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Never. Things are getting worse out there and this is what families are going to do to survive.

All we have to do to fix these problems is pass national universal healthcare, raise the minimum wage, and start building housing as fast as possible. Given that we are not going to do any of those things more and more families are going to send their children into the labor force.

That would require an act of Congress to implement nationwide.

And Congress hasn't accomplished anything since 2010.

When are they going to make sure that all families have enough money to live on so that the children do not need to work?

You're not wrong, and that's the sad part. They just caught a warehouse here in Cincinnati using an 11 year old and a 13 year old to shift pallets, with one of them operating a forklift. The entire thing amounted to a $30k fine, for a company that makes multiple billions a year.

That's the thing I can't get. In all cases with minors illegally working, they have a boss or supervisor. And they're just fine with that? They take it in their stride instead of taking it to the press?

I honestly can't fathom it because all the supervisors I've had, regardless of their strengths and weaknesses, genuinely cared about me as a person. It was the corpo suits and execs that didn't give a shit.

Christ, they need to thoroughly investigate these companies, because this highly suggests there's more wrongdoing to be found.

Sounds like these are all real stolen identities

One person told police in 2021 that they tried to apply for unemployment in Florida but were told their identity was being used by an employee at Mar-Jac. A police report quotes the complainant’s email saying, “I called Mar-Jac poultry to notify them and was told by [redacted], the HR supervisor that I couldn’t do anything without a police report and he couldn’t help me in any way.”

Another person called local police in 2022 saying she was unable to get child care assistance in Texas because her identity was being used by a Mar-Jac worker. “[Redacted] stated she’s never lived outside of the state of Texas,” the police report said. “She contacted HR at Mar-Jac and was informed that they couldn’t give her any information and to contact the police department.”

Please don't construe my comment here as a defense of the company; I'm only providing some context here regarding how he may have been hired.

If you've never worked near or in an industry like this, you may not be familiar with "cattle call" hiring. There's basically a standing advert from the company for work at the plant: Show up Monday morning at 05:00 and you can be working the same day if they hire you in. Typically there's a group of 10, 20, or maybe more lined up for a job. Everyone is told to bring a photo ID and a social security card.

The kid in the article looks slight, but at 16 he was probably close enough to adult proportions to look like he could do the work. He'd line up with everyone else in front of a table and eventually have his turn to talk to the manager / hiring officer. They'd take his ID and SS card and write down the info, and ask the required questions for the I9 form, likely filling it out for him and signing off as translator / preparer assistance. Then they hand back the credentials and he waits off to the side.

Once they have enough applicants to fill however many positions they need, they send the remainder home. Everyone is given a timeclock ID number. Anyone working the day shift is taken immediately to the plant, handed PPE and tools, and put to work. Second and third shifts are sent home and told to come back in the afternoon or at midnight.

And that's it. That's the extent of the contact during the hiring process. At the end of the week there's a check waiting for you at the plant office. Next Monday the company repeats the process to fill positions for people that didn't show or quit during the week.

The company has 3 days to submit the I9 form, and if it comes back invalid they must terminate employment. But with stolen identities they likely clear and that's the end of any scrutiny. If you asked that hiring manager on Tuesday to pick out someone he hired Monday morning, he probably couldn't do it.

He is an undocumented immigrant so he did not really have ID of his own.

I get the sentiment though. Fuck Arkansas and their shitty child labor laws but this ties into a whole different issue.

As a guy who worked factory jobs starting at 14 years of age I can tell you why I worked a factory job.

They pay a lot more money than working your traditional high school job and you get a lot more hours especially if you don't mind working under the table.

Now if you're poor and want to help keep your family from starving and having a roof over your head, it's a no brainer to work those jobs despite the risks.

Probably because these jobs pay better than a high schoolers job

Because he was legally underage to work in the plant. And he may not have had ID in the first place.

I agree, but then we also need to look at labor practices in farming.