I started working full time during the summer the year I turned 13. I was working for my family’s company and my safety was always the most important thing.
In the current environment of the exploration of workers I feel that it is unacceptable for children to work for any company other than a family company or a small company that will not exploit them and that will protect them.
Agreed in pricipal because family businesses are frequently how knowledge is passed from generation to generation, but family and small businesses can also exploit and not protect children and still need oversight on safety.
Small companies vary widely in their morals. The best ones might indeed protect and teach, rather than exploit, a young worker. The worst ones . . . are worse than any large company, and you can’t always tell from outside which type you’ve got. And family companies can be just as bad as any other small company, alas.
You’re projecting. I’ve been checking in with you between whipper snipping around my wife’s gardens. I’ve spent the entire day outside in the sun under a clear blue sky and now I’m watching YouTube videos and having a cold drink.
You really are a sad, angry, pathetic person. I hope you eventually find happiness.
My son, whose report card I just got and found out that he made honour role, just came out to find me to show me a beautiful French rolling pin he made on the lathe. I just had to add string to my trimmer so I thought I would check in on how your rage is going. I see it’s still going strong.
I hope that one day you can find real happiness like I have.
Remember that this was YOUR family’s company. Family businesses writ large definitely don’t have a good reputation as far as their non-relative workers are concerned. At least with a megacorporation you can expect some guardrails that will limit their abuses.
megacorporation you can expect some guardrails that will limit their abuses
i would not expect that tbh but yeah megacorps are serious about managing their liability, they will generally avoid crime unless they can get away with it.
most small biz owners are too stupid to understand liability so they just do as they please which is generally either a crime or breach of various civil laws and regulations.
Too young for the concept of doing work in exchange for something? No, I don’t think so. There’s no minimum age to learn how to do something, for the most part, if the interest is there.
However, those lower-wage jobs tend to be where a lot of the worker rights abuse tends to happen, and I absolutely think it’s way too young for them to realize if/when it’s happening, or to be in a position to properly defend themselves if they do. Sure, parental guidance and all, but let’s say my experience working with all kinds of parents in day camps, as a ski instructor and in elementary schools, didn’t make me very optimistic about a lot of them really being in a position to protect their children at work.
I’ve also honestly yet to really see it happening where it has 0 impact on their schooling, but that’s rather anecdotal…
this doesn’t make a lick of sense. I know 16 year olds who WANT to work and can’t even find jobs because of the foreign temp workers/international students. Saskatchewan wants to allow 13 year olds? why? there’s literally no point. A business that is already more than willing to take advantage of a potential employee is still going to favor some “student” from India over a 13 year old Canadian kid. you can take more advantage of the Indian kid as opposed to the 13 year old Kid.
“We clearly haven’t made the working class desperate enough yet. Let’s have immigrants and students fight over jobs to make everything even nastier!”
I’m sure this won’t in any way result in a huge cohort of angry underemployed young people. No siree.
I’m also starting to think that businesspeople aren’t the Galtian ubermenchen that they think they are, given that they by and large can’t plan more than six months in advance.
do they also get paid at the same standard(minimum wage, benefit, etc) like other worker?
do they also get CPP/EI contribution from employer? And can they take EI benefit when laid off?
do they also get to contribute to RRSP/TFSA? TFSA is after 18 currently, so they can’t even save their wage compare to other adult workers.
when they do perform well, will they get evaluated and promoted the same way? ie, a 15 yo manager at fast food chain and paid the same wage as a manager.
I started working at 14 (in Ontario). For my first job:
No, there is a "student wage" that is less than minimum wage
EI yes, CPP no
No
Only if there are promotions available at the part-time level (my "promotion" increased my pay by $0.50)
After 2 years of working there, I got a $0.05 raise. Yes, 5 cents. The biggest increase in my pay came when the minimum wage was increased in Ontario, which also increased the student wage.
I would have, but my first minimum wage-type job was after high school. I didn’t make enough to pay into CPP, but I don’t know if that’s a universal truth for younger workers or just because I didn’t work more than 10 hours a week.
Also fun fact, going back go my original comment about wage: Saskatchewan’s October increase to its general minimum wage won’t catch up to Ontario’s current student wage. Things are cheaper here, yes, but things aren’t (much if any) cheaper in Saskatoon or Regina than in London.
Is Regina at least better to live in? London is the armpit of Ontario. I hated it there, lol. But there is an excellent shawarma place near the college (Hadi's).
