amuck-landowner

Child labor in the low end segment

kaniini

Beware the bunny-rabbit!
Verified Provider
So, I'm actually curious about this, since something popped out at me in the latest drmike drama thread:

"I get that this industry segment is fond of exploiting child labor."

This seems to be a common complaint/observation about the low end.

We (Centarra) don't do this (nor do we really dabble in the low end), but I am curious as to why the low end is commonly associated with this sort of activity, and why/if hosters actually seek out children to exploit in such a manner.  It's just so foreign to me.  My theory presently is that most of the companies hiring kids are owned by other kids, in which case I'm also curious about the legal ramifications of that kind of a situation.
 

kaniini

Beware the bunny-rabbit!
Verified Provider
I understand there isn't any contracts, but that means there's not any enforceable NDAs either.  I just don't see how that is at all responsible for any legitimate business to be doing.
 

blergh

New Member
Verified Provider
No contracts as well as easy to use as "goalkeepers" in case shit hits the fan. Have some kid handle support-tasks and pay them with free VM's.
 

drmike

100% Tier-1 Gogent
Well thank you @kaniini for picking up the prior thread and running with this one.  Seems like I struck a sore spot, like usual and lots of people felt dirty and should perhaps be seeking a proper shower.  The earlier thread was an evolution along the way and an oh f***k moment when I realized the math at play on age.

The illegal minor work / child labor / child exploitation topic in the web hosting world isn't new.  There are threads at least as early as 2003 on WHT about the matter and at least one was shuttered suddenly and led to another.

In the United States, this is where the aforementioned business entities are based and where the owners of such live, and the employees/contractors/minors live --- a minor CANNOT engage in contracts legally.  So the concept of being a contractor employment wise is widely prohibited.

The only way a CHILD can engage in contract matters is where there is an adult of legal age (18 and above) who is involved, overseeing the operation and who assumes the risk legally for the minor.

All of this ignores the status of emancipated minor, which is rather rare and likely never in play.

There are Federal Laws on child / minor labor and there are additionally State-level laws which further limit matters.

"I get that this industry segment is fond of exploiting child labor."

This seems to be a common complaint/observation about the low end.
The low end complaint is kids, but many of the companies carry on as if they are legal and infer such in all sorts of deceptive ways, some through outright omission, that they are legally operating.

Child labor covers nearly everything. Really hard to legally work around the laws.  It is an age limitation with permission from the school district, often with grades being maintained condition and with permit from such as well as authorization from the parents, and all within the said legal limits on when the child can work, maximum per day, and limits on hours per week.

Why is low end filled with such minors?  For one, it is a lazy get rich quick scam for too many of them - easier to leverage a rented server to make some money than it is to flip burgers.  Second, the barrier to entry is so low (cost, legal, etc.).  Third, many datacenters and resellers blindly sell to minors, to their credit often without knowing such (at least up front). Fourth, using such folks in lieu of employees, provides a "staff" many providers either cannot afford or refuse to pay for.

Conducting a business, as a non minor, utilizing such labor subjects you to state and federal regulations for violations.  More importantly, it blows away legal protections in matters of suits and other claims.  Only defense is somehow to say the child lied and have some paperwork that substantiates that claim.   It's total exposure.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

drmike

100% Tier-1 Gogent
Last edited by a moderator:

WSWD

Active Member
Verified Provider
Because nobody cares about the hosting industry.  For the same reason, hosts can continue with the "unlimited" BS, whilst companies in the cell phone industry, for example (remember what happened to Verizon and AT&T?) lose multi-million dollar lawsuits for doing the exact same thing.

Half the hosts you see (okay, probably closer to 75-80%, but who's counting?) in the various forums likely don't even run legal, legitimate business entities.  They aren't companies.  They don't pay taxes.  They do nothing by the rules, where a brick and mortar business would be shut down and the owner fined and/or sent to prison.

I owned restaurants for quite a few years back in the day.  If I had one piece of paper out of order, I would be shut down.  If I didn't play by the rules when it came to hiring minors (the majority of my employees were minors), I'd have my ass handed to me.  I had to keep very extensive records, and those records would be reviewed. 

In the online world, nobody cares.  There are so many Internet "businesses" that have popped up, that the states just can't keep up anymore.  There are still inspectors and entire departments that deal with brick and mortar businesses, but in the online world, it just doesn't exist. 

I would simply recommend reporting these folks to the appropriate Attorney General and hope that something gets accomplished.  Don't be disappointed though when nothing happens.
 

drmike

100% Tier-1 Gogent
As with all laws, there volumes, and some legal exceptions and a bit of non compliance craftiness.

