Originally published at: Wisconsin Republicans want 14-year olds to serve alcohol. They can already drink it, after all. | Boing Boing
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Republicans sure do want little kids to do things that they’re not old enough for. Isn’t there a word for that?
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“Capitalism”.
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I know- this tweet wasn’t supposed to be a suggestion, dammit.
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You know what else would solve that problem? Paying people a wage high enough and treat them in a way that would get them to want to work in that industry.
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Came here to post the same thing.
Also:
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Treat employees with respect
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Don’t tolerate customers acting like assholes
Somehow “loosen child labor laws” wasn’t in my top 10 ideas for addressing labor shortages.
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It’s such a common theme I’ll just re-post this:
I seriously think it’s driven by twisted nostalgia for the Gilded Age. For these goons, children doing hazardous and inappropriate jobs are the ultimate signifier of capitalism’s triumph.
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Child labor was the offshoring of its time. Don’t like your wages or working conditions? Well there’s an endless supply of labor that will work for less, so suck it up or starve.
That they truly, viscerally hate children is a feature, not a bug of their worship of god make line go up.
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It goes hand-hand with their de-funding and debasing of public education and their continued promotion of gun culture after each school shooting.
Modern American conservatism is a death cult that worships Mammon and Moloch.
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And anti-abortion. They want a large populace denied education, exhausted and inured to labor from an early age. People who have no hope, no choices, and no prospects. Perfect for exploitation. No need for health care or gun control if there are enough people
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These neo-feudalists also want that situation to be multi-generational (in addition to being bounded by race and gender). Their love of the Gilded Age may only be eclipsed by their longing for the antebellum South.
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Let’s say you’re a 17-year-old high-school student, working as a waitron at a restaurant, and one of the people at your table orders a beer. I’m not seeing a problem with allowing them to get a beer and take it to the table.
People are jumping on the “14 years old” and “bars” thing. I’m assuming that it’s already legal for 14-year-olds to have jobs. But how many actually do? I suspect that the under-16 employment rate is vanishingly low, unless it’s at a family-owned business. I also suspect that there are few if any minors working as a server at an actual bar, because right now, they can’t serve alcohol.
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Have you ever seen a cashier in a grocery store call someone over to type something into their keyboard and then they continue scanning the rest of your stuff?
It’s a code 21: someone legally old enough to drink alcohol has to be the one to put the sale into the system. Takes a couple of seconds. No biggie.
What’s so special about the bar industry that they need this very special carve-out?
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Loosening any child labor law is a bad idea. Full stop.
But, if you want more…
When I lived in Japan I worked at a Karaoke bar. I did it to practice and learn Japanese, not for the money (which was a fraction of what I was earning teaching English). As a gaijin, I was popular with the patrons who would try to buy me drinks, hit on me, give me their phone numbers, and occasionally slap my ass. I was an adult.
Now imagine a fourteen year old (or 15 - 21 year old) in the same situation.
It sucks for adult waitstaff to be hit on, harassed, and sexually abused at work. I wouldn’t want to visit that on a junior high or high school kid.
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I think @kii nailed it above- it isn’t this specific law that’s pressing buttons, it’s the way it seems to fit into a larger picture conservatives are painting- one in which there’s a large, permanent, poorly-educated underclass that can be exploited for cheap labor. Add in some racially-biased policing, a dash of redlining and a heaping portion of voter suppression and you start to have an economy in certain parts of the country that looks strangely familiar.
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I suspect this is how Republican laws are made.
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Exactly. My experience in bartending / restaurant work does not even remotely align with 14 yr olds.
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Right?
If there is anything patrons of bars and restaurants that serve alcohol are known for, it’s their maturity and restraint.
/s
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The 14 year olds with jobs will be the ones most vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Poor with adults in the home who are not around as much as they would like because they are working 3 jobs. Poor with adults in the home who either do not care or are themselves abusive. Or with parents who are abusive, controlling, or don’t care. Kids won’t get a job without a reason.
As @MagicFox and @Akimbo_NOT mentioned, sexual harassment is rampant in places that allow drinking and even worse when the establishment is primarily for selling alcohol. No one should have to endure that but children are particularly vulnerable. It is bad enough at a fast food restaurant like the one I worked at 16.
I also see a new avenue for child predators to find vulnerable victims easily. If a kid complains when the predator sexually harassed them, they have a built in excuse of being drunk. If the kid doesn’t complain, well, there is the predator’s next victim. Society should not be enabling child abuse. Or exploiting children.
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In my state, nobody under 21 is allowed to drink, even with their parents explicit permission. I’m no fan of those child-labor-loving Republicans, but their rule, that parents can give their children permission to drink, is IMO a better way to introduce alcohol to people than the make-it-taboo-then-binge-in-college system here.
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