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child labor laws
- Laws passed over many decades, beginning in the 1830s, by state and federal governments, forbidding the employment of children and young teenagers, except at certain carefully specified jobs. Child labor was regularly condemned in the nineteenth century by reformers and authors ( see David Copperfieldand Oliver Twist), but many businesses insisted that the Constitution protected their liberty to hire workers of any age. In several cases in the early twentieth century, the Supreme Court agreed, declaring federal child labor laws unconstitutional. Eventually, in the late 1930s, the federal Fair Labor Standards Act was upheld by the Court. This law greatly restricts the employment of children under eighteen in manufacturing jobs.
Example Sentences
Today’s drive to roll back state child labor laws is being pushed by conservative groups like the Foundation for Government Accountability in Naples, Fla., a well-funded anti-welfare organization.
Legislatures in 16 states, Florida prominent among them, have been deliberating rolling back child labor laws.
This is a coordinated effort being led by a constellation of business lobbying groups and industry associations that would especially benefit from changes in child labor laws.
“This is a coordinated effort being led by a constellation of business lobbying groups and industry associations that would especially benefit from changes in child labor laws,” Nina Mast, a child labor expert at the EPI, told an Illinois state senate committee last year.
The proponents of loosened child labor laws don’t cite only the need to meet labor demand as a rationale for loosening the rules.
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