Third Teen Worker Killed In Industrial Accident As States Try To Loosen Child Labor Laws

Odusei@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 1134 points –
Third Teen Worker Killed In Industrial Accident As States Try To Loosen Child Labor Laws
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Logging is actually a very unsafe and dangerous activity. Logging actually has a pretty high injury and fatality rate.

Landfills probably less so, but they really don't have very many jobs. You've got a couple of guys who maybe work the weigh stations doing paperwork, and then a few heavy equipment operators.

Really any job that includes operating heavy machinery with the potential to kill people really shouldn't be done by 16-year-olds.

I lived in an area that had a huge logging industry that eventually became one dude, one machine, and truck that comes and hauls them off to the port. But I was there just after the full mechanization and automation of the industry. So the old timers were still around.

And a lot of those dudes were named things like "three fingered Jack" and "one armed Rick" and "Lefty" ... all from industrial logging accidents for a village of like 500 people.

operating heavy machinery with the potential to kill people really shouldn’t be done by 16-year-olds.

14 year olds can get drivers licenses in South Dakota (source, which of course requires either scripting to view the text or opening the page source).

Holy shit... my daughter is 13 and I wouldn't want her behind a steering wheel. Not at her maturity level. But then I also think the drinking age should be 16 and the driving age 18 because a lot of young people get in car crashes due to not understanding what alcohol does to them.

I could too as a farm boy in oregon back in the 90s.

Its a far cry from operating a log truck or servicing sawmill machinery. Which requires years of experience.