Rethinking Child Labor in an Age of Capitalist Restructuring
Rethinking Child Labor in an Age of Capitalist Restructuring
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重新思考资本主义重组时代的童工
DOI：
10.1177/0308275x9901900204
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发表时间：
1999
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
C. Gailey
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
C. Gailey
童工并不是一个新问题，但在国际资本主义扩张的最新阶段，它的规模和恶名都在增长。随着企业的利润战略转向世界范围内越来越便宜的劳动力来源，只有反对奴隶制和劳动/集中营的国际公约才符合逻辑。童工的国际范围是通过手头的案例来强调的：巴布亚新几内亚的失业青少年，南非的葡萄园工人，海地的街头儿童活动家，泰国的农村移民工会活动家，以及美国的性交易工作者。在这种情况下，扩大使用童工是世界范围内工人权利恶化和工人阶级社区贫困化的症状。公司对离岸转移的当地后果的豁免权，减少国家对改善工作条件的干预，以及减少补偿方案，都导致成年工人的流离失所。没有人认为童工是可取的，尽管勤工俭学的安排帮助工人阶级的学生在一系列当代福利国家完成他们的高等教育。但是，联合国等国际机构的辩论集中在取缔童工上，而不是在工作机会被剥夺时这些儿童及其亲属的福祉上。自由派政客急于禁止童工令人怀疑。妇女权利运动的老手们会明白，法律的禁令并不能解决造成家庭和社区压力的社会、经济和政治条件。更重要的是制定法规，确保这些行业的工人无论年龄如何都能享受福利（生活工资、医疗和养老金权利、加入工会），或者对移动的资本承担责任，以强制执行对被遗弃的工作社区的责任。本期文章探讨了一系列童工问题。是什么样的环境塑造了一个被视为孩子的人？什么样的社会力量结构变化创造了“可接受的”童工水平和期望？工人剥削的哪些方面是被定义为绝对依赖或绝对儿童的独特之处？尊重儿童自身的能动性在哪里符合工人的权利和人权？
Child labor is hardly a new issue, but it is one that has grown in scale and infamy during the latest phase of international capitalist expansion. As corporate strategies for profit have shifted toward ever-cheaper sources of labor worldwide, only international conventions against slavery and labor/concentration camps stand in the path of the logical trajectory. The international scope of child labor is underscored by the cases at hand: unemployed teenagers in Papua New Guinea, vineyard workers in South Africa, street children activists in Haiti, rural migrant union activists in Thailand, and sex trade workers in the USA. In this setting, the expanded use of child labor is symptomatic of worldwide deterioration of workers' rights and immiserization of working class communities. Corporate immunity from local consequences of moving offshore, diminishing state intervention in ameliorating conditions of work, and dwindling compensation packages contribute to the displacement of adult workers. No one is arguing that child labor is desirable, although work-study arrangements have helped working class students in a range of contemporary welfare states complete their higher education. But debates in international agencies such as the United Nations center on outlawing child labor, not on the well-being of these children and their kin when access to work is removed. The rush among liberal politicians to ban child labor is suspect. Veterans of women's rights campaigns will understand that legal bans do not address social, economic, and political conditions creating the familial and community pressure placed on someone to work. Far more important would be regulations that ensure benefits (living wages, medical and pension rights, unionization) for workers in those industries regardless of age, or liabilities placed on mobile capital to enforce responsibility to abandoned working communities. The articles in this issue consider a range of issues in child labor. What sets of circumstances shape who becomes seen as a child? What changing configuration of social forces creates ‘acceptable’ levels and expectations of child labor? What dimensions of worker exploitation are unique to being defined as either categorically dependent or as categorically a child? Where does respect for children's own agency fit into workers' rights and human