The fine is $1,143 BTW

  • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The owner of a meat business in western Michigan was ordered to pay $1,143

    “Two months later, we wouldn’t even be here,” the judge said, noting that the teen soon would have turned 18 years old.

    “Ionia County is a farming county, and I know a lot of people in this county view children working, sometimes around dangerous machinery, as part of growing up,” [the judge] said.

    He said the boy was warned to never put his hand inside the grinder.

    What the FUCK

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      He said the boy was warned to never put his hand inside the grinder.

      He said the boy was warned not to fall into the thresher. Why did he fall into the thresher?

      • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
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        It’s like one of those Ernest Hemingway one-sentence stories, that all by itself tells you 100% of what you need to know.

    • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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      “Ionia County is a farming county, and I know a lot of people in this county view children working, sometimes around dangerous machinery, as part of growing up,” [the judge] said.

      I married a farm girl and live in a small town surrounded by farming communities. This is unfortunately very true. Harvest time comes you need all of the help you can get to harvest everything before the weather destroys it. There’s no easy answer to this problem as most people generally don’t want to work on farms given the work conditions, and most small family farms can’t afford to pay for the labor they need (and its gigantic corporate farms where the real abuse happens because there’s no incentive to maintain the land or animals) Pretty much the only people willing to work on farms are the people who grew up on farms and people who can’t work anywhere else (such as migrant laborers from poorer countries)

  • Chozo@artemis.camp
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    1 year ago

    Until they start jailing the people hiring and maiming children, this will continue to be seen as little more than the cost of doing business.

    • ratman150@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      My father lost multiple fingers working in the 70s? He was paid 1700ish per each accident (twice)…this is downright cruel.

    • WagesOf@artemis.camp
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      Should be able to get 50% of salary in that industry, for life.

      Too bad the lawyers are going to take 40% off the top.

    • gonzo0815@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      If you go by weight:

      A hand is about 0.46kg

      An average adult body is about 81kg

      81÷0.46×1143

      => about 200.000$

        • NeedingvsGetting@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Maybe portion it out instead of selling the whole thing at once? You’ll find someone looking for a kneecap or a left ear more often than you’ll find someone wanting the entire body

          • gonzo0815@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Basically the same you do with an old car to get more money out of it. But also more work and you need to be a lot more patient, have more potential customers, idiots among them or people trying to beat down the price. Hard to estimate if it’s worth it. On the other hand it might be easier to get rid of the rest after you sold the most important stuff, kidneys etc. Maybe people are discouraged by having to buy the whole thing, but someone could be willing to get the rest for final evisceration.

  • spez@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Great fucking job, the country which was seen as a symbol of modernization is rolling back to the 1920s.

    • PsychedSy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Fuck that. The kid will have an entire lifetime of the government taking his money. People should be in jail and the kid should be a multi-millionaire.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The fun part is that he now gets to be on disability for life. At the company’s expense? No. At the taxpayer’s expense.

        Don’t get me wrong, he deserves it, but it should be the company paying out for the rest of this guy’s life.

  • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Yeah, not surprising and not new.

    I mean it’s nice to see this getting some light and on this but honestly nothing new outside of crappy Republicans looking to get rid of parental consent to have these accidents happen.

    I was one of these kids that worked at 14, with my parents signing off on the work permit, to keep food in the table and that check is honestly worthless since once you got the job all enforcement and checks are ignored outside of one rule. I’ve had a friend get his thumb caught between a roller at the age of 15 that he shouldn’t have been allowed to work on, another of that suffered chemical burns. I’ve had my fair share of working machines that by law I shouldn’t have been working at and had a few injuries but thankfully nothing maiming.

    There were was never anyone who checked out enforced any of the rules and none of us ever complained because, well there’s a reason were working these jobs and not a cushy retail job, and none of these companies ever suffered any meaningful consequences. The laws and enforcement were and remain laughably inadequate except the one rule as I’ve said, the hours worked. They followed the number of hours we’re allowed to work because that’s the only thing anyone ever really checked on probably because that would be the only thing that would trigger audits.

    Over twenty years later and nothing has really changed and only getting worse thanks to Republicans.

      • downpunxx@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        you’re absolutely correct, no, it isn’t which makes this worse, i can’t read anymore fucking articles about how child labor is becoming the norm again, on top of everything else, it’s all just too much so i assumed

        • EssentialCoffee
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          FWIW, the incident in question happened in 2019, so it’s not anything happening due to the current climate. And while the owner should have ensured the kid had a work permit, the kid was already a high school dropout, so might not have had any way to get a work permit legally anyway. At some point, people still need to eat. I’ve read several articles at this point and it feels like there’s some grey in here somewhere that I just don’t know enough to be able to form an opinion on.

          While this is pretty awful and shouldn’t have happened, I don’t think I’d advocate that a 17 year old shouldn’t be allowed to have any job at all. I think they should be paid normal minimum wage, same as any other employee, and there should be jobs that they can’t do due to age (such as this one), but I wouldn’t stop it altogether.

          That said, I’m completely fine with increasing the fines for employing a minor in a dangerous profession though, which is apparently the charge that the owner plead guilty to. Fines for employers who break the law should be increased in general, especially when it puts workers in danger.

  • NatakuNox@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    And no way they throw out an industrial grinder. So even with a good cleaning we’ve returned to the good old days where human flesh wasn’t uncommon in meat production. Welcome to America

  • imPastaSyndrome@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Personal responsibility! Ridiculous that this child wasn’t more responsible and cost his employer 2 years of wages for a teenager

  • AnonTwo@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Michigan should really have more uproar over this, this should be completely unacceptable.

    • ElleChaise@kbin.social
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      You’d think so, but a good chunk of Michigan is still quite conservative, and stuck in their old ways as a result. When it comes to business bootlicking and self cannibalism, the Midwest only comes in close second to the deep South, and big businesses have exploited this since the very concept existed. They will not stop until we make changes at the state and federal levels, but conservatives will literally die defending their warped view of how things should be to make themselves rich.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    IONIA, Mich. (AP) — The owner of a meat business in western Michigan was ordered to pay $1,143 Tuesday after a 17-year-old worker lost his hand in a grinder.

    Ionia County Judge Ray Voet said the accident was a “horrible tragedy” but didn’t warrant jail or probation for Darin Wilbur, WOOD-TV reported.

    The teenager lost his hand in 2019 while working at US Guys Processing in Saranac, 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of Grand Rapids.

    “Two months later, we wouldn’t even be here,” the judge said, noting that the teen soon would have turned 18 years old.

    Defense attorney Howard Van Den Heuvel said Wilbur hired the teen, a high school dropout, as a way to help him.

    He said the boy was warned to never put his hand inside the grinder.


    I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • SheeEttin@lemmy.world
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      Defense attorney Howard Van Den Heuvel said Wilbur hired the teen, a high school dropout, as a way to help him. He said the boy was warned to never put his hand inside the grinder.

      I’m sympathetic to this, but he shouldn’t have been working around dangerous machinery at all. Give the kid safer jobs, like fetching tools or mopping floors.