A breaker boy was a coal-mining worker in the United States whose job was to separate impurities from coal by hand in a coal breaker. The use of breaker boys began in the mid-1860s, according to Wikipedia. Although public disapproval of the employment of children as breaker boys existed by the mid-1880s, the practice did not end until the early 1920s, after the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act was signed into federal law in 1916. Later, along came Governor Reynolds, the Iowa Legislature, and a group of lobbyists like the Iowa Restaurant Association to change things around regarding child labor.
Governor Reynolds signed Senate File 542, an act relating to youth employment, into law on May 26, 2023. Legislators, the governor, and lobbyists had every reason to know the new law conflicted with standing federal law. The U.S. Department of Labor weighed in almost immediately, saying outright that Iowa’s new child labor law conflicted with federal law. Republicans and their crew did not care.
After the Iowa child labor law passed, restaurants and other covered workplaces began to enact its provisions. NOT SO FAST! said the feds, who fined improper users of child labor tens of thousands of dollars in accordance with federal regulations. The governor decried the penalties as EXCESSIVE! and scheduled a press conference in North Liberty on June 24 to air grievances.
Unaware as she appeared to be at the time to what is actually going on in Iowa — namely severe flooding in Northwest Iowa — she did cancel the labor press conference to spend time where she should have been all along, touring the flooded areas, asking President Joe Biden and FEMA for help, and doing what is right for Iowans in time of natural disasters. The latest news is Governor Reynolds plans to reschedule the child labor press conference on how mean the federal government is for enforcing the law.
What in the Sam Hill is going on? They knew the new law conflicted with federal law. I don’t believe it is about that. All roads lead to abortion in Iowa politics and here’s a connection.
Historian, raconteur, and chronicler of our daily lives in the United States Heather Cox Richardson wrote the following on the second anniversary of Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization:
In the decision, written by Alito, the court said that the right to determine abortion rights must be returned “to the people’s elected representatives” at the state level. This construction of American law is central to the right-wing project of dismantling the federal government which, under the Fourteenth Amendment, is charged with protecting equal rights in the states. Centering the states, which determine who can vote within them, enables a minority to dominate the majority. (Letters to an American, June 24, 2024).
Does the federal government have primacy through the Fourteenth Amendment in protecting the rights of children who work outside the home? Despite being wrong in Senate File 542, Reynolds and her Republican crew make the assertion that children should be allowed to work under less restrictive rules and employers should be held harmless. Iowa, and other similar Republican states, attempt to drive the train of what is permissible within state boundaries. The ultimate goal of bad laws, and ensuing lawsuits and conflicts, is the distraction from a coarsening of Iowa life which includes restrictions on abortion, defunding public education, and in this case a permissive child labor law. A majority of Iowans support protecting children (and all workers) in the workplace. Republicans in our government simply don’t care because they have an agenda of dismantling the federal government and cementing themselves in power.
Groups like the one who quickly scheduled a counter-press conference in North Liberty on June 24, headed by State Senator Zach Wahls, County Supervisor Rod Sullivan, and others, are important to hold the line against the governor’s aggressive approach to implementing bad labor policy.
At our most human level, we know abusing children in the workplace is wrong. What is worse is when our government favors the desires of business to keep their costs low and permits such abuses. Even if it means breaking federal law. Everyone knows it is wrong for children to work in coal mines. Our government should know that by now. Thank goodness the coal fields in Iowa have diminished or Republicans would be revisiting using breaker boys again.
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