Lewis Hine was the photographer whose work led to the passage of child labor laws.
Here are some of the photographs that touched the conscience of the nation and its leaders.
There was a time when our nation’s leaders had a conscience.
There was a time when Labor Day parades were a major event.
There was a time when labor unions provided a path to a secure, middle-class life for millions of people.
Now the parades have ended.
Now we have a new economic approach.
The rich get richer. Full employment. Stagnant wages.
The purpose of labor unions was to ensure that working people received a fair share for their contribution to their employer’s success.
Labor unions ensured that prosperity lifted up working people, not just shareholders, Wall Street speculators, and corporate owners.
We need them again. Working people need and deserve a collective voice. Now, more than ever it is time to spread the wealth, open new paths to the middle class, restore the dignity of work, and rebuild the hope for and the reality of a better life for all. To do that means to move away from the current emphasis on consumerism and libertarianism to a public philosophy that embraces the importance of the common good. That means a revival of the nearly forgotten concept of “We the People.” E pluribus unum. A shared destiny in which every life counts, in which we recognize our common humanity and our mutual obligations for one another, our brotherhood and sisterhood.
That won’t happen by wishing and hoping but by political action. It begins by voting out the agents of the current status quo. It must start now.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great story, thanks for sharing. Here’s a great American history lesson that I bet doesn’t fit, for a variety of reasons, into most history classes today. How tragic.
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Ended child labor in the US?
Tell that to the migrant workers who pick our fruit and vegetables.
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Besides agriculture, we have effectively offshored the child labor issue. Out of country, out of mind.
A good example is the use of child labor in Chinese plants manufacturing iPhones and other eletronics for US companies.
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Historically, the “conscience” of our leaders has often stopped at the US border.
The offshoring of manufacturing (with long hours and poor conditions for those — including children — who work in the plants) is just another manifestation of this.
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Incidentally, little if anything has changed since that video was made.
A bill (the CARE Act — Children’s Act for Responsible Employment) has been introduced several times in the House since then (last in June 2017) to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938(!) To effectively bring farm law for child labor into sync with that for other industry but has yet to make it to the floor for a vote.
It’s worth noting that it was actually introduced in 2009 when Obama was President AND had a Democratic majority in both the House and the Senate. Obviously it was not a priority for the Democratic leadership.
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I heard Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks estimate that about 80 percent of the Democratic Party are corporate Democrats vs the GOP that’s 100 percent extreme Alt-Right right and corrupt.
“The Young Turks (TYT) is a progressive American news and commentary program on YouTube, which also serves as the flagship program of the TYT Network, a multi-channel network of associated web series focusing on news and current events.”
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, one definition of a Young Turk is “a young progressive or insurgent member of an institution, movement, or political party.”
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In an international economy, labor unions are obsolete. Unionized workers cannot compete with foreign laborers, who can work for a fraction of the costs. You need only look at the ghost town, of Detroit, and the huge number of foreign made automobiles to realize this.
The full-blown exodus of corporations into right-to-work states, also bears ample testimony to this reality.
Even foreign corporations are wise to the fact. In 2009, Volkswagen was planning to open up a US factory to make automobiles. They could have picked up a factory in Detroit, for a song. There were unemployed auto workers, ready to work for VW.
But the final choice came down to Tennessee or Alabama, so that VW could say “F*** YOU” to the United Auto Workers.
People who are expecting some kind of labor union renaissance in our nation, are fooling themselves. Like Linus waiting for the “Great Pumpkin”. It ain’t gonna happen.
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That’s your wish. Same wish as the Robber Barons a century and more ago.
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I have nothing against labor unions. My wife used to belong to the Machinist’s union. I can only see the reality all around me.
Labor unions are as obsolete as spittoons.
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Labor unions are obsolete?! Are you delusional? Norway has a 51% unionization rate; the other Scandinavian countries share similar and much higher rates. Germany has about an 18% unionization rate and it has works councils so that unions have even more power than indicated by the numbers. Canada has a unionization rate above 20%. Unions are not obsolete, they are needed more than ever. The problem is that there is a non stop WAR against unions in this country, from Taft-Hartley to Janus and all the “right to work for MUCH less” states. We are a right to work for less country. How would we know that unions are obsolete when the powers that be are drowning unions in the bathtub of libertarian duplicity, lies and hatred for public anything.
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All countries have faced the impact of globalization. Yet, we have very low rates of union membership compared to other industrialized nations. The US has a huge income inequality problem which has enabled billionaires and corporations to enact legislation against collective bargaining and workers’ rights. The middle cannot afford to be complacent. It must vote for pro-labor candidates that want to restore buying power to he working class in this country. We need to stop the flow of money to the 1%, and start working on providing working people with a living wage and benefits. We must fight all forms of social privatization.
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A sloppily made but important point is brought up here by Chucky. As long as corporate globalization forces fight for trade without borders, the fight for labor rights must transcend borders as well. There is no way this country should be allowing its own companies to enslave people in foreign factories. By enforcing human rights, trust busting, reigning in stock buybacks, and other regulatory measures, this country should be getting profits to workers worldwide instead of billionaires.
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Diane, I always taught about Lewis Hine when I was a teacher. There’s a wonderful film about his work. Thank you for this timely post which I will share widely.
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Beautiful.
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I was able to read the Forbes article before the pay wall kicked in. The explanation of stagnant wages, and not just in the US, is compelling. The effort to monetize everything, including “human capital” is embedded in ESSA, with state report cards now required to show outcomes of education based on per-pupil and per-school funding, with disaggregated results for districts, schools, and for English language learners, students eligible for special education (five or six tiers of expense), and students eligible for free/reduced price lunch (a proxy for poverty). The aim is a “productivity measure” for every school and indirectly for the costs/benefits of educating various classifications of students. Some states and distruicts have a jump-start on this accountability measure, but USDE has not offered much guidance beyond citing the relevant section of the law and outsourcing other quidance to several “providers” who (no surprise) are major supporters of charter schools.
