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Child Labor
Just as in an earlier
period compulsory school-attendance laws were considered a necessary
corollary to child labor laws, the new advocates of liberalized policies
generally wished to create patterns of school attendance that would allow for
a flexible and coordinated pattern of study and work under the joint
supervision of school and employer. Opponents of liberalizing existing child
labor laws believed that stricter enforcement was necessary to avoid the
exploitation of children who frequently work at less than a minimum wage.
Opponents also urged strict compliance with laws because the records of the
U.S. Department of Labor indicated that occupational injuries were especially
numerous and serious for young workers as a group. One Department of Labor
study showed the rate to be 1.5 times that for adult workers. Others favored
keeping young workers in school and out of the labor market as long as
possible because the job market in the 1970s simply did not provide enough
jobs for everyone. Hundreds of thousands of young workers seeking jobs would
greatly increase the unemployment figures and deprive some adult heads of
households of needed employment in those jobs requiring marginal skills. The controversy over child
labor laws must be seen against more than a century of the most oppressive
forms of child labor in the Most of this important
legislation, which succeeded in radically curbing the social evil of child
labor, came about as the result of aggressive campaigns early in the 20th
century. Before the early 1900s, child labor was rampant. Knowledge of its
extent prior to 1870 is fragmentary because child labor statistics were not
available, but juvenile employment probably existed in the spinning schools
established early in the colonies. Textile mills founded after the Revolution
are known to have employed children for excessively long hours, but there is
no indication of an acute problem. As the 19th century advanced, child labor
became more widespread. Two-fifths of the factory workers in The child labor problem had
grown to the point of national significance by the time of the census of
1870, which reported the employment of three-quarters of a million children
between ten and fifteen years of age. From 1870 to 1910, the number of
children reported as gainfully employed increased steadily. Aroused to
action, the Knights of Labor projected a campaign for child labor legislation
in the 1870s and 1880s that resulted in the enactment of many state laws.
Conditions in the canning industry, the glass industry, anthracite mining,
and other industries began to attract considerable attention at the turn of
the century. In the South, the threefold rise in numbers of child laborers in
the decade ending in 1900 aroused public sentiment for child labor laws. In
the North, insistence on improved standards of legislation and their adequate
enforcement led to the formation of the National Child Labor Committee in
1904. This committee, chartered by Congress in 1907 to promote the welfare of
The backwardness of certain
states and the lack of uniformity of state laws after 1910 led to demands for
federal regulation. The U.S. Supreme Court set aside attempts at
congressional regulation in 1918 and 1922 (Hammer v. Dagenhart;
Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Company). Child labor reformers,
nevertheless, began to push for a child labor amendment to the Constitution.
In 1924, the amendment was submitted to the states, but by 1950 only 24
states had ratified it. Since the passage of the
Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 and passage of a major amendment in 1948
(prohibiting children from farm work during the hours school is in session in
the district in which they reside while employed), almost no modification has
been made in the federal law. From 1960 to 1974, bills submitted to Congress
each year to amend the child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act
to extend coverage of the act to children in agriculture outside of school
hours failed to be enacted into law. In May 1974 the first major amendments
covering children who work in agriculture became law. This new coverage
prohibited work by any child under age twelve on a farm that was covered by
minimum-wage regulations (farms using at least 500 man-days of work in a
calendar quarter). Twelve- and thirteen-year-olds would be permitted to work
on such farms only with written permission of their parents. Almost immediately efforts
were begun both in Congress and in federal court to void the new amendments.
Because of vigorous opposition of senators from states that used child labor
the law was not enforced in 1974. However, the court found the amendment
constitutional in September 1974. Despite the existence of
prohibiting legislation, considerable child labor continues to exist,
primarily in agriculture. The workers, for the most part, are children of
migrant farm workers and the rural poor. Child labor and school-attendance
laws are least likely to be enforced in behalf of these children. A study of
migrant children in the early 1970s revealed that school-attendance officers
in some places continue to ignore the absence of older children of poor
families when it is known they are working. This practice contributes, no
doubt, to the fact that the educational attainment of migrant children is
still half that of the rest of the population. Martin Hamburger,
"Children and Work: Protection and National Child Labor
Committee and American Friends Service Committee, Child Labor in
Agriculture, Summer 1970. -- Cassandra Stockburger
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