The subject law in this case is the child labor law in the United States. This law outlines the child labor provision of the Act involving the limitations of hours of work and employment for the person under the age of 16 years. This law also provides 17 risky employments orders for the occupations that the secretary had declared harmful and incompetent for youths under the stipulate age (Wiener, 2009).
However, as a student aged 16 years, I was employed as a part timer on long hours hence violating the child labor protection. At this age, I could be considered as a minor and I was not supposed to be employed at any occupation irrespective of its nature. Nonetheless, I was not aware of this provision and I could not figure out what is actually meant by child labor, with the study of employment laws in the business course I was able to realize that I was actually violating the law.
If the company detects that there are children who are involved child labor, it should execute immediate measures to protect the children’s interest and secure alteration from occupation into quality education (Goonen & Blechman, 2009). The challenge in executing this measure can be important. For instance, the child would be engaged in labor force because he and his family cannot afford to pay for the school fees. This might be the general reason why such children would be involved in child labor. Therefore, sending the child home is not effective, what is significant is taking such transitional measures.
Ethical issues involving child labor
Children are considered having unique ethical characteristics because they are the only class of individuals who may be legally discriminated in the work place. Since minors are considered as incapable of running various operations in the working place, they are discriminated in most scenarios. This shows that legally and ethically, minors should not be employed to perform any role in businesses and other forms of occupations.
Another ethical issue of children is that they are essentially vulnerable. This means that children in most cases are the first people to suffer when everything turns sour. Compared to adult, children are physically small and weak and can easily lead to undertake the action that they have not wished to do. Therefore, it is ethical to eliminate all the minors in the labor force and put them where they are required to be such as in schools. Employing a child in any occupation would hence mean that the human resources department of such firms is unethical practice in the work environment.
Exploitation is another significant ethical consideration when focusing on the child labor protection law. Working conditions for any employee is considered as a significant point of contention in many working environments. Unethical employer fails to provide competent and qualified employee to perform a particular task through intentionally and negligence. In this case, despite the fact that the employer violates the law by employing a minor, he also gives him poor working conditions (Wiener, 2009). Poor working conditions are represented by the long working hours under low wage. This is exploiting the worker to the point that it can be considered as unethical.
It is also ethical to realize that children are economically, among other fields, weak. Children have limited or no employment skills such as low physical strength, lack of resources, and lack of job experiences. Thus, the children’s opportunity to earn money would be limited. Sometime, the employers go to the extent of allocating minors to hard labors without or with little payment. Therefore, it could be considered unethical for the employee and the employer to engage in such activity without the required standards of employment. Both the employee and the employer are prone to face the law due to the violation of the child labor protection.
References
CLE Alabama. (2009). Employment law. Tuscaloosa, Ala.: CLE Alabama.
Goonen, N. M., & Blechman, R. S. (2009). Higher education administration: A guide to legal, ethical, and practical issues. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press.
Wiener, G. (2009). Child labor. Detroit: Greenhaven Press.