Edit: Just found out Hadi's is closed and there's a new shawarma place there now. :( Hope Hadi is doing well.
I’m probably not the best person to ask. I’ve never lived in Regina, but from visiting it’s similar to Saskatoon, except it has a man-made lake instead of a nice river valley. It’s a nice enough city, but it’s also clearly a government town. As for London, I’ve never been. I have family there, and part of my family moved to Saskatchewan from London over 100 years ago.
Canada’s provincial and territorial governments are responsible for education. They follow government standards to ensure high quality public education across the country. School is mandatory for children from about the age of six years old to 18 years old. Our study environments are safe and welcoming.
I was cutting grass at 12 years old on the weekends during school year and then summer time washed cars and cut grass. Only did it until I was 14, where I got a part-time job as a bagger and cart pusher at a grocery store. Don’t see a problem with it.
How about having a controversial debate about how much companies, corporations and business owners should pay employees in any job in order to make it so that everyone is capable of paying to keep themselves alive, fulfilled and happy.
Let kids focus on their studies. We need a better educated population, not one where people are trained to work mindless jobs where corporations pay you the least amount possible.
Work is a practical teacher of the value of money, how to work together with people, and how to deal with an actual meaningful authority structure.
School has no way to teach the first, does not realistically teach the second, and makes any lessons with respect to the third meaningless between “no kid left behind”, the countless second chance opportunities given for breaking rules, and the fact that there’s no effective punishments offered for breaking rules.
I think many issues with young people (including my age and a little older) is that a lot of them don’t work until after highschool and have massive struggles with the transition of both having to work and being treated as an adult at the same time.
Between all the progressive ideals that have been forced down our throats over the past few decades and it becoming socially unacceptable to do things like smoke and drink at work, I’d say we work in some of least toxic work cultures to date.
Toxic work culture also means dishonest management expectations, wage theft, and generally anti-employee policies.
For example, around 2-3 years ago I heard a fun story about why my old employer lost 3/4 of their IT team(MSP, their product was IT folks). The straw that broke the camel’s back was a management partner asking an employee “are you letting your family get in the way of your job?” This was because they couldn’t get this person to work overtime on the spot because they weren’t going to leave their kid’s sports game.
At that same employer, about 7 years ago, I was told I would have to start my day at the customer’s job site at or before 8AM, and I wouldn’t be compensated for my travel time because “everyone has a commute, buddy”. Problem was, my customers were often over an hour away, and they were going to bill the customer for my travel time anyway.
There’s certainly still toxic work cultures, and while I am glad you seemingly haven’t had to experience it as much recently, you shouldn’t discount other’s struggles just because you aren’t experiencing the same thing.
Um … you want permanent punishments for 13 year olds? That is sick, my friend. Do jobs teach teamwork better than ice hockey or D&D? That is a claim you could make, but maybe we don’t believe you. Remember, life is long, and expecting kids to learn adult lessons is at odds with psychology and reality.
High schools get jobs and learn that the assistant manager is always an asshole. Useful to know. But there’s no rush to figure it out, is there?
50+ years ago when I was 12, I got my first job at an ice cream/burger stand making 0.75 cents per hour. The only downside was my creepy old boss who took great joy in pinching my non-existent breasts and child-sized ass.
2 yrs later I started working at the local pizza joint (legal age to work was 14 back then).
The real problem these days is owners who would abuse the privilege of having kids work for them. I mean you just know that’s gonna happen, esp under Shmoe’s ‘leadership’.
That is fucked, but I think workers of all ages can be exploited. In my case, working a few different jobs from age 13 to 15 alerted me early to the exploitative behaviour of employers, and I’ve been very diligent in asserting my federal, state, and contractual rights in employment ever since, and to help and insist that co-workers do too.
In fact, I think this lesson is best learned by child workers, because at that age, the value of the lesson is high, and the potential stakes of asserting ones rights are low, EG as a child, if the child is sacked for asserting their rights, they only lose their pocket money. As an adult out in the wild, this could mean risking their income which pays for rent, family, bills, and other critical expenses.
I think you forget that women and children still don’t have enough power, at any age, to deny any man what he wants. They still die doing that, or are beaten within an inch of their lives, or are fired/written up for refusing sexual advances, or are put in situations where they’ve received no training but have to run a dangerous machine anyway.
That is not something any child should ‘have’ to learn.
How about instead we crack down on the businesses that do shit like that … maybe 1st offense they lose their business … 2nd offense they lose their life.
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