I know of some partial exemptions on one State level.   However, broadly know that in no area is it permitted that children sit in their school and do work for outside entity (non study direct-related).  This practice seems to be way common in the low end.

The paper permit may also be lacking in areas, but compliances on maximums worked per week remain. 

Simply playing self employed or contractor is a VERY common and VERY old hack of regulations.  Everyone and your grandmother had a swing at that long ago.
 

DomainBop

Dormant VPSB Pathogen
MannDude mentioned this in the other thread which might be worthy of its own topic: " contract workers vs real employees", etc.  In the US there is a fuzzy line between contractor and employee, and many companies have learned the hard way (i.e. been hit with fines and demands to pay back payroll taxes) that the IRS considers their contractor an employee.  Generally if someone is working full time for your business (i.e. 30-40 hours weeks) and you try to pass them off as a contractor instead of an employee the IRS will eventually get you.  If you're a dumbass and handing out "Vice President of ..."  titles to "contractors" and the contractors list their shiny new titles on places like LinkdIn it greatly increases the risk that the company will be audited if the IRS is alerted to the situation.

Now back to child labor...

There are Federal Laws on child / minor labor and there are additionally State-level laws which further limit matters.
A couple of FAQ's for NY state:

comparison of NY state vs Federal laws: http://www.labor.state.ny.us/workerprotection/laborstandards/workprot/nyvsfed.shtm

permitted working hours and times: http://www.labor.state.ny.us/workerprotection/laborstandards/workprot/lschlhrs.shtm

For NY one of the biggest highlights is that 14/15 yr olds are limited to 3 hours of work on school days and 16/17 year olds are limited to 4 hours of work on school days.

NY State also requires working papers for all minors (even 16 and 17 year olds), which are basically parental consent forms, before an employer can hire a minor to do any work (it applies to both hiring minors as  "contractors" and "employees")

http://www.labor.state.ny.us/workerprotection/laborstandards/workprot/wphmpg.shtm

Other states laws vary, but a large percentage of states do have restrictions on the number of hours a minor can work on school days.  Illinois and New Hampshire both have similar requirements and I can tell you there is one Illinois incorporated company with an adult CEO who is probably in violation of the law due to the number of hours per week their minor mouthpiece works. (hint: the CEO  had a court date yesterday for driving with a suspended license)

edited to add: looks like DrMike posted the NY laws while I was typing :p
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Hxxx

Active Member
Most of those kids do work from home. Technically nobody cares about this issue in this side of the industry because is not like they are getting exploited cleaning the floor , watching dishes, sexual harassment, blah bla...

Not to mention that some of the employer (hosting providers) some are not even real companies.  Nor a DBA nor LLC, nor INC, nothing.

This is what happen in the LET market->

Kid A(17)  talk to Kid B(14)

A tells B , hey i was playing with Linux is so cool, i learned to do cd, mkdir , dpkg -i and apt-get in the console, is da bomb!, i heard of this thing called apache, and this cPanel stuff, which by the way we will need your dad CC to buy that license. Let's provide internet accounts! 

Kid B respond: yes yes, with that we can buy more Pokemon cards!

4 hours later...

Kid A : The website is up, lets go to this weird place WHT and LET and post , spam sig, and spam private.

...20 ignorant signed up the first day. And that's how the hosting adventure begins in LET.
 

drmike

100% Tier-1 Gogent
because is not like they are getting exploited cleaning the floor , watching dishes, sexual harassment,
Child labor isn't really about the nature of the work (though some types of work are clearly given special privileges - like domestic house work, babysitting, newspaper delivery, etc.).  Clearly forced slave or indentured servitude is the worst of all the issues, even if involving a non minor - it is morally wrong and illegal.

Child labor prohibitions are in place to:

1. Encourage academic achievement  - completion of high school studies with diploma or equivalent

2. Prevent dropouts from happening

3. Prevent cheap labor force that pushes out non-minors

4. Preserve wage rates (minimum wage)

5. Prevent wage exploitation (I work for VPS instead) and self-enslavement
 

raindog308

vpsBoard Premium Member
Moderator
I'd guess 100% of the "child laborers" are kids who would not suffer any measurable hardship if they lost their jobs.  They might lose their free Teamspeak VM but...

I'd guess 100% of them would quit if the work become inconvenient.

I'd guess a pretty big percentage of them would do the work for free because they like to feel like cool milk monitors of the 'net.  Not only do they get real admin power but they also get a free VPS and they get paid and they feel like pimp daddies.

