The fine is $1,143 BTW
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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Until they start jailing the people hiring and maiming children, this will continue to be seen as little more than the cost of doing business.
Great fucking job, the country which was seen as a symbol of modernization is rolling back to the 1920s.
The kid is a high school dropout. What's he going to do with no education and just one hand? How is he supposed to make a living?
How is the type of accident even possible in 2023? We've had a century to evolve industrial safety.
Lastly, that judge is an asshole. "2 months later and we wouldn't even be here" ... irrelevant. We had to draw the line somewhere. That line is there to protect the vulnerable.
And that nonsense about dangerous machinery just part of growing up? Not in a long, long time. We used to have a lot more kids back then too, because we expected we'd lose some to disease or injury.
We evolved.
I mean, the judge hasn't, but the world has.
And no way they throw out an industrial grinder. So even with a good cleaning we've returned to the good old days where human flesh wasn't uncommon in meat production. Welcome to America
The owner of a meat business in western Michigan was ordered to pay $1,143
“Two months later, we wouldn’t even be here,” the judge said, noting that the teen soon would have turned 18 years old.
“Ionia County is a farming county, and I know a lot of people in this county view children working, sometimes around dangerous machinery, as part of growing up,” [the judge] said.
He said the boy was warned to never put his hand inside the grinder.
What the FUCK
He said the boy was warned to never put his hand inside the grinder.
He said the boy was warned not to fall into the thresher. Why did he fall into the thresher?
It's like one of those Ernest Hemingway one-sentence stories, that all by itself tells you 100% of what you need to know.
And if conservatives get their way the victims ages will keep going down
“Ionia County is a farming county, and I know a lot of people in this county view children working, sometimes around dangerous machinery, as part of growing up,” [the judge] said.
I married a farm girl and live in a small town surrounded by farming communities. This is unfortunately very true. Harvest time comes you need all of the help you can get to harvest everything before the weather destroys it. There's no easy answer to this problem as most people generally don't want to work on farms given the work conditions, and most small family farms can't afford to pay for the labor they need (and its gigantic corporate farms where the real abuse happens because there's no incentive to maintain the land or animals) Pretty much the only people willing to work on farms are the people who grew up on farms and people who can't work anywhere else (such as migrant laborers from poorer countries)
Yeah, not surprising and not new.
I mean it's nice to see this getting some light and on this but honestly nothing new outside of crappy Republicans looking to get rid of parental consent to have these accidents happen.
I was one of these kids that worked at 14, with my parents signing off on the work permit, to keep food in the table and that check is honestly worthless since once you got the job all enforcement and checks are ignored outside of one rule. I've had a friend get his thumb caught between a roller at the age of 15 that he shouldn't have been allowed to work on, another of that suffered chemical burns. I've had my fair share of working machines that by law I shouldn't have been working at and had a few injuries but thankfully nothing maiming.
There were was never anyone who checked out enforced any of the rules and none of us ever complained because, well there's a reason were working these jobs and not a cushy retail job, and none of these companies ever suffered any meaningful consequences. The laws and enforcement were and remain laughably inadequate except the one rule as I've said, the hours worked. They followed the number of hours we're allowed to work because that's the only thing anyone ever really checked on probably because that would be the only thing that would trigger audits.
Over twenty years later and nothing has really changed and only getting worse thanks to Republicans.
Personal responsibility! Ridiculous that this child wasn't more responsible and cost his employer 2 years of wages for a teenager
Republican shithole states where children, especially those of minorities and immigrants, are literal grist for the mil
Michigan is a Republican shithole state?
you're absolutely correct, no, it isn't which makes this worse, i can't read anymore fucking articles about how child labor is becoming the norm again, on top of everything else, it's all just too much so i assumed
FWIW, the incident in question happened in 2019, so it's not anything happening due to the current climate. And while the owner should have ensured the kid had a work permit, the kid was already a high school dropout, so might not have had any way to get a work permit legally anyway. At some point, people still need to eat. I've read several articles at this point and it feels like there's some grey in here somewhere that I just don't know enough to be able to form an opinion on.
While this is pretty awful and shouldn't have happened, I don't think I'd advocate that a 17 year old shouldn't be allowed to have any job at all. I think they should be paid normal minimum wage, same as any other employee, and there should be jobs that they can't do due to age (such as this one), but I wouldn't stop it altogether.
That said, I'm completely fine with increasing the fines for employing a minor in a dangerous profession though, which is apparently the charge that the owner plead guilty to. Fines for employers who break the law should be increased in general, especially when it puts workers in danger.