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Originally Posted by upthesaukee
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I think back to my teen years and my summer employment: 14- pushing a wheelbarrow full of asphalt; 15 &16 - putting up chain link and wooden fencing; 17 - washing & polishing cars at a foreign auto dealership. All jobs paid well, and I worked at least 45 hours per week, sometimes in the 50-60 hr range in the construction trades. Thank god the employers never got in trouble there...think of the fines they may have had.
Too bad for the kids...most are good workers and will be forced out of some pretty good jobs because the employers can't take a chance on catching a fine for being over a few minutes.
Protect the kids and punish the abusers of the laws...unfortunately, the punishment will probably be the same for all...fear of discrimination lawsuits (I got fined this amount, but they only got fined that much).  |
This got me thinking too. The laws also prohibit 16-17 yr olds from working more than 30 hrs a week. I wonder if I'd ever been able to save enough to pay for college (which I did) working through high school if the present laws were in place back then. How did someone decide how many hours per day, per week and at what time became
abuse ? I can understand the intent and perhaps the need but really ... Moreover I shake my head in wonder at a Friday night work curfew. You'd think being gainfully employed on Fri (and Sat) nights (instead of being left to "roam the streets") would be a good thing. I wonder why any employer would bother to hire someone to work a 3.00 hr shift. I guess I have the answer. I'd like to think that the legislators thought these laws important enough to rub more than 2 neurons together when crafting them but I dunno. Perhaps a re-look is in order. Like building in some progressivity into the "punch out time". How about something like ever increasing fines for "late time" and then only if it's seen to be habitual (ie - big fine for 1 hr extra, no fine for the 5-15 min variety unless it's most of the employees most of the time). Maybe manditory OT pay for extra time worked so the employer has some dis-incentive to keep a kid late. At least the person being abused gets the benefit. I don't know what, if any, answer is proper/needed but these laws seem counter to what I knew as a "kid" and counter to preparing them for the true working world that awaits them at age 18 these days. Then again how silly am I, expecting commonsense from the gov't.
