Iowa is facing a labor shortage. So let’s send in the kids.
At least that appears to be the impetus behind bills in the Republican-controlled Iowa House and Senate rolling back child labor restrictions. The bills have yet to pass either chamber under the Golden Dome of Wisdom, now redder than ever, but remain very much alive.
Both bills would allow employers to hire kids ages 14-17 for “work -based learning” programs for potentially hazardous jobs, such as manufacturing or construction, currently prohibited by law for teenage workers. All they’d need is a waiver granted by the Iowa Department of Workforce Development or the Department of Education.
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Employers, under the bills, would be shielded from legal liability for injuries sustained by young workers. Although the Senate version permits injured kids to access the state’s workers’ compensation system. Republicans have tilted the system in recent years to favor business.
Workers under 16 would be permitted to work until 9 p.m., extending the current 7 p.m. limit. They could work until 11 p.m. during the summer, between June 1 and Labor Day. During the school year, they could work up to six hours each day, up from the current four-hour limit. Teens could work up to 28 hours weekly during the school year and up to 40 hours in the summer.
Kids 16-17 years old would be allowed to sling drinks in a tavern with their parent’s permission. Hey, kid, get me a whiskey sour.
Why make these changes? Look no further than the list of groups supporting the Senate bill. It includes Fareway Stores, the Homebuilders Association of Iowa, the Iowa Hotel and Lodging Association, Iowa Travel Industry Partners, the Iowa Restaurant Association, Americans for Prosperity, the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, the National Federation of Independent Business and the Opportunities Solutions Project, a Florida-based group that pushed for limited unemployment benefits and now wants to make it harder to get food assistance.
Opponents include the Iowa Nurses Association, the United Way of Central Iowa, the Iowa Mental Health Planning Council, the Iowa Behavioral Health Association and numerous labor unions.
“The bill still is very, very troublesome to us,” said Charlie Wishman, president of the Iowa Federation of Labor, during a recent interview. Wishman said adding workers’ compensation coverage and removing mining and meatpacking jobs from the Senate version hasn’t changed union opposition.
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The House bill still allows 16 and 17-year-olds to work in mining, other than coal mining.
“How in the world in 2023 are we going to be allowing kids in mining?” Wishman said.
It does feel like we’re in a time machine headed back to 1900.
Poking around the Internet, I came across the thin volume titled “Child Labor Legislation in Iowa,” written by Fred E. Hayes and published in 1914. It gives some interesting details into the efforts to enact limits on child labor in Iowa during the final decades of the 19th century and first decade of the 20th century.
In 1874, Iowa enacted a law that allowed no boys under age 10 and no girl of any age to work in a mine. The age limit for boys was raised to age 12 in 1880. Progress!
Several bills floated in the 1880s to raise age limits for working in mines, factories and workshops failed to gain legislative approval. After all, as Hayes notes, Iowa was an overwhelmingly agricultural state, so the measures seemed unnecessary.
But that changed by the turn of the century as Iowa became more industrial and took on “the complexities of an advanced society,” Hayes wrote.
In 1900, 24,564 boys between the ages of 10 and 15 were “gainfully employed” in Iowa, along with 4,846 girls, according to the U.S. Census. That represented 15.5 percent of the male population in that age group and 3.4 percent of girls.
In 1902 lawmakers passed the Factory Act, directing that no boys under age 16 and no girls under age 18 would be permitted to clean factory machinery while still in motion. No one under 16 would be allowed to operate “dangerous machinery” of any kind. The act also required school attendance for 14-17-year-olds for 12 consecutive weeks. But because the bill did not designate a school start date, the requirement was “widely evaded,” Hayes wrote.
In 1903, State Labor Commissioner Edward D. Brigham warned, “at the present rate of increase Iowa will have in 1910 at least four thousand children in factories; and those enumerated at the preceding census will probably by that time have become paupers and invalid, surely illiterates, to say nothing of the per cent that will be crippled and maimed.”
In 1904, the state required 16 consecutive weeks of school, starting as early as the first week after Sept. 1 and no later than the first Monday in December. It required schools to hire truancy officers, but that didn’t happen in many rural districts where parents refused to send their kids to school.
But stronger child labor limits were defeated in 1904, despite strong support from the State Federation of Labor and the Federation of Women’s Clubs. Businesses protested, especially Button Factories and Canneries. The claimed “Their businesses would be ruined,” Hayes wrote, without workers under 14. Opponents deployed stories of widowed mothers who would be penniless unless their children worked.
After an educational campaign launched in 1905, stronger limits on child labor did pass the Legislature in 1906. But not without a concession to canneries allowing kids to work in “husking rooms” and packing rooms without machinery. Permitted work hours for workers under 16 were set at 12 hours daily.
Hayes reported the law was lightly enforced and resulted in small fines. But “Where union labor is strong, the law is carefully observed.” In 1913, the state made schooling compulsory for all Iowa children under the age of 16. More safeguards followed in the decades ahead.
Now, Republicans in 2023 want to somehow transform hazardous work into education, taught by employers who are shielded from legal liability if something goes tragically wrong. Maybe videos of legislative debates on these bills should be shot in sepia tone. Perhaps when the bill passes a street urchin with a stack of newspapers can yell “Extra! Extra!” Too much?
Once again, as with immigration, vaccines and now child labor, we’ve forgotten our history and seem determined to repeat our mistakes.
