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helping employers pad their bottom lines at kids’ expense. “It’s about businesses wanting cheap labor or more labor than they can currently get because they don’t want to pay reasonable wages or give any benefits,” Greve said. Covid-19 prompted millions of Americans to ditch jobs lacking decent working conditions, sick leave, and affordable health care. The meatpacking industry, among many others, hemorrhaged workers after deliberately putting them at risk to protect profits during the pandemic. Now, rather than provide the quality jobs needed to attract adults, Greve observed, companies want their cronies to “throw them a bone” and widen access to child labor. Minnesota Republicans want to let 16- and 17-year-olds work construction. GOP legislators in Ohio are pushing legislation to expand teens’ work hours. In 2022, labor unions and Democratic officials in Wisconsin beat back a Republican proposal to lengthen work days for teens there. The Iowa legislation is particularly dangerous because it would exempt employers from civil liability in the event of a youth’s injury or death on the job – even in cases of employer negligence – if the teen was participating in a schoolapproved “work-based learning program.” Employers already flout child labor laws at record rates, according to the US Department of Labor. After the 16-year-old fell off the hotel roof, for example, Tennessee officials determined that the company not only illegally put the teen in harm’s way but also worked him more hours than allowed and cheated dozens of other workers out
10 ColdType | April 2023 | www.coldtype.net
of overtime pay. Adding insult to injury, the company vowed to appeal the $122,000 fine it received for the teen’s death. The poor, migrants, victims of trafficking, and other at-risk youths will be especially impacted. Last year, the news agency Reuters found migrant youths and other children as young as 12 working at Alabama companies supplying the auto industry. The New York Times reported more recently that the illegal employment of minors from poor and migrant families had reached epidemic proportions, reflecting a “new economy of exploitation.”
The paper found employers subjecting thousands of kids to some of the deadliest jobs in the country, including work in slaughterhouses and sawmills. “Why would you want to weaken the law when you can see companies already taking advantage?” asked Greve. “The law should be strengthened.” CT Tom Conway is the international president of the United Steelworkers Union (USW). This article was produced by the Independent Media Institute and adapted for syndication by www.otherwords.org.
William A store
A Holocaust missile and Armageddon sub? u
E
ver think about names of US weapons of war? Rarely are those names honest. I do applaud the relative honesty of Predator and Reaper drones, because those names capture the often predatory nature of US foreign policy and the grim reaperish means that are often employed in its execution. But most names are not so suggestive. For example, US fighter planes carry noble names like Eagle, Fighting Falcon, or Raptor. Nuclear bombers are an interesting case since they can carry thermonuclear bombs and missiles to kill hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of people. So we have the B-52 Stratofortress (a great 1950s-era name), the B-1 Lancer, the
B-2 Spirit, and the new B-21 Raider (the name has historical echoes to the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in 1942). Reaping what we sow? Just reaping? Whatever the case, the US way of war is grim. Shouldn’t these bombers carry names like Megadeath or Mass Murder? Think, too, of nuclear missiles. The Air Force’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) have had names like Titan, Minuteman, Peacekeeper, and now the new Sentinel. But since these missiles carry warheads that could easily kill millions, wouldn’t a more honest name be The Holocaust ICBM? For that’s what these missiles promise: a nuclear holocaust. Consider too the Navy’s Ohio-