Child Labor

1. Child Labor By Savan Patel

3. Child Labor • Threatens children’s physical, mental, or emotional well-being. • Involves intolerable abuse, such as child slavery, child trafficking, debt bondage, forced labor, or illicit activities. • Prevents children from going to school. • Uses children to undermine labor standards.

4. Reasons • No child labor laws • No compulsory education laws • Cheaper than adults • Cost for education • Poverty

6. Common places they worked at • Mill • Coal mines • Factories • Seafood warehouses • Fields and farms • Salesman

8. Child Labor Reform • Child labor began to decline as the labor and reform movements grew and labor standards in general began improving, increasing the political power of working people and other social reformers to demand legislation regulating child labor.

9. The National Child Labor Committee’s work to end child labor was combined with efforts to provide free, compulsory education for all children, and culminated in the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, which set federal standards for child labor.

10. John Spargo • He was a muckraker. • He presented detailed evidence on child labor condition in his book The Bitter Cry of the Children. • He told of coal mines where where thousands of “breaker boys” were hired at age 9 or 10 to picl up slagout of coal and were paid 60¢ for a 10-hour day.

11. John Spargo

13. Timeline • In 1836,Union members at the National Trades’ Union Convention make the first formal, public proposal recommending that states establish minimum ages for factory work. • Massachusetts passed the first child labor law requiring children under 15 working in factories to attend school at least 3 months/year

14. In 1942,Massachusetts limits children’s work days to 10 hours; other states soon pass similar laws—but most of these laws are not consistently enforced. • In 1881, the first national convention of the American Federation of Labor passes a resolution calling on states to ban children under 14 from all gainful employment.

16. In 1904, aggressive national campaign for federal child labor law reform begins. • In 1916, first federal child labor law prohibits movement of goods across state lines if minimum age laws are violated. • In 1924, Congress passes a constitutional amendment giving the federal government authority to regulate child labor, but too few states ratify it and it never takes effect.

17. In 1936, Walsh-Healey Act states U.S. government will not purchase goods made by underage children. • In 1937,second attempt to gain federal regulation fails. • In 1938, for the first time, minimum ages of employment and hours of work for children are regulated by federal law.

18. Fair Labor Standard Act • The FLSA establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards affecting employees in the private sector and in Federal, State, and local governments.

19. Statistics • In 1900 approximately two million children were working in mills, mines, fields, factories, stores, and on city streets across the United States.