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So, listen, why do we have a child working countless hours in the White House? A clear violation. An abomination. It’s like that scene from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. You know, the Master Blaster reveal.
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Judging by the number of over 18 children tweeting on a regular basis, I’d have conclude that, like agriculture, Twitter is exempt from the child labor laws.
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And a lot of that is in the early morning with the TV on! No wonder all the tantrums. Get this kid out of his gold-plated pajamas and into nature. No golf club, no stumping. Just wilderness, maybe a McDonald’s picnic (baby steps). But no more politics, no more White House, no more coverage. He can take up jet watching or something, relearn the language, and how to empathize with others.
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Blaster:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/trump-blasts-union-leader-on-labor-day/%3fsetDevice=amp
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Master:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5b8d4df3e4b0162f4725b758/amp
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Twitchy can’t stop blasting.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/09/03/politics/donald-trump-jeff-sessions-justice-department/index.html
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I just “love” these libertarian phonies claiming that unions are obsolete, unnecessary or unneeded. Total hogwash. Why do the billionaires, right wingers, libertarians, Ayn Rand hangers on and the GOP spend so much time smashing, demeaning, swift boating and demonizing unions 24/7 if they think unions are dying out. Unions are being murdered, it’s not death by suicide or by natural causes. There is an all out war on unions in this country; contrast that with Finland with a unionization rate above 70%, the teachers are 100% unionized. There’s no war on unions in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Austria and many other industrialized countries. The US billionaires and their bought and paid for politicians, mostly GOP and some Democrats, are so concerned about unions and the union movement that they work overtime to undermine and destroy unions. The GOP would just love to destroy the federal employee unions and the USPS union. Amazon and Walmart are allergic to unions, anyone daring to mention the word union is purged and flushed out of their fiefdoms. How the heck does that make a union obsolete when an incipient effort to even form a union is murdered in uteri.
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Thank you so much for sharing this.
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Not to take anything away from the great Lewis Hine, but child labor was ended (to the extent it ended, as per SomeDam Poet) by the struggles and sacrifices of workers in the US.
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Thanks for posting this, Diane. And of course the rest of the story is that the Child Labor Laws then started to make school and public education more accessible to everyone in the U.S., not just the more affluent.
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My whole life has been lived under neoliberal oligarchy. I am not old enough to remember anything else. Were there really parades for labor on Labor Day? How high the state of grace from which the world has fallen.
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Relax. The man-child seldom works, unless you consider golf to be hard labor.
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Faulkner? Am I incorrect?
It took a great deal to get out of the setting of The Sound and the Fury, a great, New Deal.
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Unions are obsolete? Tell that to the warehouse workers who have low wages and restricted bathroom breaks. If they even utter the word union, they are fired.
From NJ.com: What put him [warehouse worker Ordonez] over the edge was a new rule on bathroom breaks. “You have to sign what time you went to the bathroom, and when you come back you have to sign in again,” he says. “I said, ‘This is ridiculous.’ The supervisor can’t control how many times I go to the bathroom. What about when I’m sick?”
The warehouse workers face bigger challenges, like low wages, rotten benefits, and shifting schedules. But when Ordonez described the rules on bathroom breaks, it seemed to pain him, as if he were embarrassed at the indignity of it.
So, he talked to co-workers, he put fliers on cars in the parking lot, he met with organizers outside the warehouse. He collected signature on petitions, hoping to get enough to force an election. end quote
Ordonez was fired for his efforts to improve work conditions at the warehouse.
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Thank you for this – much appreciated.
Dear Charles, I’d recommend you follow Erik Loomis, a U.S. labor historian at the Univ of Rhode Island. Here’s a link to an interview re: his about-to-be-released latest book, “A History of America in Ten Strikes,” which contains an extended comment on the issue you mentioned (globalized outsourcing of production): https://thenewpress.com/news/loomis-history-of-america
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House Republicans want to impose work requirements on foster kids facing homelessness
“This is part of an effort to punish low-income people and take away the support they need to make ends meet.”
https://thinkprogress.org/house-republicans-want-to-impose-work-requirements-on-foster-kids-facing-homelessness-7ceff1a632d3/
The Trump Administration Is Now Pushing Child Labor, Because Freedom
The DOL will propose relaxing current rules—known as Hazardous Occupations Orders (HOs)—that prohibit 16- and 17-year-old apprentices and student learners from receiving extended, supervised training in certain dangerous jobs, said the two sources. That includes roofing work, as well as operating chainsaws, and various other power-driven machines that federal law recognizes as too dangerous for youth younger than 18. The sources’ accounts were corroborated by a summary of a draft regulation obtained by Bloomberg Law.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a20636317/child-labor-laws-trump-administration/
It’s obvious to me that the GOP wants to roll back time to before FDR was president, erase everything he did, and start over by bringing back child labor and the Great Depression with its 25-percent unemployment rate.
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Sickening. Thanks, Lloyd.
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With apologies for beating a dead horse to mush, but……..: Saying that unions are obsolete is like saying that cars are obsolete after you have shot out all four tires, smashed the windshield, put sand in the gas tank and set the engine on fire. That’s pretty much the damage that has been done to unions over 4 decades of collusion between the government (mostly the GOP) and the billionaire oligarchs.
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Thank you, Diane.
Sure tells a lot about this country just like today.
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