A manufacturing company in Tennessee has become the latest in a long line of companies to be fined for violating child labor laws. The number of child labor violations in this country has now hit the highest point we’ve seen in over two decades. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: A manufacturing company in Tennessee has become the latest in a long line of companies to be fined for violating child labor laws. The number of child labor violations in this country has hit the highest point we’ve ever seen in two decades. I’ve got Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins to join me to talk about it. It seems like every week we’re doing another story. Either the story is about the big scam, and that’s bring in unaccompanied minors from Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, put ’em to work, pay ’em slave wages, put ’em in situations where they’re losing arms or they’re being killed. Right? I mean, this is a weekly story now.
Farron Cousins: It really is. And that’s why it’s so important to keep talking about these. The Labor Department, all the way back in September said, we’ve got over 5,000 incidents here where we’ve got children, sometimes as young as 14, that are operating heavy machinery, heavy machinery that you typically need a special license to handle. But we’ve got 14-year-old kids out here, which is what just happened in Tennessee, operating this equipment. They don’t know how to use it. They have not been fully trained on it. But these companies are doing it and basically getting away with it because a small fine to pay for violating these laws is absolutely nothing. It’s the cost of doing business for these folks.
Mike Papantonio: 6,000 minors working in violation of child labor laws. That’s where we are right now. And so, I don’t know how to say this any clearer. I say it all the time. Why the hell can’t we be realistic about what’s happening with immigration? Why is it that we can’t see that as all this was taking place, the US Chamber of Commerce was pushing this administration, we need more immigrants. We need more immigrants. The associated industries where every major corporation in the country was quietly saying, we gotta get more immigrants in here. And at the same time, you had the talking heads making it look like it was some kind of big compassionate move. We’re trying to save these people from awful places. Well, we’ve taken them and now they’re just a tool. They’re a disposable tool. That’s really what we have. And it’s gonna get worse before it gets better, don’t you think?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And I think people need to understand that these migrants that are coming in, even the ones on these temporary work visas, are taken advantage of by these companies. Like you said, typically they will pay them under the table, which means we can pay them less than minimum wage. And that’s another benefit they have, by the way, with hiring these 14 and 15 and 16 year olds because even if they’re regular US citizens, you can still pay somebody under the age of 16 below minimum wage for I think about six months.
Mike Papantonio: Is it six? Yeah, I think you’re right. I think it is six.
Farron Cousins: So you save so much money.
Mike Papantonio: And then move them out after six months.
Farron Cousins: Exactly.
Mike Papantonio: Or they’re injured after six months. They’re so plentiful. But it used to be corporations, we had to export the work, right? We had to go to India or China or Mexico. And so, the industry was, corporations were saving tons of money putting American workers outta work. But that wasn’t even enough. You see, that wasn’t even enough because in India, they started wising, they started getting smart. They said, no, you know what? You want to come here, we’re gonna start raising what you gotta pay. So industry now says, well, we’ll figure out another way. We’ll open the borders, let everybody in and in there we got a whole new workforce. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And this actually goes all the way back about 20 years to the Bush administration.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, absolutely.
Farron Cousins: And at that time, Bush was talking about, we gotta start restricting immigration into the country. And the US Chamber stepped in on behalf of Tyson Foods.
Mike Papantonio: Yes.
Farron Cousins: Because we did a segment on it 20 years ago.
Mike Papantonio: Right. Right.
Farron Cousins:: They stepped in and they said, no, no, no, no. We need these people. And ever since then, that’s really been the policy. You see the politicians, they use immigration for political benefits saying, oh, I’m gonna build a wall, or I’m gonna shut this down or issue an executive order. But nobody actually really does anything meaningful because the corporations behind the scenes say, no, I’ve gotta have these people in here because this is my cheap labor, and you’re gonna cut into my profits if you actually do something.
Mike Papantonio: About 20 years ago, well, it was Bill Clinton. We started here in globalization, globalization, how it’s gonna really increase opportunity for American workers. All it was gonna do is increase opportunities for big corporations. And when you see these folks meeting in Sweden or Paris, France, and they’re behind closed doors meeting about what’s our next move? It doesn’t include us. Okay. It doesn’t include the folks watching this show. It includes the folks that are the captains of industry, the big banks, the big corporations, everybody who has a lot of money and a lot of power to throw on. Those are the folks that benefit by globalization. This is an example right here. But they’ve sold globalization like, oh, this is the panacea. This is so great for everybody. And as a matter of fact, if you’re critical of it, you’re a conspiracy theorist. Oh, how can you be critical of globalization? Well, look at Detroit. Okay. Look at Chicago. Look at the big cities that have lost everything in this thing called globalization and never recovered. So now, rather than sending stuff out of the country and saying, China, can you build this cheap? India, can you build this cheap? Hey, just let ’em all in. Let everybody in and take as much advantage of them as you can. Just do everything you can to take advantage of them.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And the companies get the big press because, oh, look how great we are. We’re hiring 40,000 of these people. Giving them a better chance.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Tyson Foods, right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, we’re hiring, they go out on the news and they say, we’re hiring 40,000 people. And they get so much pushback that they say, okay, we’ll just start closing our facilities. We won’t hire the 40,000. They’re gonna do it anyway. They’re gonna do it anyway. But they’re making it look like, well, your position on this has caused us to close three or four facilities.
Suspicious Activity: That it had helped dirty money flow through its branches around the world, including at least 800. Plaintiffs allege that the defendants provided money and medical goods to terrorist groups, Hezbollah and Jaysh al-Adl. This is a well organized business for these individuals that carry out these attacks. Terrorism is a business and they run it like a business. They knew about what was going on for a decade. They absolutely, absolutely no question about it knew that HSBC was washing money. They had every reason to understand it was for terrorism and it was for drug cartels. Took no action whatsoever.
These banks are involved, their accounts are connected, and they’re using them to mask the transactions. The more complicated they can make the transactions, the more distance they could put between the bad guys and a seemingly legitimate purpose of these funds. They pay $1.9 billion, which is a drop in the bucket compared to what they’ve made. And nobody goes to prison. These CEOs, these bankers that made this decision, they’re safe at home. They know what they’ve done. They know it’s resulted in the death of Americans, contractors and soldiers, not just hundreds but thousands. And we look the other way because they don’t look like criminals. The die cast, the people that are responsible for it, are on Wall Street. And they don’t look like criminals. It’s almost a suspension of disbelief. Sometimes I’ll have people call me and say, is this, is this real? Do they really get away with this? Yeah, they do.
