Child Labor: The Primary Causes Of Child Labor

Labor Practice Paper Angelia Henry PHL/320 May 2, 2016 Bridget Peaco Labor Practice Paper Merriam-Webster online defines a sweatshop as a shop or factory where employees work long at a low wage that is under poor and unhealthy conditions (Merriam-Webster On-line Dictionary, 2016). Sweatshops are factories that violate two or more labor laws to include wages, benefits, child labor or even working hours (Ember, 2014-2015). Companies will attempt to use sweatshop labor to lessen the cost to meet the demands of customers. When we think of sweatshop, we always want to look at third world countries and never in our own backyard. In 2012, the company Forever 21 was sued by the US Department of Labor for ignoring a subpoena requesting the information on how much it pays its workers just to make clothes (Lo,

he Progressive Era was when Americans were getting more rights and our country’s economy was changing for the better. There were also people called muckrakers who helped expose the truth about were the poor immigrants of America were living and what the meat making industry was really like. There was also a lot child labor happening which was when children worked in terrible working conditions and didn’t get paid as much as adults did. The senators at the time of the suffrage movement were usually the corrupt business owners of america who would use trusts and monopolies to keep their businesses going. Women were also fighting to have the same amount of rights as men did during this time.

During the Eighteenth and the early Nineteenth centuries, Child labor was a major part of the industrial revolution, especially in Great Britain where child labor was a large part of the working class and soon became a social and political problem/issue. In late Eighteenth century child labor became a necessary thing for the working class and society of Britain and other countries such as modern day Germany and America. Children were hired because they could do jobs the adults simply couldn 't do because of their sheer size and incapability to do certain things like clean chimneys and fix the machines in the

Children with possible bright futures are dragged into the mess of sweatshops which leads them to a poor future and poor health. Causes of this poor health is mostly from being abused from little things like talking

Child Labor in the Early 1900's There was a time in America when it was common for children to be working intense amounts in the factories of the labor industry. By 1904, 50,000 workers in the South were under the age of 16 with 20,000 under the age of 12. Having children working in the industry was dangerous and unreasonable and resulted in countless accidents in the workspace. In the early 1900's, children who worked in the labor industry were exploited as they were forced to work long hours, were deprived of an education, and ultimately put their lives at risk until The National Child Labor Committee began advocating for reform.

Working conditions for children were frequently hazardous and unsanitary. As seen in document 2, the working conditions for these children in the factories were deplorable. They were filthy, dusty, and cramped, making them an unsuitable environment for children to spend so much time in every day. When forced to work in these factories, children faced numerous health issues, and some even died. Child labor began to decline as the labor and reform movements grew and labor standards in general improved, giving working people and other social reformers more political clout to demand legislation regulating child labor.

Child labor was another problem presented at this time. At the rate they were going back in 1900, 26% of boys between ten and fifteen were already working, and for girls it was 10% (Background Essay). Child labor was increasing as fast as the children working were dying. An example of this tragic scenario was Dennis McKee, a 15-year-old boy who was smothered to death by coal (Document B). This boy had a family, and that family had to deal with the loss of their son, all to the fault of an industry that thought to use young, able-bodied boys for their work was a fantastic idea.

Child Labor is the practice of hiring children to work in factories or other professions. Child Labor Laws in the United States address issues related to the employment and welfare of working minors and children in the U.S. Many of these children often came from poor families and were immigrants or orphans. A various amount of owners chose to employ children because they could be paid less than adults and were smaller so that they could fit between machines or even inside when the machinery needed to be clean, they were dirty and sometime very dangerous. Being forced to work was hard for children to possess an education.

“Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time” (Grace Abbott). The issue of child labor has been around for centuries. Its standing in our world has been irrevocably stained in our history and unfortunately, our present. Many great minds have assessed this horrific issue and its effect on our homes, societies, and ultimately, our world.

As the rate of industrialization in America grew during the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, child labor became more and more common. The rapid growth of the economy and the vast amounts of poor immigrants during the Industrial Age in America justified the work of children as young as the age of three. By 1900, over two million children were employed. However, the risks of involving child labor greatly outweighed the positives; child labor was inhumane, cruel, and caused physical deformities among children. Children typically worked in coal mines, mills, and factories which contained many life-threatening hazards.

Child labor during the 18th and 19th century did not only rapidly develop an industrial revolution, but it also created a situation of difficulty and abuse by depriving children of edjucation, good physical health, and the proper emotional wellness and stability. In the late 1700 's and early 1800 's, power-driven machines replaced hand labor for making most manufactured items. Many of America 's factories needed a numerous amount of workers for a cheap salary. Because of this, the amount of child laborers have been growing rapidly over the early 1800s.

Child labor was a great problem in the Industrial Revolution. Factory owners usually hired women and children rather than men. They said that men expected higher wages, and they suspected that they were more likely to rebel against the company. Women and children were forced to work from six in the morning to seven at night, and this was when they were not so busy. They were forced to arrive on time and they couldn’t fall behind with their work because if they did they were whipped and punished.

Pros #1 Child labor is very important towards poor families who need extra help bringing food and money in the house. Most children under the age of ten start working in order to help bring in a decent amount of money in order to help their parents and siblings survive. Children are not incompetent; most realize when their parents are struggling to make ends meat, they try to help out as much as they can and most decided that, even though they are young, they have to start doing more therefore most decide to start working. The jobs they receive often don’t pay much so in order to have higher pay most children work for hours on end in order to bring in more money especially if they come from extremely poor families. “Victor chapani started working when he was 10- a few hours a day- rounding up passengers minibuses in his impoverished city of El Alto, Bolivia... earning less than a dollar an hour… “United,” he says, sounding like a seasoned adult laborite, “we as child workers can achieve anything.”

And, unfortunately, it’s more prevalent in America than many may believe. When defining what exactly a sweatshop is and what it consists of, there are many forms that it has taken over the many decades of America’s existence. The basic definition of a sweatshop is a factory in which its employees, many being children, are exploited; working long hours in extreme cases of hazardous and unhealthful conditions for little pay. Despite the fact this is a

But not all work done by children should be accepted as child labor. In other words, if a work doesn’t harm child’s health or personal development (educational issues), it is generally accepted as something positive and useful. Such activities develop children’s skills, provide experience and formulate them to be part of society. The term “Child Labor” is when children do work that damages their health or hamper mental or physical