The working conditions of children.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

an offshoot of the film thread.

Just ftr, union child actors have their rights protected in a couple of ways. State laws control in local productions, but California law covers its citizens even on location shoots. This is a brief description of that. http://mail.tdmedia.com/cgi-bin/l/se...20050715100003

Non-union actors, such as dominate the independent movie business have fewer protections, whatever their age, but the California law is still applicable to minors.

The employment of minor children has gotten to be such a rarity in Western countries that it is a logical source of concern. And, imo, as the power of unions wanes, children, as all other workers down the ladder, will feel the brunt.

But I didn't want anyone to feel NO ONE took an interest in these vulnerable kids.

[Nurvingiel]

There are many countries in the world where children work and are not protected by laws.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

The employment of minor children has gotten to be such a rarity in Western countries that it is a logical source of concern. And, imo, as the power of unions wanes, children, as all other workers down the ladder, will feel the brunt.

It depends what you see as the employment of minors. There were a decent number of my class mates in high school that worked in weekends and evenings. And I know a lot of the current generation does so too to save money or to be able to pay off their expenses.

The exploitation of minors has indeed dropped significantly in Western countries due to laws. But as Nurv said, there are more than enough countries where children are not protected.

(I don't know if you mean a specific sort of unions, but over here the unions have lost none of their powers.)

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

I was being rather parochial.

Originally Posted by Eärniel

(I don't know if you mean a specific sort of unions, but over here the unions have lost none of their powers.)

Where I am, unions, other than the public employees' union, are in serious decline.

But, as Nurvingiel points out, child labor is still a huge component of the lives of children worldwide.

You see, when we talk about censoring movies due to their containing violence against children, I wonder whether that means we, as a culture, are saying, "I don't want there to be violence against children" or "Don't remind me, I'm just going to the movies."

Art has the potential to move people in a way that few things do, and nowadays, when the written word is such a minor part of how young people, particularly, build their realities, leaving ALL the images to MTV and Disney puts us in a dangerous place.

I've read (and don't have the citation here) that there's a positive correlation between hours spent watching MTV in high school and promiscious behavior in early college. And we read all the time how people are desensitized by violence in video games etcetera. But we're not informed by those things. We're just, in a way, molded.

And yet, the experience of children all over includes work, and sometimes horrific conditions of work. The visible component, for someone in the US, is starter employment for teenagers, and kids in the entertainment industry. But there are kids sewing our shoes and picking the cotton for our socks, and being kidnapped or sold from their homes to work in the sex industry.

Who might possibly tell their stories if there are no child actors?

[The Gaffer]

Think about this next time you are upgrading your kitchen:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6233697.stm

It emerged that the father had taken a loan at the beginning of the year from the quarry's owners and had to work until it was paid off.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

And I had no idea.

How pervasive this is.

[The Gaffer]

Ah the wonders of globalisation. The glory of third world countries competing with each other to make their workforce more cheaply exploitable than the other, all to feed our instatiable desire for cheap trainers.

HOWEVER, experience in the "Tiger economies" shows that unions and other workers' rights initiatives can quickly improve people's conditions. There is a lot to do yet, but Korean workers are catching up with Japanese in terms of pay, for example.

[Nurvingiel]

Good link Gaffer. I had heard about that, I just didn't realise how extensive it was.

Children can also end up basically as slaves if their families owe a debt sometimes.