Child Labor Exploited by Business
Businesses greatly benefit from these young laborers. Children, especially those living in poverty, worked for less money. They weren’t as likely to organize into labor unions. Nor were they as likely to protest conditions or work assignments. And as an added bonus, they were small enough to fit into places adults could not or reach inside small crevices in machinery. They were contributing to their household income and keeping families afloat. But the idea of small children near large machinery and going to work instead of school led to reforms starting in the mid-1800s. These efforts started at the local, grass-roots level. As the pressure increased, factories relocated to more ‘sympathetic’ locations. Those that couldn’t move faced increasing scrutiny from local religious organizations, schools, and labor groups. As the fight for labor unions intensified in the late 1800s, regional and national organizations took a keen interest in child labor.