re: #49 Obdicut

They’re not. Big Agriculture has gotten a lot of mileage by putting on a plaid shirt, chewing a piece of straw, and saying “We’s just hardworking farmers here.” And it’s bull. They’re big industry. The people that need protection are the actual farmers— either the small owners, or the ones doing the actual, you know, farming.

Children who are migrant workers are exposed to dangerous chemicals and pesticides, work in hellish conditions, and are also around dangerous, heavy machinery that NO OTHER INDUSTRY allows kids to handle. A 16 year old migrant worker on a farm can use a forklift but if Wal-Mart or Home Depot would try that people would flip their shit.

Also, children who work on farms as migrant workers account for 20% of all farm-related fatalities. There is no good reason to deny these kids child labor law protections unless you think that migrant farmer kids deserve to work in those conditions.