The big problem with giving kids jobs is that most kids are not strong enough self defenders to defend against potentially-subtle attacks and manipulation by people employing them
I disagree that this is “the” big problem; in fact it seems to me to be quite a small problem. There are plenty of bosses who are sort of jerks, or who manipulate their workers into maybe working extra hours without pay or whatever. This is bad, but it’s not the magnitude of harm that requires society to pour tons of extra effort into eradicating it. If it escalates into something like outright wage theft, then this is already illegal and at most we might want to make it easier to report and investigate these things. (For really serious cases such as a manager sexually assaulting a subordinate there are several responses: first, this isn’t all that common, second, it’s already very illegal.)
In any case it seems weird to use this as a counter-argument given that the alternative is legally requiring students to be in school for 4-8 hrs/day without any compensation at all.
worker protection is currently not very effective though. being illegal doesn’t prevent most of those things from happening unless you have union with your coworkers or money for a lawyer. making significant changes to coordination capabilities of a group makes big differences in societal outcomes.
I agree that the current alternative is similarly quite bad though. I have no intent to argue that the situation is currently good, just that the reason people have not improved it is understandable and we need to protect the thing they are worried about.
You can add additional protections for people under 18.
If you believe that an union is required to prevent exploitation you can simply write into the law that you can only employ people under 18 if they are in a union.
At least that would be the German way to approach the situation.
I disagree that this is “the” big problem; in fact it seems to me to be quite a small problem. There are plenty of bosses who are sort of jerks, or who manipulate their workers into maybe working extra hours without pay or whatever. This is bad, but it’s not the magnitude of harm that requires society to pour tons of extra effort into eradicating it. If it escalates into something like outright wage theft, then this is already illegal and at most we might want to make it easier to report and investigate these things. (For really serious cases such as a manager sexually assaulting a subordinate there are several responses: first, this isn’t all that common, second, it’s already very illegal.)
In any case it seems weird to use this as a counter-argument given that the alternative is legally requiring students to be in school for 4-8 hrs/day without any compensation at all.
worker protection is currently not very effective though. being illegal doesn’t prevent most of those things from happening unless you have union with your coworkers or money for a lawyer. making significant changes to coordination capabilities of a group makes big differences in societal outcomes.
I agree that the current alternative is similarly quite bad though. I have no intent to argue that the situation is currently good, just that the reason people have not improved it is understandable and we need to protect the thing they are worried about.
You can add additional protections for people under 18.
If you believe that an union is required to prevent exploitation you can simply write into the law that you can only employ people under 18 if they are in a union.
At least that would be the German way to approach the situation.