Michael Hiltzik: The carnage from the rollback of child labor laws is just starting
If there is a predictable outcome from the rollback of child labor laws now taking place in red states nationwide, it's that a flood of injured children is on the way. We are now standing on the edge of the water.
In just the last week, reports of horrific child deaths have come from Mississippi and Wisconsin. In the first case, a 16-year-old Guatemalan boy was killed at a poultry plant in Mississippi. In the second, a 16-year-old boy was killed when he got pinned in a wood-stacking machine at a sawmill.
What may be most horrifying about these accidents is that the work the children were doing is illegal under the laws of both states. But they happened amid a nationwide push by manufacturer and restaurant lobbies to liberalize child labor laws in those
