to carry unviable fetuses and prolong, and publicly endure, the physical and emotional pain of their misfortune. Republican politicians deliberately target the small, often vulnerable, population of trans kids and their parents, the better to make partisan gains out of their ostracism. And in the ultimate homage to reactionary cruelty, a few states are seeking to make it easier for employers to exploit the labor of children.
A recent New York Times investigation found teenagers working hazardous jobs throughout the nation. “They are taking jobs in slaughterhouses, construction sites and commercial bakeries — positions that have long been off-limits to American children for nearly a century,” the Times reported. At least a dozen underage migrant workers have been killed on the job since 2017, the report said.
Last month, regulators fined Packers Sanitation Services Inc., a food-sanitation company hired by slaughterhouses and meat-packing plants, for employing at least 102 children ages 13 to 17 in meat-processing facilities in eight states. Astonishingly, $15,138 is the maximum civil penalty allowed for each illegally employed child. (If crime doesn’t pay, it is at the very least a good bargain.)