So using words like "exploited" and "enslavement" seems a bit much.
 

Lee

Retired Staff
Verified Provider
Retired Staff
Having read the original and this.

I don’t think it’s so much that the lowend market is happy to support child labor, although some of course will.  It’s the internet, where modern children spend 12+ hours of their day connected to the damn thing.  With that many are better skilled than a lot of the adults.

My point is that if they willing to do the work and someone is willing to pay them to do it then why not.  It’s not like they are having to go sit in a office all day, they are in the safety net of home and if the parents of said child are concerned about the time spent in front of the screen or what they are doing they have the power to control it and ultimately the employer has no control to over rule that.

Yes there will always be some concerns and it can lead to issues that may involve excessive pressure on a minor but in the main that is the world we live in today, the under 16 year olds on the net today in this kind of industry are more hungry than ever to get work, earn some extra cash and gain experience in an industry they see their future lies.  Personally, I think it’s right with limits to support that hunger.  Albeit there is conflict in that last statement vs the legal requirements etc.

Yes there will be scams, summer host and so on, but don’t make like this is the only part of the internet that suffers from it. 

In a time where the global economy has gone to shit and there are many countries out there where work starts from the time you can walk, with little to no pay and education is out of reach, I really don’t think what is being raised here is a significant worry or issue to be honest.

We need to protect children, not restrict them.  Times are changing.

Don’t just focus on hosting, the amount of online “business” that are staffed and owned by minors is seriously significant.  Get over it.  Harsh, perhaps.
 

yolo

New Member
I do remember Robert Clarke talking in IRC about how @kaniini paid him to work on building servers over night. This was at like 2-3am his time, which is against child labor laws for somebody under 18 to work that late. 
 

trewq

Active Member
Verified Provider
I do remember Robert Clarke talking in IRC about how @kaniini paid him to work on building servers over night. This was at like 2-3am his time, which is against child labor laws for somebody under 18 to work that late.
The US laws seem silly. In Australia if you are 14 years and 9 months you can legally be employed with your parents permission. You can work whenever and as much as your employer is willing to pay you for.


Having limits on hours per week and times they can work just seems stupid as long as they are not being forced.
 

Francisco

Company Lube
Verified Provider
Hosting businesses love over worked, underpaid/no pay workers, no matter the age. Some people

go after < 18 year olds since it's their first job and they get the promise of big bucks if

they work hard. With the US job market being as screwed as it is, people want easy

money, especially if they don't need to go to school to make it.

Many years ago I worked in a "datacenter" that went out of their way to never pay me

or always giving me excuses for why they couldn't pay me. All the while one of the owners

was taking $3000/m+ and did literally no work. His whole work load was replying to tickets

with "Francisco will look into this for you", and sometimes not even that.

It's an unregulated field. Would you want it regulated? Probably not in the end.

Francisco
 

DomainBop

Dormant VPSB Pathogen
I really don’t think what is being raised here is a significant worry or issue to be honest.

If you're a business and you violate the child labor laws of the state/country you operate in it is a huge issue and risk because the fines for violating child labor laws would put most low end providers out of business.  The risks of being reported are also high.  A competitor could report you, or more likely you piss off one of your 14/15 yr old workers and they get back at you by reporting you for violating child labor laws, and you are f**ked.  If you're a hosting or tech company and your margins are so low that you can't hire "real" employees as your staffing needs expand and you have to resort to violating labor laws to survive then you need to reassess your business model.

The US laws seem silly. In Australia if you are 14 years and 9 months you can legally be employed with your parents permission. You can work whenever and as much as your employer is willing to pay you for.


Having limits on hours per week and times they can work just seems stupid as long as they are not being forced.

Easy for you to say when you're in Australia, you're not surrounded by a bunch of braindead idiots who are becoming dumber with each passing day like I am. :p The kids in this (U.S.) country need to devote more time to their schoolwork. :p (my statement is based on the rapidly declining test scores of US students vs other countries -- see historical charts --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment ).
 
Last edited by a moderator:

trewq

Active Member
Verified Provider
Easy for you to say when you're in Australia, you're not surrounded by a bunch of braindead idiots who are becoming dumber with each passing day like I am. :p The kids in this (U.S.) country need to devote more time to their schoolwork. :p (my statement is based on the rapidly declining test scores of US students vs other countries -- see historical charts --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment ).
... Is the US education system really that bad?
 
Top
amuck-landowner