(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com
www.thegazette.com
At least that appears to be the impetus behind bills in the Republican-controlled Iowa House and Senate rolling back child labor restrictions. The bills have yet to pass either chamber under the Golden Dome of Wisdom, now redder than ever, but remain very much alive.
Both bills would allow employers to hire kids ages 14-17 for “work -based learning” programs for potentially hazardous jobs, such as manufacturing or construction, currently prohibited by law for teenage workers. All they’d need is a waiver granted by the Iowa Department of Workforce Development or the Department of Education.
Advertisement
Employers, under the bills, would be shielded from legal liability for injuries sustained by young workers. Although the Senate version permits injured kids to access the state’s workers’ compensation system. Republicans have tilted the system in recent years to favor business.
Workers under 16 would be permitted to work until 9 p.m., extending the current 7 p.m. limit. They could work until 11 p.m. during the summer, between June 1 and Labor Day. During the school year, they could work up to six hours each day, up from the current four-hour limit. Teens could work up to 28 hours weekly during the school year and up to 40 hours in the summer.
Kids 16-17 years old would be allowed to sling drinks in a tavern with their parent’s permission. Hey, kid, get me a whiskey sour.
Why make these changes? Look no further than the list of groups supporting the Senate bill. It includes Fareway Stores, the Homebuilders Association of Iowa, the Iowa Hotel and Lodging Association, Iowa Travel Industry Partners, the Iowa Restaurant Association, Americans for Prosperity, the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, the National Federation of Independent Business and the Opportunities Solutions Project, a Florida-based group that pushed for limited unemployment benefits and now wants to make it harder to get food assistance.
Opponents include the Iowa Nurses Association, the United Way of Central Iowa, the Iowa Mental Health Planning Council, the Iowa Behavioral Health Association and numerous labor unions.
“The bill still is very, very troublesome to us,” said Charlie Wishman, president of the Iowa Federation of Labor, during a recent interview. Wishman said adding workers’ compensation coverage and removing mining and meatpacking jobs from the Senate version hasn’t changed union opposition.
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The House bill still allows 16 and 17-year-olds to work in mining, other than coal mining.
“How in the world in 2023 are we going to be allowing kids in mining?” Wishman said.
It does feel like we’re in a time machine headed back to 1900.
Poking around the Internet, I came across the thin volume titled “Child Labor Legislation in Iowa,” written by Fred E. Hayes and published in 1914. It gives some interesting details into the efforts to enact limits on child labor in Iowa during the final decades of the 19th century and first decade of the 20th century.
In 1874, Iowa enacted a law that allowed no boys under age 10 and no girl of any age to work in a mine. The age limit for boys was raised to age 12 in 1880. Progress!
Several bills floated in the 1880s to raise age limits for working in mines, factories and workshops failed to gain legislative approval. After all, as Hayes notes, Iowa was an overwhelmingly agricultural state, so the measures seemed unnecessary.
But that changed by the turn of the century as Iowa became more industrial and took on “the complexities of an advanced society,” Hayes wrote.
In 1900, 24,564 boys between the ages of 10 and 15 were “gainfully employed” in Iowa, along with 4,846 girls, according to the U.S. Census. That represented 15.5 percent of the male population in that age group and 3.4 percent of girls.
In 1902 lawmakers passed the Factory Act, directing that no boys under age 16 and no girls under age 18 would be permitted to clean factory machinery while still in motion. No one under 16 would be allowed to operate “dangerous machinery” of any kind. The act also required school attendance for 14-17-year-olds for 12 consecutive weeks. But because the bill did not designate a school start date, the requirement was “widely evaded,” Hayes wrote.
In 1903, State Labor Commissioner Edward D. Brigham warned, “at the present rate of increase Iowa will have in 1910 at least four thousand children in factories; and those enumerated at the preceding census will probably by that time have become paupers and invalid, surely illiterates, to say nothing of the per cent that will be crippled and maimed.”
In 1904, the state required 16 consecutive weeks of school, starting as early as the first week after Sept. 1 and no later than the first Monday in December. It required schools to hire truancy officers, but that didn’t happen in many rural districts where parents refused to send their kids to school.
But stronger child labor limits were defeated in 1904, despite strong support from the State Federation of Labor and the Federation of Women’s Clubs. Businesses protested, especially Button Factories and Canneries. The claimed “Their businesses would be ruined,” Hayes wrote, without workers under 14. Opponents deployed stories of widowed mothers who would be penniless unless their children worked.
After an educational campaign launched in 1905, stronger limits on child labor did pass the Legislature in 1906. But not without a concession to canneries allowing kids to work in “husking rooms” and packing rooms without machinery. Permitted work hours for workers under 16 were set at 12 hours daily.
Hayes reported the law was lightly enforced and resulted in small fines. But “Where union labor is strong, the law is carefully observed.” In 1913, the state made schooling compulsory for all Iowa children under the age of 16. More safeguards followed in the decades ahead.
Now, Republicans in 2023 want to somehow transform hazardous work into education, taught by employers who are shielded from legal liability if something goes tragically wrong. Maybe videos of legislative debates on these bills should be shot in sepia tone. Perhaps when the bill passes a street urchin with a stack of newspapers can yell “Extra! Extra!” Too much?
Once again, as with immigration, vaccines and now child labor, we’ve forgotten our history and seem determined to repeat our mistakes.
(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com
Opinion: Child labor push in Iowa forgets our history
The ornamental decorations of the Iowa Capitol dome are seen from outside in Des Moines on Thursday, Dec. 19, 2019. …
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